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If you're a gamer, it seems like every new piece of tech on the PC market is trying to capture

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your attention, from graphics cards with ever so slightly higher boost clocks to headset stands

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tricked out with RGB lighting. Ugh, so cool. But one of the latest things you might want to actually

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pay attention to is Wi-Fi 6, also known as 802.11ax, which our friends at Intel asked us to talk about

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today. Now, we've already done a video explaining Wi-Fi 6 more generally, which you can check out

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right up there, but today we're going to specifically talk about how it can benefit gamers who don't

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want to be tethered down by an Ethernet connection, figuratively and literally. Speed is one of the

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most obvious improvements of Wi-Fi 6 over previous generations of Wi-Fi. The theoretical max bandwidth

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of a typical 2x2 connection is 2.4 gigabits per second, which is about three times as fast as

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the previous generation. However, real-world speeds won't be that high. Somewhere around

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1.5 gigabits per second might be more realistic, and of course you're going to be limited by

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however fast your internet connection is anyway unless you're playing on a wireless LAN. But

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the real benefit for gamers isn't just the extra speed to download large games, but also how Wi-Fi

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6 handles having multiple devices on the same network at once, as well as improvements to

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latency and responsiveness. It's like Wi-Fi took caffeine pills. You see, Wi-Fi 6 supports an updated

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version of a feature called MooMemo. And no, it's not a Pokemon. Although it may not seem like it,

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a router without MooMemo can only communicate with one device at a time, meaning all the other

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devices on your network have to wait their turn. And while it isn't exactly a long wait, it can

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still make a difference, especially if that device's parents didn't teach it to be patient.

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MooMemo gets rid of this bottleneck by allowing your router to communicate with multiple devices

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at once. And with Wi-Fi 6, up to eight devices on a network can take advantage of this capability,

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up from the four devices supported by Wave 2 versions of Wi-Fi 5. And it's cousin, Wi-Fi 555.

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And because Wi-Fi 6 will support upstream and downstream data transfer simultaneously on all

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eight devices, laggy game behavior caused by your PC having to wait for a slice of upstream time

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should be reduced. Especially if someone else on your network is engaged in some kind of

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bandwidth-heavy activity, like uploading every video they've taken of their cat,

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because there aren't enough cat videos on the internet. Karen!

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Another helpful feature is called OFDMA. And although that's a mouthful, the way it works

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is actually really cool and totally legal. Do you know how your Wi-Fi network lives on a single

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channel? Well, what ODFMA does is instead of just using the whole channel to talk to just one device,

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it divvies up the channel into smaller sub-channels so that data can be transferred to multiple

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devices at one time. The way the channels are chopped up depends on the needs of each device.

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So if you're gaming, pieces of data that need to be sent to or from your PC quickly to prevent

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lagginess can be prioritized over another user whose workload isn't as latency-dependent

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such as a large file download. So the bottom line for gamers is fewer dropped frames and more

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reliable connections that will keep you from lagging out or getting fragged if you're not

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playing over a wired connection. And with cloud-based gaming services like PlayStation Now and Google

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Stadia on the rise, having a connection you can count on will become even more important

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if you're planning to game without an expensive rig or console. Unfortunately, Wi-Fi 6 will likely

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require you to buy new devices, both a router and a wireless adapter or motherboard that support the

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new protocol. However, if you're tired of tripping over Ethernet cables when you have to run to the

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bathroom while you queue for a match, the extra cost might just be worth it. Well, that's about

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it. Thanks for watching guys, like the video, dislike the video, whatever floats your boat.

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Check out our other videos and comment below with video suggestions if that's also what floats your

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boat. More than one thing can float, someone's boat.