There are very few good
network performance benchmark tests available in the
public domain these days. We looked at NetCPS and a
few others but in the end were more comfortable with an
old fashioned timed run of a cut and paste command from
one desktop on the network to another.
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Network Performance Tests |
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A photo finish |
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We set up the
network two ways, the wired setup utilized two 10/100
Ethernet NICs running through the hub on the Actiontec
Gateway and setup for a straight 10/100 Ethernet
connection. The wireless setup utilized the
Actiontec Wireless USB NIC on one machine and the host
machine was still connected to the hub with a 10/100 card.
Here are the results.
As you can
see, the wired connection shows great performance
transferring a 66 Meg file in less than one minute.
The USB wireless setup took more than three times as long
to deliver its payload. However, although this seems
like a large delta in performance, the wireless setup
streamed MPEG video across the network without so much as
a skip and LAN games like Quake3 Arena also performed
transparently, all with the convenience of not being
tethered to the wall.
We also
performed an Internet Download Test from the HotHardware
FTP Server, to test connection speed for the Wireless USB
NIC versus a 10/100 Connection to the Hub on the Gateway.
We then tested a direct connection to our Cable Modem with
the 10/100 PCI NIC we used in our main host machine, just
as a reference point. We think you'll be surprised
with the results.
We aren't sure
what was more surprising, the fact that the Wireless USB
connection to the Gateway had slightly faster download
speed than a wired ethernet connection to the hub or the
fact that the wireless connection was nearly as fast as a
direct link to the cable modem. Regardless, all
connections were pushing close to the same bandwidth limit
and the performance of our network, with respect to
internet connection sharing, was superb.
Wireless
Networking for the home has certainly come a long way in
the past two years or so. The ease of setup with
this kit was excellent, with the exception of a few
minutes of pain with Tech Support, which really should
have been a non-issue. One of the things that
impressed us most about a Gateway setup is that any
machine in the network can have internet access to the
broadband connection, without having another machine
acting as a server on the network. The router inside
this box provides a constant connection to any machine
with a network connection. It is truly a thing of
beauty for the home user that, until recently, hasn't had
the power of a full featured Gateway at their disposal.
The cost of
the kit, as we have it configured in this article is
approximately $350, $150 for the Gateway and around $100
each for a Wireless USB NIC and PC Card. We would
have liked to have that wireless capability integrated
into the Gateway for this price, hence the term
"wireless-ready" used in its name we surmise.
Regardless, for fairly short money, end users can have a
full featured wireless network that is a snap to configure
and very reliable. Furthermore, during weeks of use
and testing, the network didn't drop a connection once.
We're giving
the Actiontec Wireless-Ready Home Gateway, Wireless PC
Cards and USB NICs a Heat Meter Rating of...
You have something meaningful to say or do you just
want to flap your gums? Get some in the Hot Hardware
Conference Room now!
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