Been using TP-Link TL-PA251KIT for 6 months now - not a single dropout during gaming, doesn't seem to be hot to the touch either. Adds 3ms to your total latency but this is very much like a cabled connection, can't notice it at all.
Installing a proper internal wireless card will likely solve your problem, and if not, install a DrayTek router.
I think you are going to have to look at your setup to decide what is best. In my limited experience with home plug/power line stuff. You can generally expect roughly 15-40% of rated speed, generally lower the faster the rated adapter and wiring, what your circuit branches look like, how the system is setup for grounding and neutral, what else is on your AND surrounding houses power lines, etc. the more noise, the lower your data rates. Often times a fast wireless connection is faster than a home plug connection so long as you don't have too much around you. Downside is that with wireless and a bunch of close neighbors, that wifi connection is likely not as fast, especially if you have several concurrent devices on your network. A good example of realizable speeds. In my old townhouse with 2 relatively strong networks near me on 2.4Ghz (around -55 to -60dB with mine at -40dB 5ft from my router) and 3-4 weak wifi networks that I could pickup on a wifi sniffer, but where too weak to even attempt to join (-80dB or weaker) I had a moderate amount of interference. My typical max speeds on 2.4Ghz and 150Mbps 802.11n was basically about 60Mbps data rates. I might squeeze 70-80Mbps total with a few devices concurrent on my network. Running 300Mbps most of my single stream 802.11n devices, like my iPad and iPhone actually slowed down, though my laptop sometimes saw 80-90Mbps. That house with a couple of 200Mbps power line adapters I could sometimes see 90Mbps on a good connection and a connection between outlets that weren't on the same panel bus bars were more like 70Mbps. My new house (moved a month ago) with zero neighbor wifi networks that can be picked up at ANY signal strength in my house (1 acre single family home, nearest neighbor 150 odd feet away, next nearest is over 200ft away) I get roughly 80Mbps in 150Mbps mode and switching to 300Mbps mode doesn't slow anything down now and I can get 140Mbps on my laptop and roughly 180 max total with several connections going at once. More than enough to max my new FIOS connection (75/35Mbps at my old house it was 35/25). The house has much older wiring with undersized grounds (16g grounds with 14-2 wiring was allowed back in the early 16s when my house was built) and a bit of a mess of wiring in the panels with a 100amp sub that used to be the main panel and a new 200amp panel in the garage the power line adapters see a max of 60Mbps on the best outlet to outlet connection and 40-50 on the worst. Personally this isn't a big deal as I have plenty of Cat5e and a GbE router and switch running (had) in my townhouse and have the same with fewer wires running in my new house (haven't had the time to wire much yet). So power line doesn't matter to me for my setup. I do have the adapters laying around. so it really just depends on what you need, can afford and what your local wifi congestion is like. If you can afford a nice 2/3 stream (or 4) 5Ghz router even with a lot of local congestion and your router to computer distance isn't very far, you'll probably get much better speeds than you would with even the best power line adapters. That said if you have a bunch of devices going you might want a power line AND good wifi setup so that the stuff that can easily be wired isn't hogging any wifi bandwidth you might have. Of course ideally you'd just run cat5e or better. I get 840Mbps max constant speeds on my GbE network (105MB/sec, I can see some peakiness up around 900Mbps, but I don't trust that as actual speed. The 840Mbps was tested with a 1.1TB backup from my desktop's 2TB RAID0 array to my server's 4TB RAID0 array). Seem point soon when I have the spare money I'll have a smart switch so that I can aggregate a couple of links (I had the two spare Intel CT GbE adapters sitting on a shelf) and hit around 1700Mbps real data rates (some of a GbE link is lost to packet information/TCP/IP overhead, roughly 10-15%).
I have the TP-Link 200Mbp/s version plugged into a hub feeding my main rig, internet-able TV and anything else I'm experimenting on. Experience: - Quick: Ping time to my router ~3ms - Rock solid performance (in what happens to be a noisy electrical environment). - Good bandwidth: Flawlessly streams HD from my PC to the TV via DLNA (the stream is passing through the wires to the router and back down the wires again). - Doesn't get particularly hot Mine are always plugged in direct to their own socket. Hope that helps, CrazyB
