Here's a list of products reported to be supported by the Realtek drivers. Surely you can find another low-profile one on that list. Be aware that if you want it internal to your case, you still need an adapter cable because the internal thing is a motherboard header, not a full USB port. If you don't mind it being external, you can just plug it in like normal.
Code:
"ASUS_USB-AC56"
"ASUS_USB-N10"
"ASUS_USB-N10E"
"ASUS_USB-N13"
"AboCom_8178"
"AboCom_8189"
"Abocom_0811"
"Abocom_88EU"
"Abocom_AC"
"Amigo"
"AzureWave"
"Belkin_1004"
"Belkin_1102"
"Belkin_2102"
"Belkin_2103"
"Belkin_F9L1106_v2"
"Belkin_F9L1106v2"
"Buffallo_25D"
"Buffallo_433DM"
"Compare-8010"
"Compare-8011"
"Corega"
"D-Link_DWA-131"
"D-Link_DWA-131E"
"DLINK_DWA123"
"DLINK_DWA125"
"DLINK_GO_USB_N150"
"DLink-DWA121"
"DLink-DWA123"
"DLink-DWA131B1"
"DLink-DWA132"
"DLink-DWA133"
"DLink-DWA135"
"Dlink_DWA-171"
"Dlink_DWA-172"
"Dlink_DWA-180"
"Dlink_DWA-182"
"Dlink_DWA-182_B1"
"Dlink_DWA-183"
"ELECOM WDC-150SU2M"
"ELECOM WDC-300SU2S"
"ELECOM_WDC-433DU2"
"Edimax_7811"
"Edimax_7822"
"Edimax_AC600"
"Edimax_EW-7811UAC"
"Edimax_EW-7822UAC"
"Edimax_GLP"
"EnGenius_AC"
"Feixun_90"
"Feixun_91"
"HP"
"Hawking_8811AU"
"Hawking_8812AU"
"Hawking_HW7ACU"
"Hawking_HWDN3"
"Hawking_HWUN4"
"Hercules_HWUm300"
"Hercules_HWUp150"
"IO_DATA"
"IO_DATA_AC433"
"IO_DATA_AC433UM"
"IO_DATA_WN-AC867U"
"Linksys_WUSB6300"
"Logitec"
"Logitec_LAN-W866ACU3"
"Loopcomm_ACA1"
"Netgear_A6100"
"Netgear_N300MA"
"Netgear_WNA1000M"
"Netgear_WNA3100M"
"NetweeN_91"
"PCI_BT-Micro3H2X"
"PCI_GW-300S"
"PCI_GW_USEco300"
"PCI_GW_USLight"
"PCI_GW_USNano2"
"PCI_GW_USValue_EZ"
"PCI_SW_WF02-AD15"
"Planex_GW-450S"
"Planex_GW-900D"
"RTL8188CTV"
"RTL8188CTV_0A8A"
"RTL8188CTV_8011"
"RTL8188CU"
"RTL8188CUS_1E1E"
"RTL8188CUS_2E2E"
"RTL8188CUS_5088"
"RTL8188CUS_Combo"
"RTL8188CUS_Combo_AFF8"
"RTL8188CUS_Combo_AFFB"
"RTL8188CUS_Combo_AFFC"
"RTL8188CUS_Solo"
"RTL8188CUS_VL"
"RTL8188CUS_solo_AFF7"
"RTL8188CUS_solo_AFF9"
"RTL8188CUS_solo_AFFA"
"RTL8188EU"
"RTL8188EU_ETV"
"RTL8188EU_VAU"
"RTL8188RU"
"RTL8188RU_Netcore"
"RTL8192CU"
"RTL8192CU_8177"
"RTL8192CU_8178"
"RTL8192EU"
"RTL8192EU-2"
"RTL8811AU"
"RTL8812AU"
"RTL8812AU-VL"
"RTL8812AU-VN"
"RTL8812AU-VS"
"Sitecom WLA-1100"
"Sitecom WLA-2100"
"Sitecom_WL365"
"Sitecom_WLA-2104"
"Sitecom_WLA1001v1"
"Sitecom_WLA2102"
"Sitecom_WLA4001"
"Sitecom_WLA7100"
"TEW_804UB"
"TEW_805UB"
"TPLink_8812"
"TP_Link"
"TrendNet_804B"
"TrendNet_805B"
"Trendnet_624D"
"Trendnet_648B"
"Western_AC"
"ZyXEL"
"ZyXEL_AC"
There's no one size fits all. You can get a SM951 PCIe x4 AHCI m.2 SSD and it would be incredibly fast, or an 850 EVO SATA m.2 SSD and it would be fast and cheap, or a 2.5" hard drive and it would by slow and even cheaper. You can get 128MB or 1 TB (or 2 TB+ for the mechanical drive). You can get 8GB or 16GB of RAM, at base speed or higher frequency or lower CAS Latency.
Finally, be aware that the i7 is rated at 28W vs. the i5 at 15W. It means the fan on the i7 is louder when it does spin up (which, granted, is fairly rare). I guess it depends on whether you put more value on a quieter machine or more CPU horsepower (the GPU seems fairly equivalent, but there's a noticeable difference in CPU Geekbench scores).