Wireless N or Wired?

Hello everyone, been a while since I asked a question but here's a rather simple one.

My PC is 10 ft away from my router, isn't going to change. It's the Encore wireless N Router (doesn't support gigabit wired), and I have it plugged into my onboard marvell yukon gigabit ethernet on my P5E.

I do transfer large (360MB, guess what that is) files over the network quite a bit and have HDs that can sustain +100mb/s transferring sooo....

Would either latency or bandwidth improve (or decrease) if I were to put in a PCI encore wireless N card (I have several in the house for my other PCs, they're great).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833180052
on sale for $20 btw, freakin jump on em! EMCLTLN44
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833180054

Two things here really.

1. Yes, the connection will be faster if you get a Wireless-N card. A little bit. Theoretically.

2. Actual speed will depend on how many other people in your area are in contention for the N channels, how many other devices you have on the LAN (Remember, Wireless is a shared-bus architecture utilising CSMA/CD and is inherently Half-duplex. The more computers you have on the network (and this includes cellphones, Gameboys, etc etc), the slower it will be.

In addition to this, you face: Connection issues (Lots more dropped / problem connections than on wired), security risks (People accessing your network or device, or packet sniffing. Remember, when you transmit wirelessly, you send your personal data out to EVERYONE within about a 100m radius), and a half-duplex only connection. Also you have the cost of buying a new card.

My recommendation - stick with 100Mbps wired. Get a Cat6 network cable so that when you upgrade to a router that supports gigabit ethernet, you can transition straight over.

Alternatively, you can get a gigabit switch to connect computers, HDs, etc together, and connect the switch to your Encore router (I'm assuming you don't have greater than a 100Mbps connection to the 'Net... ).

Here is a 5-port Gigabit Ethernet switch on eBay for £25 (Roughly.. $45 or so? You might be able to get a better deal in the US though).

latency wont improve, it still works by sending packets in bursts and not "streaming" so to speak like wired.

WPA/WPA2 would be secure enough, most people don't know the first thing about hacking wireless network.

Thanks both for the advice. Sounds like a gigabit switch will make the most sense! to Ebay i go!

do you like your encore N adaptors?

love em, saw them on sale, picked up two just for future use with customers.

sweet i'll have tog rab one when i can

Mr.Guvernment said:

latency wont improve, it still works by sending packets in bursts and not "streaming" so to speak like wired.

WPA/WPA2 would be secure enough, most people don't know the first thing about hacking wireless network.

Click to expand...

kinda of easy to crack wifi these days with backtrack

SuperMiguel said:

kinda of easy to crack wifi these days with backtrack

Click to expand...

WPA + AES, with a 64 char random password, good luck with that


10 ft? Do the sensible thing and wire it!