Asus PCE-AC68 802.11ac Dual-Band Wireless Adaptor Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

Considering how much Asus’ top end RT-AC68U will set you back, the $100 / £60 cost of buying the PCE-AC68 wireless adaptor to be honest is highly worth while. There are a whole host of wireless adaptors in both PCIe and USB formats that are priced in and around the similar region to this card, but none of those are close to its performance. In the US, Fry’s, Newegg and TigerDirect along with UK outlets CCL and Scan all stock the adaptor along with the RT-AC68U router.

Overview

Since a few years ago, the desire to go wireless in the home is growing at a steady rate. Aside from the growing number of mobile devices, many people are taking to the wireless bandwagon on their gaming systems as an alternative to trailing patch cables around the home or buying powerline kits to bridge the gap between the router and client. Whereas I would have once said that going wireless on a gaming system may have been a rocky area to step into, the range, connection speed and throughput of the 802.11ac standard has changed the way we think about networking in the home.

Now obviously there is only one way to get the full potential out of this adaptor and that is to get the RT-AC68U router that Asus have launched alongside this and this does mean that the overall cost of going up to 1300Mbps networking is more than meets the eye. For those who do make the move however, the difference that this new level of wireless performance gives is clear as day with the latency and throughput connection speeds between wired and wireless clients much, much faster, making the gap between the two types of connection much closer.

Sadly this speed is limited to the PCIe interface at this current moment, so anyone without a spare PCIe lane or those using a notebook system will have to wait a little while longer, but to be honest I don’t think we will be waiting long before a USB alternative comes to light in the next few months. With both this adaptor and the RT-AC68U router, moving up to this level of performance is not for the faint hearted and it will be overkill for the basic home/office user or anyone who does a light amount of web surfing, but anyone who is a true enthusiast and /or is likely to push this system to its limits, the decision is not that hard to make.

Pros:

• 1300Mbps 802.11ac wireless performance
• Well worth the cost
• Well known brand
• External antenna with magnetic base plate for optimum positioning
• Easy to use WiFi utility

Cons:

• Limited to desktop systems
• Requires RT-AC68U router to achieve its full potential

“It is all and well in having the fastest router on the market at the heart of your network, but it is not worth the cost unless you have a wireless adaptor that can match its strong performance. With performance figures that leave every wireless adaptor standing in the dust the PCE-AC68 is one extreme wireless card and is just the key for any true enthusiast.”

Thanks to Asus UK for providing this review sample.