Belkin F5D7000 Wireless G Desktop Card Vs Linksys WMP54 Wireless-G PCI Adapter

Wireless networking has become extremely popular in the past few years, due to falling prices, faster speeds, and rising throughput rates. Currently, the most commonly available wireless products use the wireless 802.11g 2.4GHz standard, which allows very fast connections of up to 54Mbs.

For this review, I decided to cut the (LAN) cable and test two 802.11g wireless PCI cards: the Belkin F5D7000 Wireless G Desktop Card ($49.99 at newegg.com) and the Linksys WMP54 Wireless-G PCI Adapter ($56.00 at newegg.com). I scored the cards on (1) Installation, (2) Software, Drivers, and Configuration, (3) Range, and (4) Security.

Test System Configuration

I tested each card on two different computer systems, each with different hardware configurations and operating systems, using my existing wireless network.
Belkin Card Test Systems:

Alienware Aurora
CPU: AMD Athlon 1600+
RAM: 1GB
Operating System: Dual-Boot Windows XP Home sp2/Ubuntu Linux v7.04

HP Pavilion 6400Z
CPU: Intel P2 400MHz
RAM: 256
Operating System: Windows 2000 sp4

Linksys Card Test Systems:

Self-Built PC
CPU: Intel P4 2.4GHz
RAM: 1GB
Operating System: Windows XP Pro sp2

Alienware Aurora
CPU: AMD Athlon64 4000+
RAM: 2GB
Operating System: Windows XP Home sp2

Wireless Network/Internet Connection

I used my existing Apple Airport wireless 802.11 network, which consists of one Airport Extreme base station and one Airport Express used as a range extender. The wireless network connects to the internet using my 1.5Mbs cable broadband connection.

1. Installation