A desktop workstation's onboard Ethernet controller has failed. The motherboard has one open PCIe x1 slot and one open legacy 32-bit PCI slot. To obtain the fastest wired network throughput possible with the existing motherboard, which expansion card should the technician install?
A USB 3.0 802.11ac wireless network adapter
A PCIe 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet network interface card
A legacy 32-bit PCI 10/100 Ethernet network interface card
A PCIe NIC is the best choice because the PCI Express bus delivers hundreds of megabytes per second per lane (250 MB/s in PCIe 1.0; higher in later versions), easily supporting Gigabit and multi-Gigabit Ethernet. The older 32-bit, 33 MHz PCI bus peaks at about 133 MB/s, creating a bottleneck for high-speed NICs. USB-based or wireless adapters can work but introduce additional overhead or variable performance that is generally slower and less consistent than a wired PCIe solution.
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