16" MacBook Pro bad WiFi?

[DRuser]

I just ran my old late 2013 13" side by side with my 16" to compare WiFi performance. It seems like WiFi statistics are different on the two models. When I press option + left click on the WiFi icon the 16" shows a Tx rate of around 60 - 100 MBit. On the 13" it sits at 350 MBit.

I ran a couple of tests if this affects real performance, which seems not. Quite the same results on both machines. Is this a Catalina (I run Mojave on the old one) issue or do I have to worry about my lovely new 16"?

 

[chabig]

You said you couldn't see any difference in performance. What is there to worry about?

 

[Howard2k]

I would be concerned.

Please can you post clear screen shots of the opt-click output from both devices.

 

[seangrimes590]

No idea if your results are normal, but as a point of comparison for the 16" (don't have another to test) I show a transfer rate of 975mbps to 1053mbps about 15 feet away from the router with no walls in between. RSSI is -49dBm to -51dBm and noise is -94dBm.

speedtest.net gives me 540mbps down, 690mbps up with a ping of 7ms on wifi. Ethernet gives me 850mbps down, 985mbps up with a ping of 5ms.

 

[DRuser]

No idea if your results are normal, but as a point of comparison for the 16" (don't have another to test) I show a transfer rate of 975mbps to 1053mbps about 15 feet away from the router with no walls in between. RSSI is -49dBm to -51dBm and noise is -94dBm.

Insane performance! Never saw this on a WiFi5 device. Is it connected to a WiFi6 router? I saw some discussions about Macbooks benefitting from those routers.

 

[Howard2k]

No, that's pretty routine. This is my 2015 MacBook (if I'm close enough to the router)

 

[seangrimes590]

Insane performance! Never saw this on a WiFi5 device. Is it connected to a WiFi6 router? I saw some discussions about Macbooks benefitting from those routers.

It's connected to an Asus RT-AC3200 which, to the best of my knowledge, is a WiFi 5 router. It's a few years old which I believe means it cannot be WiFi 6. 5Ghz WiFi performance should be pretty close to the numbers I'm getting with no obstructions between you and the router. Drops off fairly dramatically as you add walls or electronic interference.

 

[jerryk]

No, that's pretty routine. This is my 2015 MacBook (if I'm close enough to the router)

View attachment 882170

Yes I see about the same with my 16" MBP. I was also pretty close with the 15" MBP. Wifi 6 or Wifi 5 doesn't matter as much as having a good set of Access Points and well thought out network layout.
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It's connected to an Asus RT-AC3200 which, to the best of my knowledge, is a WiFi 5 router. It's a few years old which I believe means it cannot be WiFi 6. 5Ghz WiFi performance should be pretty close to the numbers I'm getting with no obstructions between you and the router. Drops off fairly dramatically as you add walls or electronic interference.

5GHz signal get attenuated much faster than a 2.4 GHz. Especially when you have walls or other structures in the way.

 

[DRuser]

I did a lot more testing in the last hours. Changed almost any setting on my Orbi router. Bottomline, I see about half of the Tx rate on my 16" compared to the old 13".

16"

13'

What caught my eye was the 16" jumping around with the Tx rates a lot more than the 13". I really don't know what's wrong here, but I'm a bit worried now.

 

[fokmik]

16” are mimo 2x2 and not 3x3 i think

 

[Nacho98]

Mine is similar to Howard's, I see Tx values of 1053/1170/1300 when in the same room as my old ac TimeCapsule router.

 

[Howard2k]

16” are mimo 2x2 and not 3x3 i think

The 16” is 3x3. There was an article on AI saying it was 2x2 but it was wrong.