A question on wireless throughput

[Radium_Angel]

So, I have a router, that will run on N and G band. Currently on N. (Netgear R6080)

I get 50 down and up, which is what I pay for, so that's good (while my router is on the opposite side of the house, length-wise, I have a clear visual to it) using a cheap PCIe N wireless card (Qualcom Atheros AR938x)

 

Here is the challenge:

The wireless card is taking up my last free PCIe slot, but I have a free PCI slot in my PC (Dell Precision T5610) so my question if I buy a PCI wireless N card, will my throughput drop, or does the PCI slot have enough bandwidth to handle the wireless without affecting speeds?

[Windows7ge]

Ripped from Google:

Quote

The 32-bit PCI bus has a maximum speed of 33 MHz, which allows a maximum of 133 MB of data to pass through the bus per second. The 64-bit PCI-X bus has twice the bus width of PCI. Different PCI-X specifications allow different rates of data transfer, anywhere from 512 MB to 1 GB of data per second.

So you should be in the clear even considering overhead.

[Windows7ge]

Honestly USB3 has significantly more bandwidth. It may be your better option to buy one of those dongles instead of going backwards to PCI.

[akio123008]

9 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Honestly USB3 has significantly more bandwidth. It may be your better option to buy one of those dongles instead of going backwards to PCI.

but the PCI 133 MB/s is more than a gigabit of throughput and therefore like 20 times what's required here so it should do. 

 

Personally (given the PCI card isn't very expensive or something) I'd go for the PCI card. It's more likely you'll want to use those USB ports for something else later on than it is that you'll need that PCI slot for anything else.

[Windows7ge]

Just now, akio123008 said:

but the PCI 133 MB/s is more than a gigabit of throughput and therefore like 20 times what's required here so it should do. 

This is true but technologically it's backwards. Should he/she ever upgrade the router in the future the PCI NIC will not support the newer wireless standards. It'd be an extra unnecessary purchase down the road.

 

4 minutes ago, akio123008 said:

Personally (given the PCI card isn't very expensive or something) I'd go for the PCI card. It's more likely you'll want to use those USB ports for something else later on than it is that you'll need that PCI slot for anything else.

USB hubs exist and chances are he/she won't be saturating any one port with any one or multiple devices where they can't use another available USB3 port. According to the documentation this computer has 4 of them. That's quite sufficient to give one to a USB3 Wi-Fi dongle.

[Radium_Angel]

1 hour ago, Windows7ge said:

USB3 Wi-Fi dongle

I've used one before, and perhaps I got a bum one, but I was underwhelmed by it, and it was constantly overheating, all the same, I'm open to looking into another one if you have a suggestion.

2 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

So you should be in the clear even considering overhead.

Nice, now to find one, if they are still even made

[Windows7ge]

6 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

I've used one before, and perhaps I got a bum one, but I was underwhelmed by it, and it was constantly overheating, all the same, I'm open to looking into another one if you have a suggestion.

 

Nice, now to find one, if they are still even made

A long time ago I had one and it worked fine for my 2.4GHz needs. I'll attempt to find it when I find some time.

[beersykins]

10 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

50 down and up

 

10 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

does the PCI slot have enough bandwidth to handle the wireless

Bruh even ISA could do about 8 MB/sec (~64 mbit)  

 

I used one of the Trendnet AC1200 dongles for a while which did okay.  Most people buy the cheapest POS on the market and wonder why they have issues.

[Radium_Angel]

9 hours ago, beersykins said:

Most people buy the cheapest POS on the market and wonder why they have issues.

That's been my experience with USB dongles, except they haven't been cheap (about 30$ US or so) hence why I wanted to go PCI N