TP-Link TX3000E PCIe Wi-Fi

Bringing Wi-Fi 6 to where it’s needed most.

I recently rearranged my home to better suit permaWFH needs, and the ideal new spot for my PC desk meant an Ethernet cable would have to worm its way unattractively across a big room. It was clearly time to go wireless! With a Netgear Nighthawk AX8 Wi-Fi 6 router already in place, I picked up the Wi-Fi 6 TX3000E PCIe adaptor from TP-Link to do the job.

Going into a PCIe 1x slot, the card is covered by a good looking red heatsink to cool Intel’s AX200 Wi-Fi 6 chip. It also supports Bluetooth version 5, and comes with a cable to connect to your motherboard header, should you wish to use this feature. A twin-antenna unit with a generous 1m cable attaches via gold-plated plugs, and that has a very strong magnetic base that gives you good placement options. The latest TP Link drivers were installed, and it connected immediately.

At a distance (unobstructed) from the router of around 12m performance should be excellent – and it was, netting exactly the same speeds as I saw previously via Ethernet. My NBN is the limiting factor, though. The card’s theoretical maximum is 2402Mbps on the 5GHz band, and 574 on 2.4Ghz, so, plenty of headroom!

In a month’s use it’s never dropped out, streaming 4k video is flawless and sub10ms gaming is lovely to have. If you have a Wi-Fi 6 router this does a great job of connecting a PC – I’m planning on getting a second for the spare room racing rig PC too, and saying goodbye to blue cables forever.

BEN MANSILL

Simple to install, flawless in operation, add your PC to a Wi-Fi 6 network without compromise.