The best Powerline networking adapter for gaming
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- Passthrough outlets
- Gigabit ports
- Strong performance on both the same and different circuit
- Slightly higher latency in World of Tanks
The Trendnet Powerline 1200 AV2 Adapter Kit has a lot to offer, including passthrough outlets, MIMO technology, Beamforming, and Gigabit ports to not bottleneck throughput speeds. The kit uses all three electrical wires to improve and stabilize coverage and throughput, which the manufacturer claims can provide coverage for up to a 5,000 sq ft home. Installation is very simple—just plug the adapters into their outlets and connect some Ethernet cables, as the adapters come ready to auto-connect right out of the box. They also come pre-encrypted with 128-bit AES, which proved to be rock stable throughout our testing process.
We were particularly impressed by its strong download speed on the Same Circuit test, measuring 146.4 Mbps, which was only slightly behind the fastest adapter we tested, the D-Link DHP-P701AV, which hit 149.14 Mbps. Even more of an achievement is that while the D-Link kit dropped considerably on the Different Circuit test to 55.46 Mbps for the download and 33.03 Mbps upload, this Trendnet kit set the standard on this more difficult test, managing speeds of 96.33 Mbps down and 47.01 Mbps up. (For reference, our baseline Ethernet connection measured 207.96 Mbps down, 49.75 Mbps up.) Taking both of these tests into account, the Trendnet kit is the clear winner when it comes to speed. Additionally, its different circuit ping test was among the lowest at 11 ms, giving it a low latency for gaming.
The TPL-421E2K clearly outperforms the competition, and with more than a thousand four star reviews on Amazon, it earns our recommendation.
