Currently Haswell 1-chip and Haswell 2-chip platforms are shipping with Wilkins Peak 2 2x2 wireless modules. The faster of the two is 867Mbps capable Wilkins Peak 2 2x2 802.11 b/g/n/ac part that works at both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. It comes with Bluetooth and usually ships with Haswell based 4th generation Core products.

The runner up is Wilkins Peak 2 2x2 802.11 b/g/n part that works up to 300 Mbits a second and doesn’t support the new AC standard. It is quite hard to tell if your Intel based notebook comes with Intel wireless AC WLAN card. They are hidden behind Intel dual band Wireless 7260 brand for the most part. Intel dual band Wireless 7260 AC means you have a AC capable card with speeds up to 867 Mbits while the Intel dual band Wireless 7260 N stops at 300 Mbits.

The replacement card for Wilkins Peak 2, Intel dual band Wireless 7260, is codenamed Stone Peak 2 and it comes to support the upcoming Broadwell platform. It definitely comes in AC flavour but we have few details about the exact specification. The launch date coincides with the introduction of Broadwell platform and currently it is scheduled to come in 2H 2014.

The sad thing about 802.11 AC that this 5GHz driven much faster way to wirelessly connect tent to have significantly shorter range that we experienced first-hand, but if it connects the right way it can be really fast. There is no doubt the future brings more 802.11 AC routers, phones, tablets and notebooks and Intel is slowly but surely joining the revolution with 2nd generation AC devices, scheduled for 2H 2014.

Also read:

Intel embraces 802.11AC in 2013