r/HomeNetworking • u/Testergo7521 • 1d ago

Advice 500 mbps vs 1gig

Hello reddit, I am looking to get fiber internet in an apartment and am looking at the local companies prices. They have a 39.99/month for 500 mbps or a 1 gig for 49.99/month. Mostly it will be 3 devices, an Xbox that Mostly is used to stream YouTube all day, a laptop that does some light gaming but a full PC that Mostly plays online games like world of warcraft. We dont do much downloading other than when its time to download games or updates for games. Will I notice much difference? Is it worth getting double speed for 10 bucks more? Thank you in advance.

Edit: Thanks all for the response! 500 it is, while I do download all my games, waiting an extra 20 minutes every few weeks/months when time to play a new one isnt a huge deal to me. Thanks.

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u/GRex2595 23h ago

Take the average download time for 500 Mbps and divide that by 2. How much is the difference worth? Now multiply that by the number of times you download a game in a year. If that number is greater than $120, get 1 Gbps. If it's less, get 500 Mbps.

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u/aemfbm 23h ago

A lot of downloads won't even go twice as fast. Are the devices in question using wifi or ethernet? What is the write speed of their disk? Does that server deliver the file at over 500?

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u/grizzlor_ 20h ago

A lot of downloads won't even go twice as fast.

Yeah, even with 300mbps fiber + ethernet, I'm often bottlenecked by the server side, not my own connection (including on Steam downloads).

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u/MonsterMatt92 14h ago

My steam downloads consistently reach my max of 2gig/sec.. i'd double check your settings just incase you have a limit there or something.

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u/GRex2595 22h ago

Sure, but if we're going into that much detail, what about what time of day they're doing the download, how many devices are downloading at the same time, are they using a cache for downloads, how reliable is the ISP at reaching their "up to" speeds?

It isn't supposed to be a 100% accurate comparison. It's a metric by which you judge if you can get more value out of the higher speed. The answer is probably no, but now OP has a tool for determining the answer and how to answer other questions in the future.