802.11ac client performance differences ?

[philip_francis1]

Hello, some of our laptops have a big speed difference when connecting to our 802.11ac access points. Even though the laptops are in the same location and are both connecting via 802.11ac 5Ghz, speeds can vary by 20-30Mbps.
The laptops are totally different models.
All I could think of was that one laptop wifi NIC may support better beam-forming than the other, thus the big difference in speed ?
Thanks for any opinions.

[michael_brado]

Look up the radios in each of the laptop models.  Just like Access Points, some may only support 802.11agn, and not 802.11ac. How many streams do they support, etc.  It might not be an apples to apples client test.

[diego_garcia_de]

Indeed. If all are .ac as stated, the number of streams would be the next thing to look at. As well as RSSI (signal level). 20/30 Mbps might not be a huge difference (of achieve let's say 200-300 Mbps) or a huge one if some clients do 50-60 and others 20-30.

Finally, if possible test throughput against a local server and not internet as your wan link might be the bottleneck