Is a USB Ethernet device better than a PCI Card?
USB Ethernet Devices are great and have their place, but if you’re on an uncapped download service and chasing every last bit of speed, then they are a little lacking. USB has a bit of a bottleneck around the 1mByte/sec, so speeds in excess of that start to flatten & peak out, even if it does say 10/100 on the box. (The device may be capable of it but the USB port isn’t) My tests show that for capped plans there is nothing in it and it doesn’t matter which you choose. However for uncapped downloads, the PCI will get a start on the USB fairly early in the download and then streak away where the USB starts to fall off. This graph illustrates the effect but is just an example and is by no means accurate. Suffice to say that if you have a service that exceeds 200 kBytes/sec, then choose an Ethernet connection over USB. Update: USB 2.0 is much, much faster than USB 1.0 & 1.1. If you have a Motherboard and USB device that supports USB 2.0, you’re laughing and will not notice much of a speed
