ASUS Intros the Monstrous PCE-AC88 PCIe Wireless Adapter

btarunr · May 4, 2016

ASUS announced its flagship PCI-Express wireless networking adapter, the PCE-AC88. The card is the first in the market to offer dual-band 4x4 AC3100 Wi-Fi, with speeds of up to 2.1 Gbps at 5 GHz, and 1 Gbps at 2.4 GHz. It takes advantage of 4x4 NitroQAM (1024-QAM) to offer such speeds. A 3x3 adapter would serve 1.3 Gbps. The PCE-AC88 includes a set of four antennae that you can directly attach to the card (ideal for to use the card as a WLAN client), as well as an external, router-looking module for the antennae, letting you use your card (your machine) as a WLAN router, using the included software. The card features a PCI-Express 2.0 x1 bus interface. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

xkm1948 · May 4, 2016

ASUS support for their PCI-E based Wireless interface is horrible. It is best to find out what chipset it uses and get the official chipset driver from Microsoft update catalog.

silentbogo · May 4, 2016

xkm1948 said:
ASUS support for their PCI-E based Wireless interface is horrible. It is best to find out what chipset it uses and get the official chipset driver from Microsoft update catalog.

MS drivers drop connection and in most cases do not support RX/TX boost. Better download from Mediatek and hope that it works. I'm talking from a personal experience - will never buy ASUS Wireless stuff again.

BTW, last week I've replaced my infamous PCE-N53 with some no-name Ralink-based adapter (bought on PC junkyard for $3) and it worked out of the box in Win10/Ubuntu/FreeBSD while keeping connection @ steady 300Mbit/s.
No connection drops, no random ping increases or lost packets, no headaches. Just lacks the 5GHz band.

cdawall · May 4, 2016

Bet it's still slower than a basic Intel 8260

PLAfiller · May 4, 2016

I'd prefer TP-Link Archer AC1750 , guess it has better price and probably for my needs will do the same work.

Basard · May 5, 2016

Well, a "flagship" NIC.... interesting..... I didn't get past that part of the article, lol...

Ok, I read it.... sound's cool. A flagship NIC though, haha.... I guess you could call it that though.

I think somebody's watching too much Star Trek.... It's probably me, actually.

xvi · May 5, 2016

Had my Killer WLAN adapter swapped out for Intel. Stuck with the stupid Killer E2400 dual-NIC onboard, but I'm trying to find a plain Qualcomm driver for it. Do these manufacturer modified/tweaked chips ever work?

Ruru · May 5, 2016

And I thought that sound cards are the lamest add-on cards to see a heatsink.

xvi · May 5, 2016

9700 Pro said:
And I thought that sound cards are the lamest add-on cards to see a heatsink.

That's actually a fair point. I'd be curious to know just how hot that thing gets.

btarunr · May 5, 2016

9700 Pro said:
And I thought that sound cards are the lamest add-on cards to see a heatsink.

Networking hardware, especially WLAN, do tend to get hot. Adapters like these even have their own WPA2 termination (it doesn't make your CPU crunch AES-encrypted data at >2 Gbps back to life).

Tomorrow · May 5, 2016

First review: http://www.digitalcitizen.life/reviewing-asus-pce-ac88-wireless-pci-express-network-card-can

No mention of price tho. Im guessing it's ~100$/100€+ considering AC68 was ~70€

System Name	RBMK-1000
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard	ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling	DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory	2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s)	Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage	Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s)	BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case	Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s)	ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply	Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse	ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard	Gamdias Hermes E2
Software	Windows 11 Pro

System Name	Virtual Reality / Bioinformatics
Processor	Undead CPU
Motherboard	Undead TUF X99
Cooling	Noctua NH-D15
Memory	GSkill 128GB DDR4-3000
Video Card(s)	EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra
Storage	Samsung 960 Pro 1TB + 860 EVO 2TB + WD Black 5TB
Display(s)	32'' 4K Dell
Case	Fractal Design R5
Audio Device(s)	BOSE 2.0
Power Supply	Seasonic 850watt
Mouse	Logitech Master MX
Keyboard	Corsair K70 Cherry MX Blue
VR HMD	HTC Vive + Oculus Quest 2
Software	Windows 10 P

System Name	WS#1337
Processor	Ryzen 7 3800X
Motherboard	ASUS X570-PLUS TUF Gaming
Cooling	Xigmatek Scylla 240mm AIO
Memory	4x8GB Samsung DDR4 ECC UDIMM
Video Card(s)	Inno3D RTX 3070 Ti iChill
Storage	ADATA Legend 2TB + ADATA SX8200 Pro 1TB
Display(s)	Samsung U24E590D (4K/UHD)
Case	ghetto CM Cosmos RC-1000
Audio Device(s)	ALC1220
Power Supply	SeaSonic SSR-550FX (80+ GOLD)
Mouse	Logitech G603
Keyboard	Modecom Volcano Blade (Kailh choc LP)
VR HMD	Google dreamview headset(aka fancy cardboard)
Software	Windows 11, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

System Name	All the cores
Processor	2990WX
Motherboard	Asrock X399M
Cooling	CPU-XSPC RayStorm Neo, 2x240mm+360mm, D5PWM+140mL, GPU-2x360mm, 2xbyski, D4+D5+100mL
Memory	4x16GB G.Skill 3600
Video Card(s)	(2) EVGA SC BLACK 1080Ti's
Storage	2x Samsung SM951 512GB, Samsung PM961 512GB
Display(s)	Dell UP2414Q 3840X2160@60hz
Case	Caselabs Mercury S5+pedestal
Audio Device(s)	Fischer HA-02->Fischer FA-002W High edition/FA-003/Jubilate/FA-011 depending on my mood
Power Supply	Seasonic Prime 1200w
Mouse	Thermaltake Theron, Steam controller
Keyboard	Keychron K8
Software	W10P

System Name	PLAHI
Processor	I5-10400
Motherboard	MSI MPG Z490 GAMING PLUS
Cooling	120 AIO
Memory	32GB Corsair LPX 2400 Mhz DDR4 CL14
Video Card(s)	PNY QUADRO RTX A2000
Storage	Intel 670P 512GB
Display(s)	Philips 288E2A 28" 4K + 22" LG 1080p
Case	SilverStone Raven RV03
Audio Device(s)	Creative Sound Blaster Z OEM
Power Supply	Fractal Design IntegraM 650W
Mouse	Logitech Triathlon
Keyboard	REDRAGON MITRA
Software	Windows 11 Home x 64

ASUS Intros the Monstrous PCE-AC88 PCIe Wireless Adapter

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator

xkm1948

silentbogo

Moderator

cdawall

where the hell are my stars

PLAfiller

Basard

xvi

Ruru

S.T.A.R.S.

xvi

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator

Tomorrow

System Name	ChoreBoy
Processor	8700k Delided
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z390 Master
Cooling	420mm Custom Loop
Memory	CMK16GX4M2B3000C15 2x8GB @ 3000Mhz
Video Card(s)	EVGA 1080 SC
Storage	1TB SX8200, 250GB 850 EVO, 250GB Barracuda
Display(s)	Pixio PX329 and Dell E228WFP
Case	Fractal R6
Audio Device(s)	On-Board
Power Supply	1000w Corsair
Software	Win 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores	A million on everything....

System Name	Rainbow
Processor	Intel Core i7 8700k
Motherboard	MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC
Cooling	Corsair H115i, 2x Noctua NF-A14 industrialPPC-3000 PWM
Memory	G. Skill TridentZ RGB 4x8GB (F4-3600C16Q-32GTZR)
Video Card(s)	ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity
Storage	2x Samsung 950 Pro 256GB \| 2xHGST Deskstar 4TB 7.2K
Display(s)	Samsung C27HG70
Case	Xigmatek Aquila
Power Supply	Seasonic 760W SS-760XP
Mouse	Razer Deathadder 2013
Keyboard	Corsair Vengeance K95
Software	Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores	4 trillion points in GmailMark, over 144 FPS 2K Facebook Scrolling (Extreme Quality preset)

System Name	4K-gaming
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 5800X h2o
Motherboard	Gigabyte B550M Aorus Elite
Cooling	Custom loop, Arctic & Corsair fans
Memory	32GB Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4-3466
Video Card(s)	Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF h2o
Storage	~3TB SSDs + 6TB external HDDs
Display(s)	Acer 27" 4K120 + Lenovo 32" 4K60
Case	Corsair 4000D Airflow White
Audio Device(s)	Asus TUF H3 Wireless
Power Supply	EVGA Supernova G2 750W
Mouse	Logitech MX518 + Asus TUF P1 mousepad
Keyboard	Roccat Vulcan 121 AIMO
VR HMD	Oculus Rift CV1
Software	Windows 11 Pro
Benchmark Scores	It runs Crysis