Wi-Fi 6 vs Wi-Fi 7 – what’s the difference?
The Wi-Fi Alliance periodically releases new standards that introduce features designed to improve connection performance, reliability, and security. Wi-Fi 7 is the latest standard, formally introduced in 2024. Since its release, MediaTek has launched a full suite of chipsets supporting the new standard, enabling device makers to offer a range of products—from entry-level to flagship access points, routers, mesh networks, repeaters, and more—to meet global market needs. With different generations of Wi-Fi devices still on the market, you may be concerned that you need to replace all your devices. This is not the case. Wi-Fi is inter-compatible, so a Wi-Fi 7 router will still support Wi-Fi 6, 5, and 4 devices, for example. Conversely, a newer device can also connect to an older access point, although only two devices using the same standard can take full advantage of all its features.
Is it worth choosing Wi-Fi 7 over previous Wi-Fi 6 or 6E standards for your next wireless networking purchase? Here’s an overview of the differences:
Speed:
Wi-Fi 6/6E: Up to 9.6 Gbps
Wi-Fi 7: Up to 36 Gbps
In its top specification, Wi-Fi 7 is capable of extreme performance, delivering speeds up to three times greater than Wi-Fi 6E. This is especially beneficial when an access point or mesh network needs to create a wireless inter-node backhaul without bottlenecks or serve multiple data-demanding clients simultaneously. Flagship devices will offer the highest speeds, but not everyone requires such high performance. Lower-tier models reduce speed through hardware optimizations, such as a reduced number of antennas, which also makes the devices more affordable and accessible, while still providing a full suite of core Wi-Fi 7 features.
Latency:
Wi-Fi 6: Improved over Wi-Fi 5, but still variable under load
Wi-Fi 7: Significantly lower latency, ideal for AR/VR and gaming
It’s not just big bandwidth numbers that’s important, the time it takes for your data packets to be received and get processed is also important, especially in busy network environments with lots of devices competing for access. Thanks to improvements such as MLO (see below), Wi-Fi 7 is notably more efficient, which is important for latency-sensitive applications such as gaming, streaming and video conferencing.
Frequency Bands:
Wi-Fi 6: 2.4GHz and 5GHz
Wi-Fi 6E 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz
Wi-Fi 7: 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz, but uses all three bands more efficiently
Wi-Fi 6E introduced a third 6GHz band into the Wi-Fi standard for the first time, unlocking more wireless space to accommodate the increasing number of wireless devices in our lives. On the surface Wi-Fi 7 supports the same three bands as Wi-Fi 6E, although it uses them more efficiently because of one key technology…
Multi-Link Operation (MLO):
Wi-Fi 6: Not supported
Wi-Fi 7: Supported
MLO combines multiple bands (2.4, 5, 6GHz) for better speed, and reliability. MediaTek’s ‘single-chip’ MLO implementation is industry-leading, reducing latency up to 80%, and providing up to 300% greater throughput. Learn more.
Smart Link Dispatching
Wi-Fi 6: Not supported
Wi-Fi 7: Supported
A MediaTek exclusive technology, Smart Link Dispatching enhances standard MLO with multi-link spectrum efficiency upgrades to improve throughput. Learn more.
Addressable Channel Width:
Wi-Fi 6: Supports up to 160 MHz
Wi-Fi 7: Supports up to 320 MHz
Wider channels = more data throughput, and Wi-Fi 7 doubles the potential wireless channel bandwidth each client can use. This happens automatically without requiring the user to adjust any settings.
Modulation:
Wi-Fi 6: Uses 1024-QAM
Wi-Fi 7: Uses 4096-QAM
A higher order modulation provides higher spectral efficiency, which means greater data throughput. This happens automatically without requiring the user to adjust any settings.
MU-MIMO Enhancements:
Wi-Fi 6: 8×8 MU-MIMO (up/downlink)
Wi-Fi 7: Improved MU-MIMO efficiency
While Wi-Fi 6/6E introduced a significantly more advanced MU-MIMO (multi-user, multi-stream access) compared to the previous generation of Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi 7 further improves this with better scheduling and more simultaneous streams, making it ideal for accommodating many devices at once.
Bandwidth Efficiency:
Wi-Fi 6: Efficient in crowded environments
Wi-Fi 7: Adds features like MRU and Preamble Puncturing to use spectrum more effectively
To support the increasing network demands of high-throughput and low-latency use cases, as well as multiple simultaneous users in dense environments, Wi-Fi 7 introduces a new feature called MRU, or Multiple Resource Units. This means that a Wi-Fi 7 access point can allocate different block sizes (resource units) to use the available wireless spectrum more efficiently, especially if some frequency ranges are subject to interference. This can improve latency by up to 25% compared to Wi-Fi 6.
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