ASUS Showcases the PCE-AC66 and USB-AC53 802.11ac Adapters

World’s first dual-band 802.11ac PCI Express adapter delivers up to 1.3Gbps, while next generation Wi-Fi expands via USB access

the ASUS PCE-AC66 offers the world’s first dual-band PCI Express-based 802.11ac adapter, equipped with a powerful triple antenna design for wider coverage and stronger signal performance. ASUS today also announced the USB-AC53 adapter, which brings next generation 802.11ac connectivity to more devices thanks to the convenience of USB. Both products utilize dual-band 2.4GHz/5GHz transmission with up to 1.3Gbps and 867Mbps in data rate, respectively, making them ideal for multiplayer gaming and HD content streaming.

ASUS offers the PCE-AC66 and USB-AC53 with bundled accessories for more complete experiences that can be fine-tuned to specific locations and needs, delivering 802.11ac access to notebooks, desktops, and other product categories.

PCE-AC66: world’s first dual-band PCI Express 802.11ac adapter
Innovative ASUS engineering delivers another first-to-market product. Equipped with three detachable antennas, the PCE-AC66 serves as an adapter or client with selectable dual 2.4GHz/5GHz bands, performing at up to 1.3Gbps. It brings an instant next generation wireless upgrade to desktops, using hardware signal amplification to provide up to 150% the coverage of 802.11n adapters. This helps deliver 802.11ac to larger spaces and multi-level locations. To promote stability and longevity, the PCE-AC66 uses an aluminum heatsink for enhanced cooling.

ASUS includes a magnetized antenna base with the PCE-AC66, offering customers greater flexibility in positioning the antennas and pinpointing the best signal performance in each specific location.

USB-AC53: stylish high performance 802.11ac convenience
Twin antennas and selectable 2.4GHz/5GHz bands join the elegant Black Diamond design seen previously on other high-end networking products from ASUS. The USB-AC53 sustains up to 867Mbps on the 5GHz frequency and 300Mbps via 2.4GHz. It ships bundled with a cradle for vertical and horizontal placement, a USB extension cable to help with best-reception location finding, and an attachment clip so it can hook to notebooks.

Expanding next generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi availability
The PCE-AC66 and USB-AC53 adapters join the award-winning ASUS RT-AC66U 802.11ac router, which also uses fifth generation Broadcom® hardware to ensure optimized performance up to three times faster than 802.11n. At up to 1.3Gbps on the 5GHz frequency, the products deliver the bandwidth needed for increasingly-popular true Gigabit internet connections, while maintaining full backward compatibility with previous Wi-Fi generations.

With the greatly improved performance of 802.11ac, customers can enjoy much smoother online experiences in even the most demanding tasks, such as multiplayer gaming and HD content streaming in 1080p and higher. As online distribution becomes the norm, the time required to download content such as games, which now reach 15GB-20GB in file size and are expected to grow to 50GB in the near future, can be measured in minutes whereas in the past a similar task would have taken days. Likewise, only wired connections were capable of such speeds until recently, but with 802.11ac and powerful hardware on ASUS products, wireless networks achieve the same level of performance with no stability loss.

Availability and pricing
The PCE-AC66 is currently available in the United States while the USB-AC53 will begin shipping Q1 2013. The release of PCE-AC66 in Malaysia will commence February 2013, priced at RM289.