Wireless Type Question

Is there really a difference between using a PCI wireless card vs a PCI express card?

I'm going to need to use wireless over Christmas break and maybe next summer as well since my parents house isn't the newest (so it doesn't have ethernet connections in rooms and the cable only comes in downstairs from my room). I can't just run a ethernet cable up to my desktop or anything like that so my only option is to use wireless. In my old desktop at the house I used a pci wireless card and it ran great but now that its a couple years later and pci express is easily available. I have both types of slots open in my desktop.

For example what I'm glancing at:
pci express: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166063
pci: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833340013

either card should work fine... although the pci-ex card supports 802.11N which is faster if you ever plan have a router that supports 802.11N in the future. I'm assuming your parent's only have a 802.11b/g router so the pci-ex 802N card gives you no performance advantage over the pci 802g card.

Ethernet is always better but as long as no one else is doing a lot of traffic (big download/upload) on the wifi you should be fine.

Never used either Brand, but DLink is my favourite.
Umm... it shouldn't make too much of a difference between PCI and PCI-E.
I think PCI-E is a bit faster, but PCI will do just fine because there isn't enough data passing by to bottleneck anything.
And newer MOBOs don't have PCI slots. So if you plan to keep this for a while, get a PCI-E, but if you plan to use this riht now and use it on an older computer later, get PCI.

either card should work fine... although the pci-ex card supports 802.11N which is faster if you ever plan have a router that supports 802.11N in the future. I'm assuming your parent's only have a 802.11b/g router so the pci-ex 802N card gives you no performance advantage over the pci 802g card.

Ethernet is always better but as long as no one else is doing a lot of traffic (big download/upload) on the wifi you should be fine.

They are actually both N cards, the labeling just says B/G and draft N. I do have a N router myself that I'll be setting up as well (cause my parents do only have a G router which is all they need). But yeah, I'll pretty much be the only one using the wireless.

And newer MOBOs don't have PCI slots. So if you plan to keep this for a while, get a PCI-E, but if you plan to use this riht now and use it on an older computer later, get PCI.

I don't normally change equipment over to new builds since I don't try to update every year, just every 3-4 yrs. I do have a brand new build actually that does have regular pci slots since I didn't go crazy expensive on my mobo but just in case I do need it later on in a different computer, I guess it would just make sense to get the pci-e card.

Get PCI-E then

oh true, i missed that about the PCI card... if you have an N router and a mobo with a free PCI-E slot then PCI-e is the way to go since the price diff is negligible. PCI is prettymuch being phased out on new mobos anyways.

True.

PCI is prettymuch being phased out on new mobos anyways.

ok, I'll probably stick with the pci-e version then. thanks