I have found a mobo with an intel n3160 (4 cores, 1.6GHz) for 40€. Would it be a good idea to use it as a wifi router? I already have a spare 2gb ram stick at home for it and an msata ssd.
Here is a pic of it:
It supports 1 mini pcie NIC, so if I find one which supports dual-band AP mode simultaneously there's no problem. Do you know any other board with more NICs?
Thank you
One of the mainstays is the APU2. Another interesting board is the Odroid H2, but you should check if there's expansion slots beyond M.2 (which is storage only afaik on that board).
In my build I used a mini-pci express to pci-express daughter board. This is a PCI-express card that can house two mini-pci express cards, one on either side of the board. This allowed me to put two mini-pci express cards into my single pci express slot.
I had to do this at the time since no cards were available that did both 2.5ghz and 5ghz: it was either or. So I had to use two cards.
I would go for a card that uses ath10k, without a doubt. They work and they work well. I used a card from Compex. You don't want to just use any old consumer wifi card, as some of them don't support AP mode. Using a card designed for being an AP would be a wise choice.
If you want one of the higher power cards, you're going to need to get a separate card for each of 5ghz and 2.4 and house it in a dual slot adapter.
Have a look at what Compex have available as they have quite a few different cards, ranging from 2x2 to 4x4 and both wave 1 and wave 2. My 2.4Ghz card is a Compex 3x3 mimo and has been running for years...
EDIT: sorry - I didn't read properly. I see your suggested board is mini pci-e anyway, so you don't need the adapter card. I'd go with the Compex card I linked. It's an enterprise-grade AP card
Thank you for your suggestions. I'm not sure if I will buy the dual band card because it can't do VHT80+80. Maybe a solution could be using Compex WLE1216V5-20 and a usb wifi adapter for 2.4ghz band, or a usb to mini pcie adapter. Something like this would work with openwrt? By the way, is it possible to use compex modules in a Windows PC? I can't find any 4x4 client adapter. The only 3x3 I found is this one: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32778371977.html
Thank you
I doubt you'd be able to make effective use of VHT80+80 anyway. That card I linked you is probably one of the most capable on the market. It's a wave2 4x4 MIMO.
This is the trade off you're probably going to have to make if you want one card for both bands.
You could try using a mini-pcie to dual mini pcie adapter like this as well: http://www.pridopia.co.uk/8603me-d.html. That way you can fit in the card you linked plus a separate 2.4ghz card
