Advice on a wireless card or a WiFi USB adapter

[rippley5150]

Hello
I'm looking to either get a wireless card or a USB WiFi adapter. Any thoughts or advice on which is the better buy? I'm guessing the wireless card is. It'll be going into an HP Z420 desk top. Thanks.

 

[Gabriel Pike]

I normally prefer a card but for most networks either will suffice. Since you are getting something new it might be better if you get a WiFi 6 card to future proof it a little. It will be a little more expensive but it will provide better throughput as internet speeds go up and more devices are connected to a WiFi 6 router.

 

[DelJo63]

Think of the software necessary to make this work.

First the USB Adaptor must map to the motherboard and perform flawlessly as USB.

The the device firmware must then translate USB into WiFi seamlessly.

The firmware code path length just gets longer, performance lags AND there's the probability that there could be issues with the implementation.

For me, I would go with the card to shorten the code path length

 

[rippley5150]

Cool. Thanks for the advice. I'll be going the card route.