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What's faster between a thunderbolt to gigabit ethernet and Wi Fi connection

Sekelani

Sekelani

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 26, 2012
273
76
I'm thinking of purchasing this product


tybe5uby.jpg



Is it faster than a Wi Fi connection? I have this mac :



15-inch: 2.0GHz

with Retina display

Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz

8GB 1600MHz memory

256GB PCIe-based flash storage1

Intel Iris Pro Graphics



My mac supports thunderbolt 2, I'm hoping for a faster internet connection.
 
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Sekelani said:
My mac supports thunderbolt 2, I'm hoping for a better internet connection.
Click to expand...
When you say "better", do you mean faster or more stable? The limiting factor in your internet connection speed is most likely your connection to the ISP, not your internal network bandwidth. Both Wi-Fi and wired networks support speeds that are likely much higher than your ISP offers.
 
Under almost any conditions, gigabit ethernet will be faster than WiFi.

Both are almost certainly much, much, much faster than your internet connection though.

So if your traffic consists of things coming from or going to the internet, it really doesn't matter if you use WiFi or Ethernet.

If you have data going from one device in your home to another device in your home (like copying files from one computer to another) than ethernet is an advantage.

Most important question: what kind of internet access are you paying for? Most people in the US and Canada have service that's 5 Mbps or less.
 
I want to purchase a similar product

waiting for an answer from a ebay seller

not sure if the thunderbolt '2' ports make a difference with compatibility:eek:
 
GGJstudios said:
When you say "better", do you mean faster or more stable? The limiting factor in your internet connection speed is most likely your connection to the ISP, not your internal network bandwidth. Both Wi-Fi and wired networks support speeds that are likely much higher than your ISP offers.
Click to expand...


By better I mean faster and more reliable.

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NewbieCanada said:
Under almost any conditions, gigabit ethernet will be faster than WiFi.

Both are almost certainly much, much, much faster than your internet connection though.

So if your traffic consists of things coming from or going to the internet, it really doesn't matter if you use WiFi or Ethernet.

If you have data going from one device in your home to another device in your home (like copying files from one computer to another) than ethernet is an advantage.

Most important question: what kind of internet access are you paying for? Most people in the US and Canada have service that's 5 Mbps or less.
Click to expand...

I'm in Australia. I have a maximum of about 15mbps download but only get 8mbps when downloading. I saw a couple of reviews that thunderbolt to gigabite is faster than Wi Fi.
I thought this could be a good way to get closer to my 16mbps

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Donfor39 said:
I want to purchase a similar product



waiting for an answer from a ebay seller



not sure if the thunderbolt '2' ports make a difference with compatibility:eek:
Click to expand...


I thought it would since it's twice as faster as the previous generation.
 
Sekelani said:
By better I mean faster and more reliable.

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I'm in Australia. I have a maximum of about 15mbps download but only get 8mbps when downloading. I saw a couple of reviews that thunderbolt to gigabite is faster than Wi Fi.
I thought this could be a good way to get closer to my 16mbps

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I thought it would since it's twice as faster as the previous generation.
Click to expand...

It won't help your internet connection. That's the speed the data is coming into the house. If you can get 15Mbps that doesn't mean you WILL get 15Mbps. Things like distance from the ADSL exchange and services between you and the exchange as well as the physical condition of your line govern how fast your internet is.
 
Sekelani said:
I'm in Australia. I have a maximum of about 15mbps download but only get 8mbps when downloading. I saw a couple of reviews that thunderbolt to gigabite is faster than Wi Fi.
I thought this could be a good way to get closer to my 16mbps
Click to expand...

Your laptop supports the 802.11ac WIFI standard, which can reach up to 1.3Gbit/s

Of course, it depends on the WIFI router that you are using — but if its a more or less modern one, you should expect the speeds of around 300Mbit/s or so. One way to find it out is to click on tour WiFi icon while holding the option key — it will show you the current WIFI connection rate. If its quoted over 16Mbps, you won't see any substantial improvement from using the wired connection.

I think its much more likely that your internet simply does not deliver 16Mbps — the ISP would often advertise their services as 'up to x', but they don't promise to deliver 'x'.
 
Chundles said:
It won't help your internet connection. That's the speed the data is coming into the house. If you can get 15Mbps that doesn't mean you WILL get 15Mbps. Things like distance from the ADSL exchange and services between you and the exchange as well as the physical condition of your line govern how fast your internet is.
Click to expand...


Mmm. Okay. Thanks.
 
Even if your ISP was providing 100Mb/s over fibre, there would be little benefit in Gigabit Ethernet over 802.11ac WiFi.

The main reason to prefer Gigabit Ethernet would be to take advantage of fast local network based storage a.k.a. NAS or local network backup systems.
 
alex0002 said:
Even if your ISP was providing 100Mb/s over fibre, there would be little benefit in Gigabit Ethernet over 802.11ac WiFi.



The main reason to prefer Gigabit Ethernet would be to take advantage of fast local network based storage a.k.a. NAS or local network backup systems.
Click to expand...


So in essence. Would it be advisable for me to get it?
 
Like mentioned the difference lies in stability.
Ethernet is always faster and more stable than wireless.

I use my macbook on the road and on my lap. So no cable for me.

If I would use my macbook mainly on a desk ethernet is the way to go!
 
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Your internet connection is the bottleneck, so either should work for that. Computer to computer or computer to NAS network would benefit with the ethernet adapter.
 
Skype video is smoother over an ethernet connection compared to wifi, I know that much from experience, so the packet loss rate may be lower, but as others have said, the speed will not be affected.
 
Intelligent said:
What? in Sweden the average internet speed is 46/MBs
Click to expand...

The United States and (even more so) Canada have our population spread out over a HUGE territory that has to be wired.

Sweden is 449,964 km2
The USA is 9,826,675 km2
Canada is 9,984,670 km2

However, my figures are a bit out of date. Canada is now up to 9.7 and the US to 10.5. Faster speeds are available (I have 150 Mbps) but can be quite costly.

http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-soti-q114-infographic.pdf
 
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