New iMac Joins MacBook Pro in Supporting 450 Mbit/sec Wi-Fi

[harlequinn]

I don't think the latest model of Airport Extreme is 3x3 capable - and therefore not 450mbit capable.

Some research:

Airport Extreme MC340LL/A model A1354

Lets look at the fcc internal photos of the model.

https://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas...rame=N&application_id=146107&fcc_id='BCGA1354

I see 2x2 2.4ghz and 2x2 5ghz antenna.

There was conjecture this was the case before the model was released over at smallnetbuilder - http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-features/30962-about-that-new-airport-extreme

They then went on to review it....

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...ng-new-apple-airport-extreme-briefly-reviewed

With more photos of a 2x2 setup...

 

[ciTiger]

Distance requires more power, which means more heat and less battery life. Additionally, I believe that requires more from the FCC than just adding another antenna does.

Good point about the FCC... As for the rest they can always optimize it a bit more right?

 

[flopticalcube]

I don't think the latest model of Airport Extreme is 3x3 capable - and therefore not 450mbit capable.

Some research:

Airport Extreme MC340LL/A model A1354

Lets look at the fcc internal photos of the model.

https://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas...rame=N&application_id=146107&fcc_id='BCGA1354

I see 2x2 2.4ghz and 2x2 5ghz antenna.

There was conjecture this was the case before the model was released over at smallnetbuilder - http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-features/30962-about-that-new-airport-extreme

They then went on to review it....

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...ng-new-apple-airport-extreme-briefly-reviewed

With more photos of a 2x2 setup...

Considering that they can communicate between each other at 450mbps, I would say they are 3 stream capable. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/808579/

 

[harlequinn]

I would say they are 3 stream capable. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/808579/

I doubt the validity of a screen shot versus the reality of having only 2 antennas.

If they could do 450mbit with only 2 antennas then why did they include a 3rd antenna in the new macbook pro and imac?

I guess I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm putting out a polite request that someone with this router and one of the new macs post a screenshot of their max connection speed at 1m distance in both 5ghz and 2.4ghz modes. Also reporting of the max real life throughput (in megabytes a second) would be nice.

 

[flopticalcube]

I doubt the validity of a screen shot versus the reality of having only 2 antennas.

If they could do 450mbit with only 2 antennas then why did they include a 3rd antenna in the new macbook pro and imac?

I guess I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm putting out a polite request that someone with this router and one of the new macs post a screenshot of their max connection speed at 1m distance in both 5ghz and 2.4ghz modes. Also reporting of the max real life throughput (in megabytes a second) would be nice.

I'll just point you back to smallnetbuilder then. http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...4-more-surprises-from-the-new-airport-extreme

This stuff has been known for a while.

 

[harlequinn]

I'll just point you back to smallnetbuilder then.
This stuff has been known for a while.

Thanks, that is very interesting.

But he does say that he can't say for sure since he can't see the traces on the circuit board.

"Since I don't have a board schematic, and I can't follow all of the traces in detail, I could be wrong"

So his hypothesis is interesting but I'd like to see Apple saying they are using a dual band shared antenna. Or someone could simply do my request. It's definitive proof rather than conjecture.

I don't have the latest mac - I do have this model APE - so I can't test it.

Anyone up for the test. Go on. It'll only take a few minutes

 

[flopticalcube]

Thanks, that is very interesting.

But he does say that he can't say for sure since he can't see the traces on the circuit board.

"Since I don't have a board schematic, and I can't follow all of the traces in detail, I could be wrong"

So his hypothesis is interesting but I'd like to see Apple saying they are using a dual band shared antenna. Or someone could simply do my request. It's definitive proof rather than conjecture.

I don't have the latest mac - I do have this model APE - so I can't test it.

Anyone up for the test. Go on. It'll only take a few minutes

Easy enough to google.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4205/the-macbook-pro-review-13-and-15-inch-2011-brings-sandy-bridge/11

Like I said, it been known for a while and people on this forum have achieved it with an AEBS and the Intel 3 stream card.

 

[Starship77]

My Airport Extreme is 1 year old (still the latest model, tho) and it works just fine with my 2011 Macbook Pro.

Macbook Pro is the first in the list of Wireless clients of course...

 

[harlequinn]

Easy enough to google.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4205/the-macbook-pro-review-13-and-15-inch-2011-brings-sandy-bridge/11

Like I said, it been known for a while and people on this forum have achieved it with an AEBS and the Intel 3 stream card.

Thanks - much appreciated, mind you that Anandtech article is less than a month old - that's not exactly ages.

The extremely small minority of people who did know about this unadvertised and unconventional setup from Apple before the Anandtech article doesn't change the fact that most people don't know about it and (owing to the unconventional setup) will have to be shown links like that before they believe it.

 

[harlequinn]

My Airport Extreme is 1 year old (still the latest model, tho) and it works just fine with my 2011 Macbook Pro.

Macbook Pro is the first in the list of Wireless clients of course...

Thanks! Could you give details on the actual throughput? The link speed is the maximum theoretical throughput which is never achieved. When tested at release it was much slower than a lot of other models - I'm wondering if this dramatically increases transfer speeds?

There is the distinct possibility of no real world improvements - some 3x3 models just released perform no better than the best 2x2 implementations.

 

[Starship77]

Thanks! Could you give details on the actual throughput? The link speed is the maximum theoretical throughput which is never achieved. When tested at release it was much slower than a lot of other models - I'm wondering if this dramatically increases transfer speeds?

There is the distinct possibility of no real world improvements - some 3x3 models just released perform no better than the best 2x2 implementations.

I did some tests:

First I copied a file from my TimeMachine drive connected to the APE:

I got a steady 14MB/s, as you can see in the screenshot.

Then I did the same test with the Ethernet Cable connected:

And, of course, it was faster, but not twice as fast as one would expect...

Then, I disabled "wide channels" (necessary for the 450 rate as described in this thread) and my link speed dropped to 216 (I was expecting 300, it must be some kinda noise or interference...)

The interesting thing is that it's not just slower, but much more inconstant than the other two, with speed varying from 6 to 10 MB/s more or less...

I hope that's useful!

 

[harlequinn]

I did some tests:

First I copied a file from my TimeMachine drive connected to the APE:

....

I hope that's useful!

Thanks!!! Yes that's very useful.

That's a 75% speed improvement over the average speed of the APE in 2x2 mode. Plus the more consistent speed you mentioned is a bonus.

That's a very good real world improvement that would put it as a contender for top spot in wireless performance (in 3x3 mode).

Bummer about it's gigabit performance - I've maxed mine out at about 45MB/s (360mbit/s) - but that's still a lot better than old 100mbit days. I'm assuming your gigabit maxed out a 25MB/s because of the speed of the drive it was copying to.

Thank you again, I very much appreciate it.

 

[revelated]

The iPad does support 5Ghz, and I believe the current Airport line are dual-radio APs, so you can run those at both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz.

Correct. You cannot even create the 5GHz SSID without creating a 2.4GHz SSID. Express is the only one that doesn't support the dual bands.

 

[twoodcc]

nice. glad to see more macs having this

 

[RichardBeer]

Here in the UK our wireless speeds are capped anyways. I'm not sure wireless devices are even allowed to use the 5ghz range over here for that matter.

 

[BlueRevolution]

Is this faster than USB 2.0 or 3.0?

USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps (theoretically). In practice I'm not sure which would be faster. A USB connection is lucky to hit half of that in the real world, and wireless speeds will always be degraded by range and interference. They should be fairly comparable, anyway.

 

[Starship77]

Thanks!!! Yes that's very useful.

That's a 75% speed improvement over the average speed of the APE in 2x2 mode. Plus the more consistent speed you mentioned is a bonus.

That's a very good real world improvement that would put it as a contender for top spot in wireless performance (in 3x3 mode).

Bummer about it's gigabit performance - I've maxed mine out at about 45MB/s (360mbit/s) - but that's still a lot better than old 100mbit days. I'm assuming your gigabit maxed out a 25MB/s because of the speed of the drive it was copying to.

Thank you again, I very much appreciate it.

Yeah, it's a 1TB WD MyBook I use just for backup and it's connected to the USB port in the APE. I think the Gigabit speeds would be way better in a direct computer to computer connection. I might test it later just to check. But anyway, I'm glad it was useful!

 

[TenderBranson]

will i notice the difference in the regular wifi networks i log onto?

 

[Starship77]

will i notice the difference in the regular wifi networks i log onto?

No. You need a router capable of 450Mb/s and something to transfer at that speed. If you're using just internet, you're probably not gonna need more than 54Mb/s (Normal 802.11g wi-fi)

 

[bigjobby]

Here in the UK our wireless speeds are capped anyways. I'm not sure wireless devices are even allowed to use the 5ghz range over here for that matter.

Don't think that's entirely true. The signalling power in the unlicensed 'free' radio spectrum is capped in the vast majority of countries where this cap can vary depending on the country. Signalling power does not effect speed as such but more on range and yes, operating in the 5 GHz range is allowed in the UK.

 

[mingoglia]

No, this is supported in the current Airport Extreme and TimeCapsules.

I'm glad to hear that as I just purchased 2 Extremes this past Saturday.

 

[pcbjr]

I did some tests:

First I copied a file from my TimeMachine drive connected to the APE:

I got a steady 14MB/s, as you can see in the screenshot.

Then I did the same test with the Ethernet Cable connected:

And, of course, it was faster, but not twice as fast as one would expect...

Then, I disabled "wide channels" (necessary for the 450 rate as described in this thread) and my link speed dropped to 216 (I was expecting 300, it must be some kinda noise or interference...)

The interesting thing is that it's not just slower, but much more inconstant than the other two, with speed varying from 6 to 10 MB/s more or less...

I hope that's useful!

Question - Since I literally can't remember - What did you open to show your Link Speed, with the Vendor:Apple? I know I've opened it before but can't remember what it was.

 

[Starship77]

Question - Since I literally can't remember - What did you open to show your Link Speed, with the Vendor:Apple? I know I've opened it before but can't remember what it was.

That'd be Applications>Utilities>Network Utility

 

[bobobenobi]

100% of the Internet connections in the world are well under 200Mbps

You should put your lawyerin' skills to work and tell companies with 1Gbps (and up) Internet connections that their connections aren't what they think they are! You could be rich!

If you don't have a big Internet connection at home for your iMac and your iPad, no one else could possibly have one, right?

 

[christurbo]

My Airport Extreme is 1 year old (still the latest model, tho) and it works just fine with my 2011 Macbook Pro.

Image

Image

Macbook Pro is the first in the list of Wireless clients of course...

I have a 2011 MBA with a new AEBS but cannot get over 300mbps [MCS 15].

Can you post your wireless card info from your 2011 pro? Also what settings did you have to activate on your AEBS?

Mine:

Software Versions:
CoreWLAN: 2.1.1 (211.3)
CoreWLANKit: 1.0.1 (101.1)
Menu Extra: 7.0.1 (701.2)
configd plug-in: 7.1.1 (711.1)
System Profiler: 7.0 (700.3)
IO80211 Family: 4.1.1 (411.1)
WiFi Diagnostics: 1.0.1 (101.1)
AirPort Utility: 5.5.3 (553.20)
Interfaces:
en0:
Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0xE9)
Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.100.98.75.18)

Locale: ETSI
Country Code: GB
Supported PHY Modes: 802.11 a/b/g/n
Supported Channels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140
Wake On Wireless: Supported
AirDrop: Supported
Status: Connected
Current Network Information:
AEBS 5GHz:
PHY Mode: 802.11n
BSSID:
Channel: 100,1
Country Code: GB
Network Type: Infrastructure
Security: WPA2 Personal
Signal / Noise: -38 dBm / -85 dBm
Transmit Rate: 300
MCS Index: 15