What is the best 802.11ac adapter/dongle for the new iMac?

the time capsule still does the older wifi std's

so you need not buy a adaptor

but if you want more speed then mind you it will not effect your internet speed

only the speed you backup to time capsule and even there the harddisk in the time capsule will be the bottleneck not the older wifi type

I'm not sure there are any Mac-compatible 802.11ac adapters; at least I haven't found one yet. All the units I've found say that they support Windows systems only.

Since, though, the Apple TV is still going to be on the slower wireless, getting an adapter for your Mac wouldn't help streaming between the Mac and the Apple TV. You may need to connect one or both devices to your AirPort via Ethernet if the current wireless isn't sufficient for you. If you're experiencing problems, you may want to investigate your wireless network. I'm using an older AirPort Extreme with an Apple TV and an iMac and haven't had any problems.

Regards.

These are all NOT mac compatable...

http://www.netgear.com

https://www.asus.com

http://www.buffalotech.com

http://store.linksys.com

http://www.edimax.com

This one DOES seem to have a MAC driver...

http://www.dlink.com

farrago, it's important to note, that dlink adaptor you mentioned is only usb 2.0. That means it can only transfer at 480mbps top speed. This adaptor will not provide the benifit in which he seeks given Apple's implementation of 802.11ac is 1.3gbps. Here are some of the things you'll want to look for in an adaptor:

Is it multistream?

How many streams does it support?

Is it dual band?

What interface does it use to connect to the computer? USB3?

Lastly, the one issue you addressed, does it have an OSX driver?

Assuming you can find a Mac compitble USB3 dongle, until the AppleTV is upgraded to use 802.11 ac, your connection is still going to be using the slower connection. Save your money.

The apple tv portion of this question is a red herring. 1080p in mpeg4 only uses 3-4mbps and will offer no improvement by increasing throughput. Nick, what is the actual problem you're trying to solve? Are you getting jitter or latency on your network? Throughput and latency are totally different problems. I think the thing we're suffering here from is someone who is trying to answer questions about their perceived answer to their problem rather then dealing with the problem itself.

farrago, it's important to note, that dlink adaptor you mentioned is only usb 2.0. That means it can only transfer at 480mbps top speed. This adaptor will not provide the benifit in which he seeks given Apple's implementation of 802.11ac is 1.3gbps.

Sounds like you know quite a bit more about it than I do. I purchased the dLink version (with the mac driver) it has its own connection software that lets you turn on the device and control some of its setting. According to it, I'm getting 867 Mbps. That is almost two times faster than the 480mbps that you say I'll be limited to. I need the speed when accessing local files on drives connected to our router.

USB 1.1...12 Mbp

USB 2.0...480 Mbp

USB 3.0...5 Gbps

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5172

So, yes... why does the dLink software say I'm connected at 867 Mbps?

Farrago, from a wifi perspective your link may very well support 867mbps. However, when connected to a 480mbps bus it's rather irrelevant 😉 If dlink was being honest with their software they would report the throughput possible given the full datapath. They clearly didn't in this case. This is really a rabbit trail, however. Still have no idea what Nick's actual problem is.

This one is Mac compatible and has a USB 3 connection! http://tinyurl.com/q9jf84v

bubzz that's great but I'm still not clear on what problem Nick is tying to solve here. Nick, what exactly are you trying to accomplish and what are the limitation you believe you're hitting. If what you're doing is using your mac as a relay for playback from network attached storage to your appletv your issue isn't your bandwidth. Again, the required bandwidth is about 4mbps. A decade old 802.11a can accommodate that stream. If you're getting choppy performance you're running into other issues that have nothing to do with your connectivity.

Namely, the seek/read limitations of your time capsule. Apple doesn't use high end drives by any means and we have no idea how much ram is used as a buffer for reads on the time capsule. My guess is the time capsule is nowhere near the 192gigs of ram you'd find on a NetApp filer or multiple drive spindles to distribute the reads/writes across, for example, that I use in my data centre. The other bottle neck is your computer which has to decode/encode and retransmit all this data. The bottom line is you're wasting your time/money down this connectivity rabbit trail. the time capsule isn't built for what you're trying to accomplish.

Has anyone tried this wireless AC adapter?

http://www.ampedwireless.com/products/aca1.html

It uses USB 3. USB 3 has a maximum bandwidth rate of 640 MBps. So, while it won't get the 1,300MBps that Apple touts for its AC wireless router... it should be faster than the USB2 models I've seen elsewhere.

PC Magazine said "Abysmal performance. Awkward design."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2423765,00.asp

Really mixed user reviews on Amazon and other sites, including issues with setup and configuration on Macs and what appears to be a high failure rate. Proceed with caution.

Regards.