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As
Dave mentioned in an earlier review of a similar product
from Actiontec, because there is a lack of good
network performance benchmarks available, we whipped out
the stopwatch and timed some tasks with the network
configured in a variety of ways to test performance.
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Network Performance Tests |
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Big Difference |
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What we did in
this first test in ZIP (using WinZip) some files to create
large compressed files of a certain size. Then we
copied the file from one machine on the network to the
another.
LOWER SCORES INDICATE BETTER
PERFORMANCE
The column at the left
indicates the size of the file we transferred, and the
other two columns indicate what type of network connection
we were using. In the "100BaseT Switched" tests,
both test machines were connected directly to the
NetPassage 16 with CAT 5 cables plugged into the built-in
4-Port switch. As you can see the speeds were very
fast. In the "11MB Wireless (PC Card)" tests, our
laptop was using a WL11 with a wireless connection to the
NP16, but the Athlon test system remained wired.
Needless to say, the performance delta was huge. We
also had one other "quirk" when using a wireless
connection. If we browsed to the wired system, and
tried to check the properties on large files, it would
occasionally take upwards of 2-3 minutes to access the
file properties. Web access, gaming or playing MP3s
from another machine using the wireless adapters was
completely transparent, and worked great. It seemed
that only when transferring large files was performance
sub-par. Perhaps we are just spoiled by the 100Mb
wired speeds though.
HIGHER SCORES INDICATE BETTER
PERFORMANCE
In this next batch of tests,
we downloaded AOL 7.0 from an America Online server at
around 1:00AM (net congestion is much lower late in the
evening here on the east coast of the United States, which
makes for more consistent transfers). We then took
our download speeds (in Kilobytes Per Second) at the
beginning, middle and at the end of the transfer and
averaged them to get the results posted above. In
the "Direct Connection" test, our cable modem was
connected directly to our Athlon test rig. In the
"10/100 Switched" test our test system and modem were
connected to the built-in 4-Port switch and in the
wireless tests, we were connected via a wireless link to
the gateway. As you can see, download speeds were
virtually the same across all the different interfaces.
We were very
pleased with the overall performance and feature set of
the Compex NetPassage 16 and the WLU11 and WL11 wireless
adapters. The Compex NetPassage 16 puts some very
useful and powerful capabilities into the hands of any
user looking to share and secure their broadband Internet
connections. At a street price hovering around $100
US for the NP 16, and around $60 US for the WLU11s and
WL11s, wireless networking is now available for a very
reasonable amount of money. The Compex products were
very easy to use and their site seems to offer a good
amount of support and information for beginners and
advanced users alike. We definitely recommend anyone
looking for a product similar to the NetPassage 16 take a
long, hard look at Compex's offerings. You'll be
hard pressed to find a competing product with the same
feature set at this price point. For it's
competitive price, ease of installation and great feature
set, we give the Compex NetPassage 16 a HotHardware Heat
Meter Rating of...
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