Should you bother with… Wi-Fi 7?

The hows and Wis of the latest in cable-free connectivity

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun

Welcome to another edition of Should You Bother With , where the useless and the utilitarian of PC gaming hardware are sorted into two satisfyingly neat piles. And after the hard science demanded by SYBW’s previous look at Hall effect keyboards , I’m pleased to say that the concept behind this week’s focus can be summed in with as few words as “faster Internet.” It’s Wi-Fi 7 – or 802.11be, to its friends.

Having ’ launched’ in January 2024 , Wi-Fi 7 is the latest in a line of various wireless networking standards that you may already be familiar with, and that you almost definitely already use. Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) is the most ubiquitous, while Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E (both 802.11.ax) trade costlier hardware for higher speeds and bandwidths. Wi-Fi 6E, in particular, introduced the option of connecting to a 6GHz band, the higher frequency of which (versus the usual 2.4Ghz and 5GHz bands) allows for quicker data transmissions at the cost of shorter range. Lower latency, too, which should better serve ping-averse gaming types (hi).

Despite this, Wi-Fi 6E has had a bit of a rough time, taking years to achieve even somewhat widespread adoption. That’s thanks to an awkward mingling of early component shortages, higher hardware prices, and a lack of interest from users who remained happy with Wi-Fis 5 and 6. Thus, Wi-Fi 7 aims to make a greater stride forward. Besides keeping the 6GHz band, its theoretical speed limit of 46Gbit/s is over four times higher than that of the previous generation, and it doubles the width of the data channels it uses. That means more bandwidth, which means less chance of getting clogged up and slowed down when multiple devices are connected to the same network.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun

Wi-Fi 7 can also pull a move called Multi-Link Operation, allowing compatible devices to send and receive data across a blend of the 6GHz, 5Ghz and 2.4GHz bands – not unlike how your PC’s CPU can assign different tasks to different cores. This should also help with busy networks, as each device’s data load can be spread across the multiple bands. Neat, no?.

Party tricks aside, the long and short of it from a gaming standpoint is that Wi-Fi 7 promises lower latencies, more stable connections, and faster downloads for all those 100GB-plus games that developers keep making. All appealing notions, so why has Wi-Fi 7 not blown up already?

There’s no doubt that technologically, it’s miles ahead of Wi-Fi 6, though it’s facing some of the same teething problems that both 6 and 6E endured back in the day. The lack of compatible hardware is a biggie: the vast majority of laptops, motherboards with onboard wireless connectivity, and handheld gaming PCs like the Steam Deck only support the older standards. Each one is backwards compatible – so a desktop with a Wi-Fi 6E receiver can connect to a Wi-Fi 6 or 5 router, no probs – but you can’t get true Wi-Fi 7 speeds without both the router and the receiver supporting the latest version.

Still, this kind of hardware is rare, not non-existent. CES 2024 was full of gaming laptops with Wi-Fi 7 ready to go, and motherboard manufacturers have been building Wi-Fi 7 capability into both Intel and AMD mobos since before the wireless standard was even formally released. In other words, it’s not too early see how Wi-Fi 7 performs away from the router laboratories and in real-life, at-home situations. For this, I’d like to invite you into my flat, or at the very least, the utility cupboard where my Internet wall socket is.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun

Representing literally all Wi-Fi 7 routers in my testing will be the Netgear Nighthawk RS700, that towering monolith you’ve been seeing in the pictures. It ain’t cheap – yours for just £700 / $700 - but it is about as high-end an example of the form that’s on sale right now, so it shouldn’t hold anything back. If anything, I’m underutilising it by hooking it up to my 1Gbit/s connection; it can take up to 10Gbit/s, though such speedy packages aren’t really available to laypeople right now.

To see how it can improve my networking life, the RS700 is going up against two other routers. One, the ZTE H298A, is just a basic Wi-Fi 5 box that Hyperoptic gave me for free. If the RS700 is Goliath, this isn’t so much David as it is David’s sodden loincloth, but since I’d wager it’s quite typical of a lot of UK household routers, it’s in. I’ve also got a TP-Link Archer AX1500 (no relation) to rep Wi-Fi 6. Again, this is nowhere near as luxe as the RS700, though it is perfectly capable of producing good 802.11ax speeds.

On the client end will be a desktop PC equipped with either the Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero, an Intel motherboard with a Wi-Fi 7 receiver, or the Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus, which will help demonstrate how the older routers perform with a Wi-Fi 6 receiver. The benchmarks will be relatively simple, with download/upload speeds recorded by both Ookla and Google’s internet speed test tool , as well as an easily replicable gaming ping test using one of my regularly visited Team Fortress 2 community servers. However, there’ll be no fudging of the numbers by relocating my entire desk to sit next to each router. They’ll have to beam data through a couple of walls to reach the PC, a distance of about eight metres as the (presumably noncorporeal) crow flies. Lastly, just to be extra-extra-indicative, I’ve ran each test under both light and heavy load conditions. The former will just have the PC and an idling smartphone as connected devices, while in the latter, each setup must additionally juggle a second PC, one laptop, and a Steam Deck all downloading from Steam at once, while a TV streams 4K video. This will show us how Wi-Fi 7 fares against its predecessors in a torturous, multi-user household scenario.

Several hours of testing and one writing tense change later, here are the results. You might wanna click to embiggen these:

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun

Straight away with the download tests, it does seem that range and physical obstructions can neuter Wi-Fi 7’s speed advantage. Nevertheless, an advantage it remains. Factoring in the drastically superior upload speeds, Wi-Fi 7 indeed looks like a bigger jump up than previous generations attempted. On the 6GHz band, it’s especially better for both downloads and uploads under heavy network load; while not immune to the same major speed losses as Wi-Fi 6, its final transfer speeds were about twice as high in the Ookla download test and over three times as high in Google’s test. Although I didn’t make a proper benchmark of it, these also translated into faster everyday-usage download speeds in Steam, with the RS700 peaking at 78MB/s and the AX1500 peaking at 49MB/s.

The ping test initially looked like bad news for RS700, only managing to slightly best the AX1500 and actually losing to the freebie H298A on light load. With a full house of data-hungry devices, however, it made a much better argument for Wi-Fi 7, only gaining 2ms of latency while the other routers struggled.

If your eyes glazed over after reading that “faster Internet” bit and have only just refocused, I’ll gladly confirm that yes, Wi-Fi 7 is faster. Maybe that low load TF2 ping result isn’t great but personally, I’d rather have an extra 10ms when the going is easy than an extra 70ms when it gets tough.

You do have to go for a full set of the hardware, though. Backwards compatibility may allow you to pick up a Wi-Fi 7 mobo or laptop now and upgrade your router later, but when pairing an older-gen router to a Wi-Fi 7 receiver, I was consistently getting slower download/upload speeds than with a Wi-Fi 6 one. I’m not sure why, but it happened too consistently to be a mistake. Nay, to switch to Wi-Fi 7 really means updating your devices and the router both.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun

As it stands, that’s quite the investment. Even if you don’t drop the equivalent of an RTX 4070 Ti on something like the RS700, you’re still looking at £300 for the TP-Link Archer BE9300. That’s the cheapest Wi-Fi 7 router I can find at the moment, so it will be years until there are real budget options like the £45 AX1500 is for Wi-Fi 6. The same goes for compatible client devices: motherboards with Wi-Fi 7 baked in average well above £200, and all those laptops that launched at CES? More like £2000, with rare exceptions like the £1549 HP Omen Transcend 14. PCIe adapters like the MSI Herald BE ( $50 and annoyingly hard to find in the UK) do provide a less expensive route into working Wi-Fi 7 rigs, though they depend on you having a free PCIe slot, and are still pricier than their Wi-Fi 6 equivalents.

What’s more, even if you do pay the big bucks for all the appropriate Wi-Fi 7 kit, you’ll also need a sufficiently quick Internet package to get any real benefit out of it. Today, that likely means a 1Gbit/s service, which at least here in the UK typically represents a top premium option. I also tested the RS700 on a more affordable 150Mbit/s connection, and there was no meaningful upload/download speed improvement over the Wi-Fi 5 setup.

You could balance this by saying Wi-Fi 7 hardware is better for futureproofing, and will stand ready when either a) Gigabit-and-above connections become cheaper or b) even faster connections, like 2.5Gbit/s and the RS700’s favoured 10Gbit/s, are more widely available. The first scenario probably is inevitable but you’ll be waiting a long, long time for the second to come about. 10Gbit/s, in particular, has barely broken into the business broadband market, never mind that of private homes. The possibility of a service that comes anywhere near Wi-Fi 7’s on-paper 46Gbit/s limit seems further away still.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun

Verdict: Should you bother with Wi-Fi 7? Not yet. I say that with a pang of sadness, because who doesn’t like faster Internet? I like faster Internet. And low ping. And not have to worry about slowdown because my fiancée’s on an Interior Design Masters binge.

Wi-Fi 7 offers all of that, and for what it’s worth, I’m sure its time will come. Right now it feels a little like the networking equivalent of the electric car: something niche that, for one reason or another, we’ll all end up using in the future. It happened to Wi-Fi 5, after all.

Unfortunately, and also like the electric car, it’s currently an extravagance that not everyone can afford, with a lack of supporting infrastructure that might give pause to those that can. Again, this is just me, but my job regularly relies on the ability to download big, fat games as quickly as possible, and I still wouldn’t pay a minimum of £350 (and potentially over a grand) to do that somewhat faster. Perhaps in a couple of years or so, when the routers and client devices are more attainable, things will be different. Right now? Better for Wi-Fi 7 to bide its time.

Rock Paper Shotgun is better when you sign in

Sign in and join us on our journey to discover strange and compelling PC games.

All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

Rock Paper Shotgun is better when you sign in

Sign in and join us on our journey to discover strange and compelling PC games.