Wired or wireless

If I'm using my laptop to play online games, and I have a router that is working fine, What has the faster speed the wifi or hardwired to the router? Mikek

Reply to
amdx
Loading thread data ...

Use IPERF or preferably JPERF and measure your local speeds.

Gigabit wired ethernet will give you about 600 Mbits/sec if you setup jumbo packets. Otherwise, about 250 Mbits/sec. 100baseT will do about 85 Mbits/sec.

802.11g will do about 25 Mbits/sec maximum. Although there are claims of astounding performance with various MIMO configurations, the most I've seen is about 100 Mbits/sec on 2.4GHz and about 280 Mbits on 5.7GHz. Your results will vary.

In general, if your router hears any RF interference, it will slow down to help improve the BER (bit error rate). That means astounding performance is unlikely in an RF polluted environment. 5.7Ghz is much less crowded and offers double the bandwith (40MHz versus 20Mhz for

2.4GHz) to play with.

So, if you're running 5.7Ghz (802.11a) MIMO, you're probably doing ok. If not, run the cables. If you want the best possible speed, use

1000baseT (gigabit) wired ethernet.
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

How fast is your Internet connection?

Reply to
Warren Oates

~ If I'm using my laptop to play online games, and I have a router that is ~ working fine, What has the faster speed the wifi or hardwired to the router? ~ Mikek

Use wired if speed (throughput), latency and/or reliability are important to you.

Wireless wins if you like moving around while connected.

Aaron

Reply to
Aaron Leonard

Ok, I ask the question for my son, he's off at college. He uses a laptop and thinks a new computer will be faster. He want's to build a new computer, and I don't want to buy the parts! I read Jeff's response, and I think I'll part with some of my Cat-5 cable and connectors and see if that helps him. BTW, Speedtest.com says 15 megaBits per second down and

2 megaBits per second up, for my computer. Mikek

PS. I also don't want to encourage more playing games vs studying.

Reply to
amdx

He's correct. For gaming, raw CPU horsepower and video performance is what's important, not network speed. I suggest you download and run a gaming benchmark test from: The free versions are ok, but for $10, the video tweak tests are worthwhile. Warning, the downloaded tests are about 600MB which expands to a 1.5GB monster on installation. Note that there are different versions for DirectX 9, 10, and 11. I use the one for Dx9 (PCMark06) as I'm interested in comparing gaming machine performance, not how much I can squeeze out of the video card enhancements. There are also pages where you can view user results for various systems, video cards, and operating systems:

Try the Benchmark ticker. (It takes a long time for the screen to start filling with data.) It's interesting seeing what type of systems are out there being used for gaming. Hmm... it's not showing any data today. Grrr. Anyway, you can see how you stand against the highest scoring computers at: Here's my home desktop: I haven't run it on my laptop, so I can't do a comparison right now, but I think you'll find it much slower, especially the video performance.

Most of the home made game machines I've seen are unstable pieces of marginal junk. It takes experience and expertise to put together a machine that actually works well with bleeding edge games. They can also become very expensive with little resale value (except to other gamers). If he's never built a custom machine before, have him build something with emphasis on upgradability. Hint: Aluminum mini-tower case as he's going to be dragging it some.

If he's building a machine, he's learning. If he's playing on the machine, he's not learning. Too much studying is bad for the learning process. I learned more from the things I did wrong in college than any of the studying that I should have been doing.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Oops. That was something I threw together to test a video card for a customer. Here's my home computah: and office computah: Neither would be very good for gaming.

Incidentally, the winner of the fastest machine running 3dMark06 was: using a $430 video card. Note the other prices. Gaming is NOT cheap.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Oops 2.0. That was an old benchmark with a rather insipid PNY video card. New card and new monitor does better:

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Neither is college, when I responded to his request about a new computer, I listed dollar amounts for rent, food, pocket money, tuition, etc. that I'm paying, I stopped at $18,400. I thought that was enough to get the point through to him. 5 year program, only 4 more to go. :-) Mikek

Reply to
amdx

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.