I know Z170 mATX options are currently limited, but I was surprised to find that none of them have onboard WIFI. Are we really supposed to use up the M.2 slot for that? I guess I wouldn't mind sticking to a good ol' SATA SSD, but does anyone have experience on how M.2 WIFI cards, like http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GUNZUG0/?tag=theminutiae-20, perform versus onboard options (with antenna attachments) such as http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4999#ov?
Motherboard Skylake Z170 mATX boards... no WIFI?!
- Thread starter wovie
- Start date
Most (all?) M.2 WiFi cards have an A-key and or E-key and require a M.2 Socket 2.
But M.2 SSD cards have a B or M-key and require a M.2 Socket 3:
If a board is advertised of having M.2 PCIe x4, it's a Socket 3, most boards that have a Socket 2 already have it occupied by a WiFi card.
If you want the latest WiFi card, you can look at the latest Intel 8260NGW:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016D7YB94/?tag=theminutiae-20
But M.2 SSD cards have a B or M-key and require a M.2 Socket 3:
If a board is advertised of having M.2 PCIe x4, it's a Socket 3, most boards that have a Socket 2 already have it occupied by a WiFi card.
If you want the latest WiFi card, you can look at the latest Intel 8260NGW:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016D7YB94/?tag=theminutiae-20
There are no WiFi solutions I am aware of that are soldered onto the board. All of the ones with a metal box by the rear I/O...the metal box is just a shield covering the M.2 or mPCIe WiFi card (as well as holding the female RP-SMA connectors for the antenna).
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Thanks for the info Phuncz, probably saved me a whole lot of hassle - wired ethernet is not an option for me.
Interesting... I think I'm getting it now. So Skylake made more PCIe lanes available to the M.2, which opened up the possibility of SSDs there. It would be a shame to just occupy that slot with a measly WIFI card, huh? Maybe I'll just stick to Haswell, there should be some great mATX boards there.
Interesting... I think I'm getting it now. So Skylake made more PCIe lanes available to the M.2, which opened up the possibility of SSDs there. It would be a shame to just occupy that slot with a measly WIFI card, huh? Maybe I'll just stick to Haswell, there should be some great mATX boards there.
If ethernet is not an option, is maybe coax (MoCA) or power-line (HomePlug) an option ? Especially MoCA 2.0 is very promising: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanw...6200-bonded-moca-2-0-network-adapter-reviewed
That way you could still potentially salvage your LAN connection. Otherwise the Netgear A6200 is a good USB 3.0 WiFi AC adapter, that might also be an option.
That way you could still potentially salvage your LAN connection. Otherwise the Netgear A6200 is a good USB 3.0 WiFi AC adapter, that might also be an option.
My point was that all of the solutions out there are using M.2 or mPCIe cards, answering your question on how the cards perform (all solutions are now using cards). Usually, there are dedicated slots for WiFi card use that have fewer lanes. They can also use High Speed I/O PCIe lanes that do not have Intel RST capability (lanes 7 - 14, PCIe #1 - #8), so they won't diminish the potential to have M.2 (or U.2) connectors for storage (lanes 15 - 26, PCIe #9 - #20).
Since they are keyed differently due to having different feature sets, you CAN'T actually occupy an SSD M.2 slot with a wi-fi card.
SSDs are B and M keyed while Wi-Fi cards are A and E keyed as are the slots.
Most of the time the M.2 slots that are advertised are M keyed for SSDs, and if they even come with a slot for a WiFi card, it's usually already occupied by one. It's always a good idea to dig into the specs, though. if you DO happen to see it mention a slot keyed for A or E, you can get a wireless adapter for it. Alternatively, there's always the option for a PCIe WiFi card if you can fit it in somewhere, since mATX has 4 card slots.
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