wireless dongle usb 2 vs usb 3 vs pci express

Moreover, the ability to just plug the USB dongle and instantly gain WiFi connectivity sounds significantly easier than having to fiddle with a PCIe card during the installation process.

When comparing a PCIe WiFi card vs USB WiFi adapters people tend to often forget that a USB WiFi adapter can start at 5$, which is dirt cheap for the ability to connect to a network! If you have decided to go for a USB WiFi adapter instead of the PCIe route, then you will benefit from lower costs for your adapter and a very easy installation process. This can become tricky if your motherboard comes equipped with only 1 PCIe slot, or if you are already using the extra PCIe slots for other expansion cards such as a sound card. The installation process for a PCIe adapter albeit simple still involves opening up your PC and finding a free PCIe slot you can use for your adapter. This might be an issue if you were hoping to connect your PC to the WiFi network for cheap. The biggest downsides of purchasing a PCIe WiFi adapter are the cost and the higher complexity of the installation process.Ī PCIe WiFi adapter can cost anywhere from 20$ for the budget options, and up to 60$ or even more for the advanced networking cards. It is also worth noting that in this PCIe vs USB WiFi debate, most of the high-end adapters in the PCIe category can offer speeds of up to 2.1 Gb/s when in the 5GHz band or speeds of up to 1 Gb/s when operating in the 2.4GHz band.īy comparison, even when considering the maximum bandwidth potential of a USB 3.0 adapter coupled with 802.11ac WiFi, this still only results in a measly 867 Mbps over 802.11ac 5 GHz.

This is mainly due to the fact that most PCIe adapter cards come equipped with multiple antennas that can take advantage of multiple-input-multiple-output ( MIMO) spatial multiplexing which boosts your WiFi signal reception. A PCIe WiFi Card vs a USB WiFi dongle offers a lot more network features and capabilities as these adapters can offer more speed and a reliable signal overall.

Wireless dongle usb 2 vs usb 3 vs pci express