I have u-verse at home and the gateway/router is in the living room.  Main computer is in an office about 25 feet away.

My performance is actually pretty solid, but I'm wondering about the powerline network adapters I've been seeing over the last few years.  I figure they've matured a good bit, so are they faster than my wifi's 802.11n?  

I'm concerned about reliability and speed.  Would be willing to pay a little extra for those two things.

Any thoughts?

I bought Netgear ones after a solid recommendation and found they don't work for shit. I think it would work if your two sockets were on one leg of wire, but crossing the breaker panel seems to remove all throughput.

Getting some 802.11ac gear was much better.

They work with varying degrees of success. I have some and use them in situations where wireless doesn't cut it. Now... limitations... They WILL work across any circuit in your breaker box and supposedly any circuit off the same transformer. There are distance limitations and line noise can cause issues.

They often DO NOT work when connected to power strips, UPSes, and GFCI protected outlets (this includes GFCI breakers).

This information comes at my own testing using cisco/linksys adapters. My max distance was 200ft. Didn't test speed because it wasn't important.

My ROG motherboard has an mPCI WiFi and Bluetooth antenna.

My Asus MB isn't ROG, but it's got Wifi (and bluetooth) with an antenna.  Works quite well.  Z87 Pro.

I just don't know if the powerline adapters would improve performance even more.

This.

At one point I had six POE adapters in my home, throughput was under 10MB/s. Latency was 60-100ms higher than wifi on average, sometimes more.  Going across breakers in the panel will result in shockingly slow speeds, and even to get solid speeds on the same leg, your home's wiring has to be new(er), in good shape, and free of funky appliances that dump tons of noise back into the circuit.  The home I used them in was less than five years old.  They worked for what I was using them for.  The home I am in now is also less than give years old, and the POE adapters don't work worth a darn here.  YMMV but I'd say skip POE and stay with wifi.

Not sure I'd call them POE...more EOP.

Another thing to look at, what are the current network speeds you have between the computer and the router on wireless? If it's over 100 Mbps, you'd need to look for gigabit equipment for running lines to really see any improvement. Also look at the speed your ISP provides you with. Is gigabit intranet speeds really important when you only have  (plugin your download speed) Mbps down from your ISP?

I've used Netgear XAB-101v1 and v2 200 Mpbs adapters to stream video to my living room where I did't have ethernet run.  Most I ever got from these "200 Mbps" devices was ~50-75 Mpbs.  Then I ran ethernet there (off a gigbit router / hub and switches).



Those were Netgears were 2009 tech, nowadays they have 600 Mbps units.  Expect to get about 1/4 of the rated speed, especially crossing circuit breakers.  Don't plug them into surge suppressors but a extension cord is usually okay.



Currently I'm using a pair of Netgear XAB-101 v1s to connect a Windows Media Center extender in the kitchen.  I tried a set of TP-Link AV200 Nanos because I wante somethng that was available in case I wanted to add a couple more.  Those are highly rated on Amazon, but they shit the bed immediately for me (intially 85 Mps, then I "upgraded the firmware" and they broke).



The older Netgears are solid like a tank but they were expensive back in the day (and the two versions of the same model aren't compatible).  The various TP-Link powerline adapters are highly rated but when they are dead, they are dead.