3. Wireless Performance

Testing Notes:
- All tests were run with the defaults of 54g-Auto mode and 11b protection disabled
- Frame bursting (Broadcom's Xpress technology) was not enabled
- All tests were run with the WL-100g CardBus client card's [reviewed here] antenna in the raised position

Given the 300g's unusual internal antenna arrangement, I thought I'd get less-than-average throughput vs. range performance. Figure 5 shows what I get for thinking...

Figure 5: Four location throughput
(click on the image for a full-sized view)

Although performance falls off quickly once you get a wall between the AP and client, none of the tests dipped below 14Mbps average throughput. When contrasted with what I've seen in testing other Broadcom-based devices, and especially considering the 300g's antenna setup, I was pleased to see such good performance.

NOTE: Sharp-eyed readers might notice that the 27Mbps best-case throughput is significantly higher than the 20Mbps or so that I usually see from 11g products. This is the result of some experimentation that I did as part of my Atheros Super-G NeedToKnow, and what I learned will now become part of my standard test setup. The key difference was changing from Win98SE to WinXP on the Ethernet test partner. For my equipment, at least, it raised the maximum throughput about 25% from 21 to almost 27Mbps!

I checked performance in three security modes with the following results:

These results show the expected throughput hit in WPA / TKIP mode due to the Broadcom chipset, but minimal loss running WEP or WPA with AES encryption. Another negative for the WPA-PSK / TKIP mode was that it locked up a few seconds into the test each time I tried it, requiring a reboot of the AP. However, the BETA firmware that ASUS sent at the last minute stopped the lockup and improved the throughput as shown in the table.

In all, surprisingly good performance, especially considering the unusual antenna configuration.

802.11g Wireless Performance Test Results

See details of how we test.