Intel Wifi cards - range comparison question

I have a fleet of Laitude D630 laptops that we use as a wireless lab. We have recently switched from having access points on the carts that house the computers themselves to having building-wide WLANs. Coverage according to our site-surveys seems to be good, but we are having more frequent dropouts in wireless connectivity.

Our laptops have the older Intel 3945ABG cards. I am contemplating switching to slightly newer (they're the least expensive option, and I'm on a budget) Intel 4965AGN cards, which would add both 802.11N and MIMO functions. I'm wondering --has anyone ever seen a range comparison done between, say the Intel 3945, 4965, 5100/5300, etc. cards? While the new features are nice, I don't wish to spend a few hundred dollars only to find I'm no better off than before.

Additional notes: We're using Cisco (enterprise, not Linksys-by-Cisco) access points. We have the latest Intel drivers, and the cards are set to maximum performance in that driver software. The laptops are running XP SP3.

 

I don't recall such a test. There's a general opinion that Intel 5300 is far better than previous Intel cards and there's a comparison test here that Intel won (although against non-Intel opposition).
If 5300 is not too expensive it's probably the best reasonably priced card.

 

Unfortunately, it's 2-3 times the price of the 4965AGN. I'm kind of down to that and the 5100 (available for about the same price), but the extra channels of the 4965 are appealing.

I agree that I'd buy the 5300 if price weren't an issue. Since it is, I'm working on making sure that I actually get enough out of the 4965AGN cards to justify what I'm doing, before I do it.

 

Although technically 5100 is almost identical to 5300 it is also notorious for causing problems so given the choice I'd go for 4965.
4965 doesn’t like hidden SSIDs though- it doesn't seem to be able to reconnect to some APs that use hidden SSID and it seems APs are not to blame here.

 

Our SSIDs aren't hidden, so no issue there.

I can get used 4965AGN cards for about $13 apiece, as opposed to the 5300 cards (around $28-30 each), so the answer is pretty clear, then. Thanks for the input.