PCI card or USB adapter for desktop wifi

[SlashieDuffy]

I am only able to have a wireless connection for my desktop. I am a new PC gamer and I was wondering which solution for WiFi would work best, PCI or USB. I don't like the fact that with the USB it takes up a USB port but if it works better than PCI, I'm willing to sacrifice. Which one of either would you guys recommend. My router is a linksys WRT54G wireless-G 2.4 GHz if it makes a difference. Thanks for any help.

 

[bill001g]

Likely will make no difference. You are running old 802.11g anyway.

The key advantage to a PCI is it is much easier to get a multi antenna configuration which in theory give more throughput. But the placement of the antenna so close to the case also can block signals leading to less throughput. USB used to be the bottleneck but usb2 solved most that and now we have usb3 that is much faster than even most gig ethernet ports.

Still most these things make no difference to you. You can only run 802.11g which can only run 54m max and only can use a single antenna.

I tend to prefer the USB cards just because I can buy a cheap 15ft extension cable and use it to put the USB stick where it gets the strongest wireless signal. Hooking antenna cable to the PCI cards is possible but unlike the USB the more cable you use the more loss you get.