Intel Wi-Fi 7 wireless network card is coming soon

Although the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has yet to formally sanction the Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) standard, some manufacturers display evident impatience. For instance, certain motherboard vendors have heralded Wi-Fi 7 as a premier feature of their new Z790 boards, with pertinent products primed for release. Many of these motherboards are equipped with Intel’s Wi-Fi 7 solutions, and Intel, for its part, is poised to launch diverse Wi-Fi 7 wireless cards within the year.

Currently, Intel has delineated two Wi-Fi 7 wireless cards, the BE200 and BE202, available in M.2 2230 and M.2 1216 form factors respectively. Both support the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands, coupled with 2×2 TX/RX, where the BE200 boasts a peak data transfer speed of 5 Gbit/s. The BE200 and BE202, compatible with PCIe and USB interfaces, are suitable for both desktop motherboards and laptops.

Intriguingly, the Gigabyte Aorus Z790 Master X motherboard (version 1.2) utilizes the BE200, whereas version 1.0 harnesses Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi 7 QCNCM865, and version 1.1 employs MediaTek’s Wi-Fi 7 MT7927, RZ738. Moreover, users must employ routers/access points compliant with Wi-Fi 7 standards to fully relish the enhanced transfer rates.

Building upon the Wi-Fi 6E framework, Wi-Fi 7 introduces innovations such as 320MHz bandwidth, 4096-QAM modulation, Multi-RU, multi-link operations, enhanced MU-MIMO, and multi-AP collaboration (commonly referred to as MESH networking). This ensures that Wi-Fi 7, juxtaposed with Wi-Fi 6E, offers superior data transfer rates and reduced latency. Wi-Fi 7 pledges a maximal aggregate bit rate of 40 Gbit/s, amply catering to scenarios like high bitrate 4K/8K video, VR/AR applications, remote work, video conferencing, and an array of cloud computing endeavors.