I'm with everyone else. This so-killed "killer" nic is a total turkey. You should call it like it is: a total waste of money. If you'll run an advert like this with a title like "exposed" (I thought you'd had enough of this KillerNic crap and were finally calling them out!) then why wouldn't you doctor benchmarks? Poor show Tom's Hardware.
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admiral_grinder
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- Jul 31, 2008
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I'm wondering though if this card has better uses outside of gaming? The other day I transferred a DVD size ISO from a P4 computer across a gigabit switch to my main 6400+ machine using FTP with SSL The best speed I got was 10mbps (according to wkrellm) but I maxed the CPU on the P4. I wonder how much of that transfer would be offloaded from the CPU with this card.
Now that I think about it for as second, probably not much since I bet the hog was the encryption on the data. Even if I could have gained another 1~2 mb, that would make a difference.
Now that I think about it for as second, probably not much since I bet the hog was the encryption on the data. Even if I could have gained another 1~2 mb, that would make a difference.
designerfx
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man, this is honestly so bogus. How much does toms get paid just to compromise their journalistic integrity?
Wow Killer Nic should get with Killer Notebooks to offer the Uber Elite Rip Off Deluxe Version Notebook. It would cost $10 Grand and give you 10% better FPS and Lower your Ping by .000001ms!!! LOL
Does anyone buy this type of crap??? Really? so funny....
Does anyone buy this type of crap??? Really? so funny....
chaohsiangchen
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- Jul 28, 2008
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[citation][nom]wh3resmycar[/nom]maybe its the fault of the internet infrastructure itself, the ping. im from asia and i wont be joining euro cod4 servers anytime soon. geeez 4000 ping.[/citation]
That's called speed of light. Ping is measured by packet travel time, and it can't beat the speed of light. To get matters even worse, light travels slower in fibers. The speed of light is simply too slow.
That's called speed of light. Ping is measured by packet travel time, and it can't beat the speed of light. To get matters even worse, light travels slower in fibers. The speed of light is simply too slow.
The TOE engine is great for servers that must handle 1000's of clients. so a Dual NIC killer would be good in the server room. But for gamers, the nvidia is just as good, and a basic MB based NIC is good enough lately,
The money part does not sway me. If I could pay $150 and remove lag spikes I would. But lag spikes are more a Internet/server issue than your gaming rig.
I average about $1000 a year to upgrade my gaming rig. But I passed on the Killer NIC.
The money part does not sway me. If I could pay $150 and remove lag spikes I would. But lag spikes are more a Internet/server issue than your gaming rig.
I average about $1000 a year to upgrade my gaming rig. But I passed on the Killer NIC.
[citation][nom]kramermaniaxe[/nom]Bottom line, why pay over 100 dollars for a nic that already exists for free on your motherboard? heck, alot of motherboards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/motherboard have 2 nics today, running at gigabit speeds![/citation]
Except for the fact that we've demonstrated
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/killer-m1-nic,review-1083.html
Time and again
http://www.killernic.com/technology/llr.aspx
That "Gigabit speeds" don't do anything for latency. They maximize throughput. Those "NICs" on the motherboard are "free" for a reason - they don't actually do any networking operations.
If you'll note what the interview above says:
"Pretty much every enthusiast motherboard comes complete with at least one or two on-board Ethernet controllers. These on-board controllers often offer TCP Offloading. TCP Offloading has its place and gaming is not one of them in this author’s opinion. There has been a large misconception surrounding this for a long time. TCP Offloading is useless in gaming for two reasons: TCP Offloading is designed to increase throughput, not decrease latency and games do not use TCP packets for communication."
As always, feel free to reply if you've got more questions!
Thanks,
BFN Sean
Except for the fact that we've demonstrated
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/killer-m1-nic,review-1083.html
Time and again
http://www.killernic.com/technology/llr.aspx
That "Gigabit speeds" don't do anything for latency. They maximize throughput. Those "NICs" on the motherboard are "free" for a reason - they don't actually do any networking operations.
If you'll note what the interview above says:
"Pretty much every enthusiast motherboard comes complete with at least one or two on-board Ethernet controllers. These on-board controllers often offer TCP Offloading. TCP Offloading has its place and gaming is not one of them in this author’s opinion. There has been a large misconception surrounding this for a long time. TCP Offloading is useless in gaming for two reasons: TCP Offloading is designed to increase throughput, not decrease latency and games do not use TCP packets for communication."
As always, feel free to reply if you've got more questions!
Thanks,
BFN Sean
[citation][nom]kschoche[/nom]If they are charging $150 for a 10/100/1000 NIC why do they need to worry about advertising? Any fool who actually buys this crap wouldnt read a review on it anyways. Do you smell what Tom's advertising department is cooking for you?Stop 'reviewing' absolute trash. And furthermore, stop faking reviews for money, at least review their product if they are giving you the money for the review.[/citation]
This is a very serious allegation, but Tom's Guide did a review on this product long before we started advertising on Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/killer-m1-nic,review-1083.html
And if it were just a Gigabit NIC, it wouldn't cost that much to make. But as we've demonstrated repeatedly, it's much more than a Gigabit NIC.
This is a very serious allegation, but Tom's Guide did a review on this product long before we started advertising on Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/killer-m1-nic,review-1083.html
And if it were just a Gigabit NIC, it wouldn't cost that much to make. But as we've demonstrated repeatedly, it's much more than a Gigabit NIC.
[citation][nom]admiral_grinder[/nom]I'm wondering though if this card has better uses outside of gaming? The other day I transferred a DVD size ISO from a P4 computer across a gigabit switch to my main 6400+ machine using FTP with SSL The best speed I got was 10mbps (according to wkrellm) but I maxed the CPU on the P4. I wonder how much of that transfer would be offloaded from the CPU with this card.Now that I think about it for as second, probably not much since I bet the hog was the encryption on the data. Even if I could have gained another 1~2 mb, that would make a difference.[/citation]
It wouldn't help a file transfer, because file transfers perform better when optimized for throughput, like the Windows Network Stack already does.
But if you've got game data, which comes in smaller, discrete, more time-sensitive chunks, you want to optimize for throughput anddrop a hardware interrupt for every packet, so your game sits up and takes notice.
However, you never know what we have in store...
It wouldn't help a file transfer, because file transfers perform better when optimized for throughput, like the Windows Network Stack already does.
But if you've got game data, which comes in smaller, discrete, more time-sensitive chunks, you want to optimize for throughput anddrop a hardware interrupt for every packet, so your game sits up and takes notice.
However, you never know what we have in store...
[citation][nom]dobby[/nom]the best nics by far are intel server NICs, they cost a fraction of the Killer nic, yet is the most relaible most stable, (most simple?), and most supported NIC i have used.[/citation]
Yeah, and seeing how Harlan developed the architecture for both the Intel server NICs and the Killer NIC, you think he'd be able to see the difference?
Again, Harlan points out in the interview that server NICs are developed to optimize throughput, and not to optimize latency. Latency is key when it comes to online gaming, while throughput is key to large file transfers.
Yeah, and seeing how Harlan developed the architecture for both the Intel server NICs and the Killer NIC, you think he'd be able to see the difference?
Again, Harlan points out in the interview that server NICs are developed to optimize throughput, and not to optimize latency. Latency is key when it comes to online gaming, while throughput is key to large file transfers.
[citation][nom]Vy===Vulturetx[/nom]The TOE engine is great for servers that must handle 1000's of clients. so a Dual NIC killer would be good in the server room. But for gamers, the nvidia is just as good, and a basic MB based NIC is good enough lately,The money part does not sway me. If I could pay $150 and remove lag spikes I would. But lag spikes are more a Internet/server issue than your gaming rig.I average about $1000 a year to upgrade my gaming rig. But I passed on the Killer NIC.[/citation]
In the interview, Harlan notes that lag is a systemic issue with three actors - servers, the Internet, and clients.
As we've said repeatedly - You Can't Fix The Internet, The End Guy Is Hard.
However, not all lag spikes are server or Internet-caused. Killer can stomp out lag spikes on the client side by discretely delivering game packets the instant they arrive.
Any illustration:
You round a corner in CS:S. At the same time, two opponents round the same corner, your teammate throws a flashbang, the opposing team throws a frag, and everybody starts shooting.
A Typical software NIC will collect all those events into one larger packet before handing them off to the game, so both grenades, everybody's trigger pulls, any VoIP, they all arrive at the game at the same time. CHUNK. Then the CPU not only has to do the heavy lifting on the network operations (because your motherboard NICs are dumb NICs,) it has to draw together all the game resources that go with those operations as well as physics and VoIP decode.
With a Killer, when those packets arrive, Killer sends them off ASAP, with a hardware interrupt. The CPU is able to not only forget about network operations (granting you a 20-30% framerate increase) but also to act quickly on each of those packets _in sequence_ and do what it was designed to do - show off the game to the best of its potential.
So CPUs might be clocked faster than they were ten years ago, but they still HALT at the same rate, because of the lack of latency improvements in networking over the same period. Not only that, but Vista has a bigger, thicker network stack that has more copy operations - thereby slowing down your game if you're playing it through the Vista network stack.
And a pair of Killer's won't help a server - again, we're optimized for latency, not bandwidth, so a server-side app where massive amounts of TCP/IP traffic are handled is better suited to an Intel Server NIC. Which Harlan also worked on.
And finally - there'll come a day where one or more Killers will help a server...
In the interview, Harlan notes that lag is a systemic issue with three actors - servers, the Internet, and clients.
As we've said repeatedly - You Can't Fix The Internet, The End Guy Is Hard.
However, not all lag spikes are server or Internet-caused. Killer can stomp out lag spikes on the client side by discretely delivering game packets the instant they arrive.
Any illustration:
You round a corner in CS:S. At the same time, two opponents round the same corner, your teammate throws a flashbang, the opposing team throws a frag, and everybody starts shooting.
A Typical software NIC will collect all those events into one larger packet before handing them off to the game, so both grenades, everybody's trigger pulls, any VoIP, they all arrive at the game at the same time. CHUNK. Then the CPU not only has to do the heavy lifting on the network operations (because your motherboard NICs are dumb NICs,) it has to draw together all the game resources that go with those operations as well as physics and VoIP decode.
With a Killer, when those packets arrive, Killer sends them off ASAP, with a hardware interrupt. The CPU is able to not only forget about network operations (granting you a 20-30% framerate increase) but also to act quickly on each of those packets _in sequence_ and do what it was designed to do - show off the game to the best of its potential.
So CPUs might be clocked faster than they were ten years ago, but they still HALT at the same rate, because of the lack of latency improvements in networking over the same period. Not only that, but Vista has a bigger, thicker network stack that has more copy operations - thereby slowing down your game if you're playing it through the Vista network stack.
And a pair of Killer's won't help a server - again, we're optimized for latency, not bandwidth, so a server-side app where massive amounts of TCP/IP traffic are handled is better suited to an Intel Server NIC. Which Harlan also worked on.
And finally - there'll come a day where one or more Killers will help a server...
[citation][nom]grieve[/nom]Yah if the price were reasonable, $30-$60 i would possibly consider it as i wouldn't be out 150 bucks if it doesnt improve anything.If reviews prove this card improves gameplay i would possibly consider @ the $150 price point....maybe[/citation]
Sure, try this one from April:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/killer-m1-nic,review-1083.html
And remember - it's not like it'll go outta style. Think of a Killer NIC as an investment like a case - it can go to your new machine and still provide the same benefit, no matter how fast your new hardware gets.
Sure, try this one from April:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/killer-m1-nic,review-1083.html
And remember - it's not like it'll go outta style. Think of a Killer NIC as an investment like a case - it can go to your new machine and still provide the same benefit, no matter how fast your new hardware gets.
BFN Sean -
GigE NIC's are significantly faster than 10/100 NIC's both in terms of throughput and latency. (yes even onboard ones). The catch is that the GigE links are usually autonegotiated down to 100Mb because its not always common to have an in-house router/switch with GigE ports. We cant just throw out claims like gige nics dont provide lower latency over 10/100's... thats silly, they do.
GigE NIC's are significantly faster than 10/100 NIC's both in terms of throughput and latency. (yes even onboard ones). The catch is that the GigE links are usually autonegotiated down to 100Mb because its not always common to have an in-house router/switch with GigE ports. We cant just throw out claims like gige nics dont provide lower latency over 10/100's... thats silly, they do.
dreamkiller323
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Too bad you can only use this on ONE computer on a NETWORK of computers. A better investment would be to get a packet-shaping router such as StreamEngine-equipped routers - This way it affects the whole network. I got the ZyXel X-550 two years ago and I often have Bitorrent running on my fileserver while I play on my gaming machine with no change in latency. Killer NIC can't do that.
killerb255
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- Jul 20, 2006
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This is only useful for those that ABSOLUTELY NEED to use full gigabit bandwidth all the time. I've never seen a copper gigabit NIC utilize more than 35% bandwidth. YMMV, though.
Gamers really don't need it, even at LAN parties. Online gamers DEFINITELY don't need it, unless they're in Japan with a 1 Gbps Internet connection.
Servers could utilize something like this. Professional workstations with large CAD drawings on a network share could utilize this as well.
Gamers really don't need it, even at LAN parties. Online gamers DEFINITELY don't need it, unless they're in Japan with a 1 Gbps Internet connection.
Servers could utilize something like this. Professional workstations with large CAD drawings on a network share could utilize this as well.
ohiou_grad_06
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- Dec 19, 2006
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While I agree 150 is way too much for a NIC card, someone said you just need a bigger pipe. Wrong! You can have as fast a pipe as you want, but if your equipment is junk and you are having all types of lag how have you helped yourself? On the other hand, get decent equipment and a good connection, and have your network scheme set up right and it's probably fine. Most of us that don't work in IT don't see that, but when you work in IT you do see it. However 150 for a NIC card is too much for me. 20-30 bucks and maybe.
No matter how much hype, no matter how cool it looks. It's not worth anymore than $50 for the small performance increase PERIOD. They have to end up on their knees blowing tom to get them to put up some BS AD on their front page to make it seem like $150 is worth 1/2 a frame rate without lag. Weeeeeek. I've said this before, give me $100, I'll buy a great intel NIC, put some fancy heatsink on it and I bet you won't be able to tell a difference!
estreetguy
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*Tomshardware have some serious idiots reading its site.*
I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, it is the ground work for internet news and review sites. The retards are the ones that come to read, click around, view the adertisements and make the site some money so they can keep coming back to read more and comment more.
The majority of readers ARE retards, because people already in the know do not have a use for the information.
I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, it is the ground work for internet news and review sites. The retards are the ones that come to read, click around, view the adertisements and make the site some money so they can keep coming back to read more and comment more.
The majority of readers ARE retards, because people already in the know do not have a use for the information.
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