IGN starting to test Killer NIC

T

tazzmissionx

Gawd
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
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Here is an excerpt from their testing.

Based upon some rough benchmarking, without the Killer NIC our test PC (AMD FX 62 2600, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, 2 GB RAM) runs F.E.A.R. at 1024x768x32 with details maxed and 2xAA-2xAF at an average of 74 fps though two 15 minute sessions. Our ping to server ranged from 40-80ms, and our average worked out to 67ms over the two sessions.

After installing the Killer NIC we got back on the same F.E.A.R. server and played on the same map. The improvement with the Killer NIC was noticeable and impressive. Pings to server dramatically improved, generally ranging from 17-50ms, averaging 45ms over another two 15 minute sessions. FPS also got a nice bump, jumping our average from 74 to 86 fps.
 
We should bring this to the attention of Kyle and the [H]ard|OCP staff. I am going to send the
link to Kyle to make sure he sees it.
 
I'll eat my words if this card actually performs. I will NOT, however, spend $280 for it.

I can't wait to see reviews for this thing.
 
-(Xyphox)- said:
lol, do a search tuns of treads about it
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Yeah, no worries, i've read plenty of threads on it, articles and such, saw on the OCP or whatever that they'd spotted some setup in Texas or somesuch, but nothing to actually explain what the hell this thing is meant to be/achieve
:confused:
 
Wally said:
Yeah, no worries, i've read plenty of threads on it, articles and such, saw on the OCP or whatever that they'd spotted some setup in Texas or somesuch, but nothing to actually explain what the hell this thing is meant to be/achieve
:confused:
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i guess its the end all nics for gamers. Killer is the name of it...
I know i am not going to waste almost 300 bucks on something that comes onboard :D
 
-(Xyphox)- said:
i guess its the end all nics for gamers. Killer is the name of it...
I know i am not going to waste almost 300 bucks on something that comes onboard :D
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There's onboard video ;). I bet you pay a buncha money for that :-P.
 
They guys from aFp won KillerNICs for placing third in the BF2 5v5 tourney at last weekends Showdown Lan in San Jose. At least one of the guys has posted his impressions of it in the CAL forums and they are tenatively positive. He didn't say much re: fps bump but he did say his ping was lowered and massively stabilized - a good thing for competition. This may turn out to be an interesting product.
 
BlackTigers91 said:
There's onboard video ;). I bet you pay a buncha money for that :-P.
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No! my moterhboard does not have onboard video so i had to spend lots and lots to power my display ;)
 
Seems like at the very least, it IS a good item. Pricy yes, but at least it's more or less doing what it claims to do.
If the price drops, it might not be a bad thing to have. Until then, I'd think most of us will stick to the one on our mobo.
 
WhyYouLoveMe said:
I'll eat my words if this card actually performs. I will NOT, however, spend $280 for it.

I can't wait to see reviews for this thing.
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hmmm ..in canadian that's what?, 4 hundred grand? :| ...wow talk about unobtainable. I like what the card offers but as with most, who'll shell out the $
 
G'ßöö said:
hmmm ..in canadian that's what?, 4 hundred grand? :| ...wow talk about unobtainable. I like what the card offers but as with most, who'll shell out the $
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People with more money than sense. I'd like to see some figures on exactly HOW MUCH better it is than the onboard NIC you get with your average nForce board, along with a rough figure on how many dollars you pay per second of lowered ping. I'd also like to know how it compares to existing high end NICs -- they have super pricey switches and routers, I bet they have super pricey NICs to go with them.

$260 USD... that's more than I'd spend on a CPU, the heart of the comp, let alone a network card...
 
IGN is not a valid source of hardware reviews. They do not know the first thing about computer hardware. Irrelevant until real sites get it.
 
dotK said:
IGN is not a valid source of hardware reviews. They do not know the first thing about computer hardware. Irrelevant until real sites get it.
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Thank you. I'm amazed it took this long for someone to say it. I was scanning the thread to make sure it had been said because I was going to if no one else did.

Like WYLM said, I'll retract my statement on it if it turns out to be legit, but there's no way in hell I'm going to buy one. My onboard NIC works just fine. I average between 40-80ms depending on where the server is located (if it's in chicago it's usually single digits :cool: ) and I don't need it to be any better than that.
 
tazzmissionx said:
After installing the Killer NIC we got back on the same F.E.A.R. server and played on the same map. The improvement with the Killer NIC was noticeable and impressive. Pings to server dramatically improved, generally ranging from 17-50ms, averaging 45ms over another two 15 minute sessions. FPS also got a nice bump, jumping our average from 74 to 86 fps.
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I call BS. The game's not even CPU limited enough to make much of a difference, unlees they were useing a crap CPU at low settings. I still don't think that the NIC will do that though. How do you even do a bench mark online?
 
yeah...$280 is prob too much for this thing, but still....at least it does what it says it does!

If you already have an X6800, 2x x1900xtx, 4gb of RAM, and 2 iRAM drives in RAID-0, you should definitely buy a killer NIC :)

Me, I'll save my $270 for a dx10 card
 
There is no way in hell that it's worth it to spend $300 to lower ping by 20 ms, that is if it actually performs that good. You'd be hard pressed to find any difference with 20 ms most of the time unless you look hard. You'd get better results by just joining a lower pinged server.
 
Eagle156 said:
You'd get better results by just joining a lower pinged server.
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Yeah...OR, the $300 would go a long way towards upgrading your broadband service tier if you aren't already at the top.
 
Their average pings and frames per second could just be attributed to how busy the server was or internet congestion, etc. Too many factors could affect it and without a more controlled environment its just all a waste of time. ;)
 
Tazman2 said:
Their average pings and frames per second could just be attributed to how busy the server was or internet congestion, etc. Too many factors could affect it and without a more controlled environment its just all a waste of time. ;)
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This is true as well. I've never benchmarked an online game while playing online....if a game experiences internet lag, does it impact framerate?
 
Perhaps Bigfoot is anticipating Verizon FIOS? I still fail to see just how they "tested" this card in an uncontrolled environment; that's just a pure waste of time. Or, they're bought by Bigfoot for positive press.
 
I'm sure the card works to some extent, but I can't afford it. I'm happy with what I have and will gladly take several rail gun shots to the head before paying $300.
 
here's a good way to spend $300 to lower your ping.

Upgrade from dial up to cable. :eek: :eek: :eek:
 
^^ yeah, no shit. lol

heck, my comcast cable at home is noticably faster than my 2x T1s at work. Of course less people are using my home connection.. but still. I am impressed with comcast's cable service.. :)
 
The largest hop between you and any game server is the hop from your home to your ISP where you share bandwidth through public exchanges etc. (assuming you're not connecting to a server a significant distance away, which most gamers don't do)

I've just recently had my business line installed to my house (ADSL 8128k down 823k up) and it's given higher priority over home lines, pings to CS:S servers have been down in the 14ms region.

Pinging my router takes less that 1ms

Im not sure what they claim this NIC can do for me, but it's not lower my ping, and even if it could, sub 14ms is un-noticeable.

oh but I can make my ping higher? Woo that sounds good....NOT

This is a fad, and it having an impact of frame rate is totaly crazy.
 
well, putting pings aside, I find it hard to believe that this card frees up that much cpu overhead so that the FPS increases like 15%.. bs! As for networking, it's conceivable that the card can do on the fly packet shaping/shifting and packet sizing to improve latency (on the fly TCP tuning), but I doubt the performance impact going to be that significant. I don't doubt that it might give someone a -little- edge, but that comes with a very -steep- price. I'll look forward to more credible review data on this tho.. who knows, maybe it does do some voodoo..
 
Hmm, PhysX card, X-fi card, Killer Nic, where did all the PCI slot go? Oh, and don't forget the double slot video cards.
 
I'd like to see benchies showing onboard NIC versus a decent NIC versus Killer. Just for comparison sake because at one time I remember it being said, stay away from onbaord NIC because it uses too much resources...but at the same time, I've heard we've come a long way for that to be a problem. Still, I'd like to see benchies.
 
WhyYouLoveMe said:
I'll eat my words if this card actually performs. I will NOT, however, spend $280 for it.

I can't wait to see reviews for this thing.
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Same here, Ill pick one up if and when it reaches the nice price tag of -$90
 
BMWlover said:
Hmm, PhysX card, X-fi card, Killer Nic, where did all the PCI slot go? Oh, and don't forget the double slot video cards.
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QTF :(
I have an X-fi and an ATI Elite TV tuner taking up my only two PCI slots, so a PCI-E "Killer Nic" would be right up my alley... I'm interested in this card not just with gaming but all but with the other apps which may be possible with it...




 
I thought this thing was a joke, but the reviews seem to say it's worth it. I might have to get one when i put together my DX10 rig, or maybe that linksys one if it works the same, that'd be sweet to find a cheaper card that does the same job.
 
Like any new technology it starts out high priced but if its a worthy product then the market will set a reasonable for it. Also lets not forget that now a days people spend good money on almost every part of their machine. If a nic card is going to help you out that much more with your connection then its going to be worth it to spend the extra money. There is no reason why nic cant advance like any other pc parts.
 
I would think this would help in local lan based games...not internet games...
 
First let me say Gaming NIC wtf?

However I read a quick post saying this card runs linux? Which makes me think it is more of a dedicated PC on a card versus a NIC. This could be interesting if you could parrellal certain tasks such as firewall and maybe bittorrent. Mind you I can not see how this would help gaming all that much but would be a neat concept. Would I spend ~$300 on it, NO. Particularly since dual core processers make handling background tasks by the CPU a non issue.
 
Frosteh said:
The largest hop between you and any game server is the hop from your home to your ISP where you share bandwidth through public exchanges etc. (assuming you're not connecting to a server a significant distance away, which most gamers don't do)

I've just recently had my business line installed to my house (ADSL 8128k down 823k up) and it's given higher priority over home lines, pings to CS:S servers have been down in the 14ms region.

Pinging my router takes less that 1ms

Im not sure what they claim this NIC can do for me, but it's not lower my ping, and even if it could, sub 14ms is un-noticeable.

oh but I can make my ping higher? Woo that sounds good....NOT

This is a fad, and it having an impact of frame rate is totaly crazy.
Click to expand...


Regarding the higher ping thing. They were talking about making your ping appear higher than it is to the other players, so they won't just say "oh look at your 14ms ping, no wonder you're head-shotting all over the place..." So, for example, you have 14ms ping, but you can set the card to make it appear to the other players as 80ms, for example.

The other thing people have pointed out is how is this thing going to be affected by being behind a NAT router? If you have a router hooked up, the thinking goes, your fancy NIC is just doing QOS for your packets between you and your home router, and nothing for your packets from the router to your ISP. I don't know if that's the case or not, however. Hopefully, some in depth reviews will test it in both configs, i.e. someone with the NIC, broandband and that's it, vs. NIC, router, broandband.
 
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