I have recently upgraded my wi-fi card from a Intel wireless n-130 to the AC 7260 as well Andrew.I am getting amazing speeds with my Netgear R6100AC wireless router. As far as your connectivity issues are concerned i have yet to experience that as a problem, however my laptop will no longer remember my network settings. i did some digging and realized that neither Intel or Windows is generating the .xml file needed to be saved as a network profile. currently trying to figure out how to generate that info so i can manually save it. you can view your network profiles by opening cmd (Start+R) -> typing: netsh wlan show profiles<enter>. I am 90% sure this issue is related to our problems. hope this helps
Samsung, Intel Pentium B950, Windows 8.1 Pro x64, Intel Wireless Dual Band AC-7260 w/ Bluetooth4: Driver v.16.6.0.8