Bought a Mac 7 months ago...will it ever be able to take advantage of 802.11ac speed? Is there any use buying it if not??
Nope. Only 802.11 bgnBought a Mac 7 months ago...will it ever be able to take advantage of 802.11ac speed? Is there any use buying it if not??
It will only take full advantage IF your Mac has a 802.11AC wifi card. Option-Click on the wifi icon in the menu bar and see what it says next to PHY Mode.Bought a Mac 7 months ago...will it ever be able to take advantage of 802.11ac speed? Is there any use buying it if not??
I presume you mean buyig the new AirPort Extereme. There is no advantage to you if you already have N capabilities on your current wireless base.Bought a Mac 7 months ago...will it ever be able to take advantage of 802.11ac speed? Is there any use buying it if not??
Wifi standard changes always have a chicken-and-egg problem. You don't want to buy a new router if nothing you own uses a standard, and you don't really care about the standard being present on something you're buying if your router doesn't support it. It's up to you where to draw the line. Personally, I've found that over the course of 2-3 years after a standard launches, I've come to own enough stuff by happenstance that it becomes worth it to get the upgraded router. Or, my old router just dies and the price for the new standard has dropped a little so I may as well get it for "future proofing".Bought a Mac 7 months ago...will it ever be able to take advantage of 802.11ac speed? Is there any use buying it if not??
Interesting thought - if the WiFi module in the iMac is Mini PCIe compliant, and you can find a suitable 802.11ac replacement with OS X support, perhaps a direct swap would work provided you're on a release of OS X with built-in 802.11ac support.Bought a Mac 7 months ago...will it ever be able to take advantage of 802.11ac speed? Is there any use buying it if not??
Wifi standard changes always have a chicken-and-egg problem. You don't want to buy a new router if nothing you own uses a standard, and you don't really care about the standard being present on something you're buying if your router doesn't support it. It's up to you where to draw the line. Personally, I've found that over the course of 2-3 years after a standard launches, I've come to own enough stuff by happenstance that it becomes worth it to get the upgraded router. Or, my old router just dies and the price for the new standard has dropped a little so I may as well get it for "future proofing".
Generally speaking, most people's internet connection isn't limited by their wireless router. E.g. my Wireless N router gives me up to 450 Gb/s, but my cable modem supplies me with 50 Gb/s. The increased local speeds are most needed for intra-LAN sharing -- say, bouncing a 4K video from your 2013 Mac Pro to your Apple TV 4. Sometimes a new standard also helps with interference / connection drops / etc.
If nothing else you own is using WiFi, it's not going to be worth it for you to upgrade the router right now.
Yes, every computer with an Ethernet-port can take advantage of this!Bought a Mac 7 months ago...will it ever be able to take advantage of 802.11ac speed? Is there any use buying it if not??
Yep, this is the answer. No MacBook Pro has yet been released that supports 802.11ac; only the Air has it right now.but i think im going crazy.
Different routers have different algorithms for splitting bandwidth among multiple devices.thanks for the answer. im aware though that nothing but the air has AC on board, but is that what shows up in the option click on the macbook then? its showing the connection speed onboard my mac?
and its really strange, because i have a netgear AC router, and when i hook up the timecapsule to that, and connect through the netgear router, i get 25MB asec. but i can NEVER get higher than 15 MBS connecting directly (wirelessly) to the time capsule. which is strange because they should be the same..