Wired vs Wireless: The answer may surprise you!

Wired vs Wireless.

The Debate.

This has been the debate of gamers since the beginning of wireless computing... and wired has traditionally won. Let’s take a couple minutes to examine why you would choose either, and which set up is best for you.

Usually the normal wired set-up is: modem or gateway, wired to router, wired to your PC or console. Most wired ports are capable of speeds up to 1 gigabit, which is a marked improvement over 100MB ports of the past.

As WiFi has improved, however, its speeds are now capable of a blistering 7Gb per second, which rivals, and surpasses, wired. However, although speed is important to gaming, we know that it’s not everything.

There has been an obsession with speed for gaming when gaming traffic hasn’t changed much over the years. Gaming traffic is relatively small compared to 4K streaming content of movies or TV. The difference is with streaming content like videos, it’s not catastrophic when the spinning buffering icon appears, whereas with gaming, any major lag spikes could be the difference between winning or losing.

Speed vs Stability

Gaming traffic is like a long conveyor belt of information. It carries small little packets of information in a constant stream. If any of those small packets are bumped or fall off the conveyor belt, it is a loss of information, and that translates as missing a shot, zigging where you should have zagged, or any of the other problems that happen when there is loss of information. What you need, therefore, is stability. As long as the gaming packets move in an uninterrupted, orderly fashion, speed isn’t a major factor because the size of the information is very small.

Because it uses frequency waves, wireless connectivity is subject to environmental issues. Thick concrete walls, your distance from the signal source, interference from other radio emitting devices like microwaves, etc., can all foul up that WiFi signal no matter how good or how fast it is at sending signals. This is the source of why many believe wired is better than wireless… but is this the end of the argument?

Times they are a changing?

We conducted a poll of over a 1000 respondents, gamers and streamers, and the results were startling to the story of wired vs wireless. 46% of those we polled say they now choose to set up their gaming device wirelessly.

Of that group, 34% said it was for convenience, and 27% because they hated seeing wires. And 13% chose wireless due to difficult installations prohibiting wired.

The good news for gamers is we have listened to all of their needs, with both the Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500 and the XR700, and have provided the very best in both wired and wireless connectivity.

The XR500 has 4 ports each at 1 gigabit speed. It moves 2.6 Gb/per second wirelessly with a fantastic range. The XR700 has 8 ports, with the capability to go up to 10 Gb with an adapter on one port, allowing you to connect at incredible speeds wired. It also throws an insane 7.2 Gb/per second wirelessly. 

If range is an issue, add the Nighthawk Mesh X6S Tri-Band WiFi Mesh Extender. With push button WPS, the X6S works seamlessly and more importantly painless set-up with the XR500 and XR700 routers. You can reach those WiFi deadspots in your house and connect up to 4 devices to the ethernet ports on the back. Mesh extenders are a continuance of your WiFi network not a separate network like the extenders of old, allowing you to roam anywhere in your location and not have to re-log in to use the internet in another part of the house.

Conclusions

So, no matter where you lie on the wired vs wireless debate, Nighthawk Pro Gaming has you covered with a reliable, solid connection through Ethernet wired ports or through our router’s incredible best-of-class WiFi, so that you can game knowing your connection won’t falter and you can concentrate on what matters, your gaming.