Intro

How we get a connection to the internet these days are a very big part of how we game. For most of us, we have a wired Ethernet connection from the PC to the broadband modem or router for the optimal gaming use to minimise loss of packets and information going down the line. There are those gamers however who have to use wireless because they don't want to drill through the house to run Ethernet cables through to other rooms of the house or even have long Ethernet cables loose around the house, which can cause a hazard for many. However, the invention of Power-line communications it has made it easier to not have a lot of cable hazards around the house and connections are pretty fast if you're just using the internet or media streaming apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or Twitch etc. - but what about gaming?

TP-Link have kindly sent me their latest Powerline adapters to test out for gaming, the AV2000 2-Port Gigabit with Passthrough (Model - TL-PA9020P). What is cool is that all the Powerlines come with a 2-year warranty with an extra 1 year upon registration which is nice for peace of mind.

In the box you get two TP-Link AV2000 Gigabit adapters, a Quick Installation Manual, Technical Support guide, the warranty info card, two 2-meter CAT5e UTP Ethernet cables for the plugs and a few other leaflets of information, as you can see below in the picture.

Setup

Personally I am definitely not the best with networking. It takes me quite a while to go through and set up one, but with these plugs it's really simple to get the network up and running: literally like plugging a peripheral into your PC and off you go. One plug would be for your broadband connection where both the power and ethernet cable can go into all-in-one. The other plug can be anywhere in the house where you have technology like a PC, a console or a Smart TV etc., but are unable to really get a wired connection or even a strong Wi-Fi connection in that area of the house. Once all connected, you would hit the Pair button on the side of each plug and let them sync up. That's it, all done, and now you've practically got a fast internal networked gigabit connection running through the house without having to destroy whereever you live with some DIY cabling. Plus, you didn't even need software to setup for the plugs to connect. You can also add more plugs and use the pair button to connect to the other TP-Link plugs that you already have, which is quick and easy.

If you're one of those people who needs to keep an eye on the network, TP-Link provide software that you can download from their website which can monitor the plugs throughout the household. You can also see what the speed is of the network while the plugs are active, change the priority of the traffic you are using the plug for, whether it's purely gaming or 4K streaming etc. You are also able to update the firmware of the plugs when TP-Link makes the latest firmware available and that's explained simply in the software when needed, which you can see some screenshots of below.

Tests

One of the main reasons that I was sent these adapters was to do some tests with gaming and see how stable they are compared to a normal wired connection or even a wireless connection. My internet connection is Virgin Media Vivid 200MBit. The Wireless router that I have currently and for this test is a Netgear Nighthawk R7000. I moved to the furthest part of the house I could and used the other adapter there with my Alienware 15 laptop.

So I did three tests: the first was the usual Speedtest.net to see if there was any difference in ping, uploading and downloading. The next test I did was with a program from Tamos.com called the Throughput Test which tests the performance of both wired and wireless connections across an internal network. In the final test I used Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to connect to a server for a few minutes and see how stable the connection was for a few minutes.

Not exactly scientific tests but ones that would do as a gamer so let's get into it.

Speedtest.net

With this test, I generally just wanted to see if the Powerline network would lose any download or upload speed because even when you do have a fast connection, not always does everyone have an expensive and latest Wi-Fi router to fully utilise the speed of the connection and that can be really annoying. On the screenshots below, the first is the wired connection into the actual broadband, the second is the wireless router and the third is the TP-Link adapter. The differences are really small, even when not playing games and just streaming Twitch or Netflix or something around there - the Powerline feels just like my normal wired connection.

  
Wired, Wireless, Powerline

Tamos Throughput Test

This test is to see how fast the network speed is internally, so when transferring files or even streaming a movie from your PC to a TV/monitor, you can download this tool aswell from Tamos.com and see how fast your network is. This test also was timed for 3 minutes each.

 

Wired (top left), Wireless (top right), Powerline (bottom)

Without trying to go out super technical on you lot, the wired connection over the network will always be the best with the throughput because a lot of information is always going through quickly. The wireless connection, even though it looks a lot less wavy and cleaner, a lot less information is being passed through internally and this can be caused sometimes by a loss of signal to the Wi-Fi. The Powerline looks similar to the wired connection, but at a lesser speed. It shows a lot more stability than the wireless, especially in the UDP area.

Overall you have a lot more information going through the Powerline than you do on a wireless connection, and as I've mentioned UDP: UDP is more widely used in gaming and live streaming so if you're using one of these to play games over the network with family or friends, Powerlines will be better for you than wireless.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

For this test, I simply went onto some populated UK CS Servers and GO TV servers and watched the netgraph for 3 minutes at a time. I wanted to see on the netgraph how stable or unstable each connection is. I don't have a connections settings config for CS:GO, I just went in as default.

 

Wired (top left), Wireless (top right), Powerline (bottom)

The screenshot of net_graph in CS:GO tells a small story, but it doesn't tell the whole story so let's start. The wired connection is again our benchmark, always the top for gaming. While the wireless one was showing a few red points of data as you can see, I don't think that caused me a lot of problems at the time as it felt pretty stable. However, when playing with lots of players on the server, they started jumping and warping across my screen at some point which made it quite hard to try and hit them. Eventually the connection stabilised and was OK. The Powerline felt a lot more stable than the wireless, less people warping across my screen, the connection from the net graph also looked similar to the wired one which could be good.

Overall

If you are gaming on a wireless connection right now or even in an area of the home which you cannot get a wired connection to, then I definitely recommend Powerline networking for your home. It's much more stable than wireless, the stability of the network is closer to a normal wired connection. The TP-Link AV2000 2-Port Powerline Gigabit adapters would be a great addition to people who are interested and want something easy to install around the home. Even if you don't use them for gaming, the speeds that can be used for media streaming are really good.