pci or usb wifi for gaming?


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my nephew is getting the computer in my sig, he needs it to have wifi for his kiddie games, he plays wizard 101 which is requires constant internet like regular games. what do you guys recommend, is a usb option better or worse than pci? I don't really want to spend more than $20-25. if it looses connection every hour or two thats not so bad, I just don't want something going out every 10 minutes.

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Well, ethernet gaming is more consistent and reliable than wi-fi and it always will be, unless they come up with a wireless signal that is unaffected by objects and other electrical / wireless / infrared / electromagnetic signals.

But, as long as you get a decent usb dongle (mid-high range from netgear, for example) and avoid Belkin, Zyxel and the cheapest from any brand then you should be perfectly fine.

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Manufacturers aren't even bothering with PCI wireless cards any more, most newer adapters are USB. If you want an adapter with a relatively recent chipset in it, you'll have to go with USB.

For a system like this, USB seems like the logical choice anyway. Cheap and easy to install.

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Manufacturers aren't even bothering with PCI wireless cards any more, most newer adapters are USB. If you want an adapter with a relatively recent chipset in it, you'll have to go with USB.

For a system like this, USB seems like the logical choice anyway. Cheap and easy to install.

This.

Plus usb's easier to remove if it gets busted :)

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my nephew is getting the computer in my sig, he needs it to have wifi for his kiddie games, he plays wizard 101 which is requires constant internet like regular games. what do you guys recommend, is a usb option better or worse than pci? I don't really want to spend more than $20-25. if it looses connection every hour or two thats not so bad, I just don't want something going out every 10 minutes.

Preferably for gaming, wired, but if you must use WiFi, not USB since USB uses the CPU, so any USB device will reduce the available CPU for other things like the game. especially devices like WiFi that will handle a lot of traffic.

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Preferably for gaming, wired, but if you must use WiFi, not USB since USB uses the CPU, so any USB device will reduce the available CPU for other things like the game. especially devices like WiFi that will handle a lot of traffic.

You guys have read the original post, right? We're not exactly talking about bandwidth-intensive games here. His nephew plays Wizard 101, an online MMORPG for kids.

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Doesn't have anythign to do with bandwidth. my point wasn't bandwidth or latency anyway though. but the fact that USB is a horrible CPU sucking technology

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Doesn't have anythign to do with bandwidth. my point wasn't bandwidth or latency anyway though. but the fact that USB is a horrible CPU sucking technology

Oh come on. Unless it has the worst drivers since Nvidia & Vista it's not going to have any sort of noticeable effect on CPU performance unless you're running a 1.0Ghz Celeron processor.

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Oh come on. Unless it has the worst drivers since Nvidia & Vista it's not going to have any sort of noticeable effect on CPU performance unless you're running a 1.0Ghz Celeron processor.

Well that depends entirely on what you're doing. of course with WiFi it's not just about the CPU usage, but also interrupts and all the traffic you're routing through the internal memory and cpu systems. this causes other things on the computer to have to wait or react slowly despite the CPU being available since everythign have to wait for all the network traffic that's holding everything up.

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I would say PCI, because it will probably be more reliable.

I was one of the few suckers who, when I had an XBox 360, bought the $100 USB wireless adapter to avoid running cables. It was horrible. I lagged like crazy all the time, and switching to a cabled connection fixed the issue. Now I've sold the 360 and I play with my PS3 and its built in wireless on the same network/router I've had for years and I have no issues whatsoever. It could have been poor hardware on Microsoft's part, but ever since then I avoid USB wireless adapters. That and on the few occasions that I've used them with PCs they tend to get really really hot.

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