Realtek vs others: wifi and BT

D

DWD1961

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 30, 2019
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So I read a lot of hate on the Realtek wifi/BT chipsets. Many rotuers use them instead of Atheros or Broadcom. I'm wondering, are Realtek chips really that bad and if so, what's up with Realtek these days?
 
people have always bitch about them but i have never had a single problem with any of their stuff.
 
They're cheap and OK for mild to moderate usage, but generally do not perform as well as the others once you start getting into higher levels. They don't have some of the features of the others, like various hardware offloads. Their drivers are also not the best.

I think a lot of the hate flows from the pfSense/OpnSense camps. IIRC the BSD Realtek drivers have been pretty horrid.

(edit: dumb grammar mistake.)
 
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Iirc they aren't oss friendly at all, and their drivers reflect that, although their more recent chips have better support. I could be conflating them with another brand, though.

If they are who I'm thinking of, then like bls said, they perform pretty well, but lack a lot of features beyond whatever they're designed for. If it's not an ap, then don't expect to use it as an ap.
 
I've noticed the same thing performance wise, very good. I have a generic USB dongle WiFi with an Antenna that was 9 bucks. I get the exact latency and speeds using it vs my internal Intel 9620 M.2 card.

I'm wondering if some of the bad rep comes from a short lifespan vs something like Broadcom?
 
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