Killer NICs Comes to Laptops for Latency Freaks

[K2N hater]

It's all about marketing.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

Its good to know that everyone here knows this is useless. I dont even need to put up with any fan boy crap. The universe finally makes sense in this comments section! Awesome comments everyone!

 

[falchard]

I think the reason they are in business is very simple. Their competition is Realtek and Intel. Niether of which take networking seriously. They recently hit caught the big fish. Motherboard manufacturers. Now we will be seeing some boards without Realtek in them at all.

 

[dimar]

If it can really do 450Mbps and they release USB 3.0 adapter, NIC-to-wifi adapter, and a dd-wrt or similar router setup, with the same chip, I'd be very interested.

 

[g00ey]

[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]If you buy any special high performance NIC you're waisting your money.[/citation]
Not really, if say you want to have a file server on your local network with good performance streaming HD video etc then it is not a waste of money. But of course you're better off with an Intel server NIC than a bigfoot.

I'm not saying that what those OnBoard Realtek NICs have is not enough but a server NIC does have a considerably better performance, more sophisticated cable diagnostics features and takes some load off the CPU.

 

[jplarson]

[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]I think the reason they are in business is very simple. Their competition is Realtek and Intel. Niether of which take networking seriously.[/citation]

Intel is huge in the business sector with networking. They offer dual and quad NICs for servers and have advanced drivers that allow teaming and failover features. I'd rather put money into a nice Intel NIC than this Killer nonsense.

 

[lamorpa]

[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]If you buy any special high performance NIC you're waisting your money.[/citation]
No. Your money will only be around your waist if you do not spend it on this product. Personally, I not wasting my money on it...

 

[xyriin]

[citation][nom]aaron88_7[/nom]Or if you actually understand networking you would know this is a complete marketing scam. If you honestly care about latency you aren't going to be using wireless, and even on a wired connection your ISP is going to be the biggest influence in your latency, not the NIC card.Some people just think throwing around money makes their PC faster, it doesn't.[/citation]

I don't think you understand the intent of the product. They don't claim to control anything other than the network traffic processing on your computer. The dedicated card offloads CPU processing of network traffic. This gains benefit the same way something like a GPU offloads graphics processing. I guess next you'll say we should go back to CPU handling of graphics...lol. The next part deals with bypassing the Windows Network Stack to once again eliminte another system bottleneck.

It is true that wired is superior than wireless and a crappy ISP and/or traffic routing will still kill your overall latency. That isn't the point. The point is Bigfoot products can shave latency off your system. And while saving 10 to 20ms on your system may not seem like much when compared to 300ms to your favorite game server...it is still an improvment.

 

[juanc]

Another thing that makes you love Toms.

The Intel X-Labs picture story, and then almost home-made "Killer NIC"...

So, I'm going to prefer the garage-tweaked NIC over the Intel tested one?

I mean... yeah, this one is Wireless... then I stick to another maker that does test their products.

 

[juanc]

Next time, blur the image.

We can read Atheros Communications on the PCB! That's death standard

 

[uronacid]

I have one of these in my desktop at home and I have to say that it has made a big difference in my latency. These NICs are especially useful if you're multitasking on your NIC (Example: Downloading torrents while playing games). Money is only better spent if your machine is dedicated to gaming and gaming only.

I, for one, do much more than just Game on my computer. I download movies, music, applications. I host ftp sites, web servers, and services for use on my local network. The Xeno assists in many of these tasks and keeps my ping low while my family uses services hosted on my machine. I don't have to purchase a new machine for hosting these services, and I retain my good ping times. That's a win/win in my book.

As stated above, there are reasons to want after-market NICs, but the bang for buck just isn't there if all you're doing is gaming. I feel most users that criticize Killer NIC simply do not see their computer for anything more than a gaming machine. Do yourselves a favor and think outside the box.

 

[shoelessinsight]

I don't know about Bigfoot's Killer NIC's or how much they cost, but there is some sense in upgrading to a higher-quality NIC when it comes to wireless networking. When I purchased my most recent laptop, I put in an extra $45 to upgrade to a higher-end Intel wireless NIC and I have been thoroughly pleased with the results.

With previous laptops (including my nightmare Macbook Pro) there were always locations in my home where the network was spotty, and during certain times (bad weather, planetary alignment, who knows?) the network could be spotty anywhere. With the upgraded Intel NIC, my wireless reliability is very near 100% no matter where I am.

As far as latency goes, I never bothered running any tests to compare my various wireless cards, but I do know that I still run about 12-ish ms higher on a wireless connection than if I connect via a cable.

If Bigfoot's wireless NIC's aren't terribly expensive and they offer significant improvements in reliability over cheaper models, then I can see greater justification for them than with their silly non-wireless desktop models.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

Yay. I don't care. I'd rather spend the money on new case fans than an NIC... that's how big of a waste these things are.

 

[hellwig]

I can stream Netflix and OnLive using my Wireless-G router and adapter. Considering that wireless is a shared medium, and your waiting/latency is more dependent on current network usage than processing power, this thing is bogus. I hope no one buys this piece of crap and Killer NIC goes bankrupt and that arrogant CEO of theirs loses his house and has to live on the street begging for change. When they had the Killer NIC for PCs, that was bad enough, but now, they're trying to sell us KillerNIC wireless adapters?

 

[bildo123]

Interesting, now I will specifically avoid any laptops that include this NIC so I know part of the money isn't going into a cesspool of nothing.

 

[christop]

Who is buying this crap. KILLER STUPID!!

 

[thrasher32]

It's Magic!!