In wireless communications, spectrum is a scarce resource and hence imposes a high cost on the high data rate transmission. Fortunately, the emergence of multiple antenna system has opened another very resourceful dimension – space, for information transmission in the air. It has been demonstrated that multiple antenna system provides very promising gain in capacity without increasing the use of spectrum, reliability, throughput, power consumption and less sensitivity to fading, hence leading to a breakthrough in the data rate of wireless communication systems. Since then, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system has become one of the major focuses in the research community of wireless communications and information theory. The study of the performance limits of MIMO system becomes very important since it gives a lot of insights in understanding and designing the practical MIMO systems. There are many schemes that can be applied to MIMO systems such as space time block codes, space time trellis codes, and the Vertical Bell Labs Space-Time Architecture (V-BLAST). In this paper, we study the performance of general MIMO system, the general V-BLAST architecture with Maximum Likelihood (ML), the Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC), Zero-Forcing (ZF), Minimum Mean- Square Error (MMSE) and Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC) detectors in fading channels. Based on bit error rate, we show the performance of these receiver schemes indicates that the ordered SIC detector with Maximum-Likelihood (ML) detection most effectively balances the accuracy of symbol detection. SIC receiver based on ZF or MMSE combined with symbol cancellation and optimal ordering to improve the performance with lower complexity and compare the computational complexity of these schemes with other existence model. Finally, the paper addresses the current questions regarding the integration of MIMO system in practical wireless systems and standards.