Which is better a USB wireless adapter or a PCI card?

E

eyeatoma

Contributor
HI,

I have a dell XPS studio 435 MT which unbelievably only has 1 PCI Express 16 pin slot. It has 3 pci express 1x slot, but that can't be used for a wireless adapter thats offered by most companies.

I was looking at this product, but found that it won't fit onto my mobo.

Will I notice any lack of performance if I just opt for the USB wireless adapter, or with the data transfer rate/connectivity/etc be severely hindered. I would really appreciate some solid advice on this.

Wireless PCI card : Linksys by Cisco Wireless-G PCI Adapter WMP54G

Wireless USB

USB G adapter: Linksys by Cisco Compact Wireless-G USB Adapter WUSB54GC

USB N adapter: Linksys by Cisco Wireless-N USB Network Adapter with Dual-Band WUSB600N

Also if I'm going for the USB adapter, should I go for the wireless G adapter or the N adapter. What's the difference?

I plan on getting a wireless router as well the G if I'm using the G adapter and the N if I'm going with the N adapter.

G router: Linksys by Cisco Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54G2

N router: Linksys by Cisco RangePlus-n Wireless Router WRT110
Should I just plug in the cable going from the modem provided by my ISP (Tata Indicom) and plug that into the Linksys router? Or would I plug it straight into the Linksys router and bypass the TATA modem all together?
 
first of all go for usb as it is more convenient and can be used at multiple places...... The main diff between G&N network is the bandwidth and the frequency it works at. Cost wise G is better but N is future for now but costly, most hardware and hotspots specially in India are not N compatible. Also if you adapt N and invest for speed, till the time you use the N speed, some other bottleneck will creep in...... a link is as strongest as the weakest link .... if you buy a usb stick... it will directly plug into the system.... modem does not have a role here .... if you have switch based multiport wireless router, you can share the internet connection in home network.
 
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