Wi-Fi 6 vs Wi-Fi 7 Throughput Comparator

Why the speed on the box is a fantasy

Router boxes shout 4.8 Gbps for Wi-Fi 6 and 46 Gbps for Wi-Fi 7. Those are laboratory PHY rates: the raw radio bitrate with a perfect signal, zero interference, and every spatial stream maxed out. In a real home, actual throughput is typically 55 to 65 percent of that number after protocol overhead, encryption, and airtime shared with your neighbors' networks. Walls shave roughly another 10 percent each. So a "5.8 Gbps" Wi-Fi 7 claim can easily become about 2 Gbps in the next room: still fast, but nowhere near the box. The comparison above uses honest numbers. It takes real per-stream rates, multiplies by your device's streams, applies a 65 percent real-world efficiency factor and a 10-percent-per-wall penalty, then caps the result at your internet plan, because Wi-Fi can never deliver more than your ISP does.

How this comparison works

Every Wi-Fi standard has a fixed top rate per spatial stream for a given channel width. Wi-Fi 6, and Wi-Fi 6E which shares the same radio math, delivers about 573.6 Mbps per stream on an 80 MHz channel and 1201 Mbps on 160 MHz; it cannot use 320 MHz channels at all. Wi-Fi 7 jumps to roughly 1147 Mbps per stream at 80 MHz, 2294 at 160 MHz, and 5765 at 320 MHz, thanks to 4096-QAM and wider channels. Multiply by your device's streams (most phones and laptops are 2 by 2), apply the 65 percent efficiency factor and the wall penalty, and compare against your plan speed. The standard that reaches your full plan speed first is the one worth buying.

Worked example

Take a common setup: 160 MHz channel, a 2 by 2 phone, no walls, and a 500 Mbps internet plan. Wi-Fi 6 gives 1201 times 2 = 2402 Mbps theoretical; at 65 percent efficiency that is about 1561.3 Mbps, capped at your 500 Mbps plan, so usable speed is 500 Mbps. Wi-Fi 7 gives 2294 times 2 = 4588 Mbps theoretical, about 2982.2 Mbps real-world, also capped at 500 Mbps. Both saturate the plan, so the verdict is clear: Wi-Fi 6 is already enough here, and paying extra for Wi-Fi 7 buys zero additional speed. Put that money toward better router placement instead.

Practical tips

Wi-Fi 7 only pays off in specific cases: a multi-gigabit internet plan (1 Gbps or more), clear 6 GHz spectrum so 320 MHz channels actually work, and client devices that support the standard, because an older 2 by 2 phone bottlenecks any router. Wi-Fi 6E is the quiet middle ground: same top speeds as Wi-Fi 6 but on the less crowded 6 GHz band, which can feel faster in apartment buildings. And remember that moving the router from a corner cabinet to a central shelf often adds more real speed than upgrading a whole Wi-Fi generation.