Last month, a document surfaced on the internet suggesting that Intel and Microsoft might limit Wi-Fi 7 support to Windows 11 and newer. The document, a product spec sheet, mentions Windows 11, Linux, and ChromeOS in the list of supported operating systems, leading us to speculate that Windows 10 may not support the latest Wi-Fi standards.
However, that doesn't appear to be the case, as Intel has now confirmed that Windows 10 will also support Wi-Fi 7. Although Intel has not made any official clear statement on this, the company has listed the specifications of two Wi-Fi7 modules on its ark.intel website: Intel Wi-Fi7BE200 and Intel Wi-Fi7BE202, codenamed Intel's GalePeak2 and MistyPeak respectively. Both devices support Windows 10 as well as Windows 11 and Linux. Interestingly, there's no mention of ChromeOS this time.
If you're wondering what Wi-Fi 7 will bring, the simple answer is faster speeds, up to 2.4 times compared to Wi-Fi 6E and about 4.8 times compared to Wi-Fi 6. The maximum theoretical data transfer rate of Wi-Fi6 is about 9.6Gbps, while Wi-Fi7 is about 46.1Gbps, and the bandwidth is twice that of Wi-Fi6 (320MHz channel compared to Wi-Fi6’s 160MHz channel). It will adopt the IEEEP802.11be standard, which is said to enable extremely high throughput (EHT) and lower latency. GalePeak2 inherits Intel's HarrisonPeak2 (Wi-Fi6) and GarfieldPeak (Wi-Fi6E). These Wi-Fi 7 modules have the same form factor as M.22230 and 1216.
The table below shows a comparison between the new Wi-Fi7, Wi-Fi6/6E and Wi-Fi5.
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