MOBO WIFI VS PCI WIFI VS USB WIFI??

dishguy1977 wrote: ↑ Building my son a gaming computer and wondering what I should do regarding wifi? Is it best to buy a motherboard that has it built in or get a PCI card wifi adapter or USB adapter? Last motherboard I bought was the Gigabyte Aorus B450 Pro wifi and at the time it was cheaper to get a mobo with it built in than buying a separate PCI card. I don’t imagine USB is the best solution. Thoughts?

USB is the worst solution to go to. Range is poor, overheats and speeds are sub-par for wifi performance. Either get a motherboard that has wireless ac already on the board (they usually give a bluetooth 4.2 or 5.0 combo now) or get an aftermarket pci-e card. Either option is good. Skip USB completely.

dishguy1977 wrote: ↑ Building my son a gaming computer and wondering what I should do regarding wifi? Is it best to buy a motherboard that has it built in or get a PCI card wifi adapter or USB adapter? Last motherboard I bought was the Gigabyte Aorus B450 Pro wifi and at the time it was cheaper to get a mobo with it built in than buying a separate PCI card. I don’t imagine USB is the best solution. Thoughts?

Motherboard WiFi can't be upgraded. So unless it has WiFi 6, you might be buying a new card anyway one day.

Get one with onboard WiFi, by the time you need something better, it would be time to upgrade

If you want a PCIe WiFi, I have a brand new one I can sell you cheap.

Yeah, skip the USB option.

Between the other two, go with the cheaper option that works for you. Not being able to upgrade onboard WiFi isn't entirely accurate, since you can always disable the onboard and add a PCIe card (assuming you've got an available slot).

USB is bad indeed. The only exception I would say is if you could get a usb dock or usb extender so that it has more room to obtain the radio frequency.

some newer motherboard uses a small M.2 slot for its wifi card, could be hidden within a shell of some sort but beneath it, it's a m2 wifi card.

PCIe is best in terms of upgradability and antenna configuration, though mobo integrated wifi should be okay.

If you value absolute performance, USB should be a last resort option , such as if you have no free pcie slots etc. Depends on your adapter and the drivers, you may not notice much difference in general use, though you can expect shorter range and there will always be th4 added overhead of the usb bus between the card and system.