TRENDnet TEW-623PI Wireless N PCI card Author: Gh0sTly -- Posted: 2009-02-10
Wireless cards are becoming the norm now for most people's network configuration, and you should be able to use that network to its fullest. Doing so would mean that you should be using Wireless N. Today, we will review the TRENDnet TEW-623PI Wireless N PCI card, and show you just how much faster the new 802.11n spec is compared to 802.11g.
The design of the TEW-623PI is very straightforward. It operates in a standard PCI slot, and has 3 antennas for MIMO use. The card itself has about a 45 degree angle on the backside of it to eliminate any issues of airflow for cards that need it, like video cards. You get three 2dBi gain antennas on reverse SMA connectors. These are rather standard antennas, as well as the connector, so if you wanted to, you can always replace them with a higher gain antenna set.
This card is wireless n(820.11n 2.0 DRAFT) capable, as well as backwards compatible with wireless b/g, so you wont ever really need any other card if you goto a lan party that is operating with both wireless and wired computers.
The drivers for this card are very straightforward and do not install anything unneeded, and will rely on XP/Vista\'s Wireless Zero Configuration Utility. I find this to be the most optimal setting, as both OS\'s handle wireless settings very well. The card does fully support both OS\'s in 32bit and 64bit forms, so no worries there. You also get the option to install a free copy of McAfee Antivirus software that is included on the driver disk.
For our transfer speed tests, we used a 1.86gb RAR file and we time the transfer as well as monitor its transfer rate. We used a competitors wireless 54g card for a good speed comparison.
As you can see, the wireless n transfer speeds are over double what wireless g is capable of accomplishing. This is even more evident in the transfer time.
Overall, the card is very fast, and is the perfect accompaniment to a Wireless N network, be it single or dual band. Its also an affordable entry into Wireless N, so you could start changing your network over one PC at a time.
