[SOLVED] Ethernet vs PCIE Wifi Card vs USB?

[SawmMawia]

Which one is best?

 

[Jason H.]

Which one is best?

Wired Ethernet connection will always be most reliable and have higher speeds with less lag.

In my experience PCIE WiFi is marginally better than USB WiFi dongles, but I would still rather have PCIE as they have on board heatsinks and external antennas which can give a better experience, but connection quality is marginally better at best. Also, a lot of PCIE devices cost right around the same price as a USB dongle, so why not.

A thing to not is that WiFi introduces ping variancy which is why WiFi is less than desirable for gaming.

But if your just downloading/uploading files or web surfing, a PCIE WiFi device would work fine, but you may not get the max speeds you pay for from your ISP as WiFi is not very reliable in terms of consistent speed.

 

[SamirD]

First of all, I think we all know what you meant, but it is important to distinguish that both wired and wireless ethernet are both ethernet and that usb is a systems interface, not a network one. Now, with that out of the way, let's address what your real question is--Wired Ethernet vs PCIE wifi vs USB ethernet(?).

A wired ethernet connection will almost automatically be faster/better than anything else, no matter what the interface for that wired connection, usb, pcie, or anything else.

Next is wireless, and this is always hit or miss and can vary wildly due to the interface (no matter what it is), but mainly because of what is in the airwaves at any given moment. Even in ideal conditions, latency will be much worse than a wired connection (as mentioned previously).

There are other forms of wired ethernet that use a different medium such as powerline, moca, and vdsl adapters. These will almost certainly be better in latency than wireless, but sometimes cannot match the bandwidth of wireless, so it depends on the use case which would be best.

Hope this helps!