# Killer Network Card?



## alic4nte (Dec 16, 2007)

I've read many review regarding this card, even the one on TPU. But does anyone here actually have the card and notice significant performance gains? And also, do you guys think it's worth it for the 10-15% gains, being that it is quite expensive?


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## Laurijan (Dec 16, 2007)

This network priorizing card does the same thing as the nforce chipsets with first packet technology - but cost like the same as an motherboard with an nforce 5xx/6xx - but i havent got that card so i cant say for sure


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## btarunr (Dec 16, 2007)

Yes it does, especially when you're playing on a very remote server like you're in the US and the server is somewhere in Asia or Europe. A friend of mine has it. I can see differences of upto 400 ms ping between my PC and his when joining a Russian server playing Counter Strike: Source


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## Homeless (Dec 16, 2007)

I rather use hardware / software packet prioritizing (QoS) as I don't think it's worth the excessive premium


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## Laurijan (Dec 16, 2007)

Homeless just pm´ed me that a software named cfosspeed does the job - it free for 30 days but then it will only cost you 9.95€ while a killer card costs 120€ if i am not mistaken. www.cfos.de 

He also told me that certain router allow to prioritize the network traffic but mine was to complicated and a router compatible with the tomato firmware which is the best for that job costs about 70€ if i am not mistaken.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Dec 16, 2007)

my WRT54GL w/ddwrt should do the job too.


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## Darknova (Dec 16, 2007)

It actually runs a very basic version of Linux, comes with it's own RAM, and CPU. Thus taking ALL the load off the CPU, moving the stack away from Windows, and providing a seperate accessible OS that you can run Bittorrent on without losing ping.

The price is a bit much, but if it was sub-£100 I would definately get one.


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## btarunr (Dec 16, 2007)

If you're into Bit-torrent use and have a 2 GB pen-drive and a Killer NIC, you're one lucky bas***.


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## Laurijan (Dec 16, 2007)

btarunr said:


> If you're into Bit-torrent use and have a 2 GB pen-drive and a Killer NIC, you're one lucky bas***.



Whats the purpose of the pen-drive in bit-torrenting? Cant decent Sata HDDs performe even better than i pen driver?


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## btarunr (Dec 16, 2007)

No. The NIC has a special USB port where you can plug in a pen drive or external USB storage device and the card can do the bit-torrent downloads for you without the intervention of any other system component.


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## mab1376 (Dec 16, 2007)

The tomato firmware on my Buffalo HP-G54-HP with QoS on works great!


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## hat (Dec 16, 2007)

The people who use these are the people that have the Core 2 Extreme cpus and 8800 ultras, catch my drift?

It has a minimal impact. The only thing it would be good for (maybe) is if you use xfire or ventrilo or something you can run it off the network card and not on your main computer. I would just take the money and buy better components.


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## killatia (Dec 17, 2007)

if it was cheaper i would say its a good buy but at its current price i can't. once it hits below $100 it would be a better buy but not now.


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## craigwhiteside (Dec 17, 2007)

im tryin cfos now, its ok but not great


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## btarunr (Dec 17, 2007)

Killer NIC, like Ageia PhysX is an off-beat product. While Ageia set a very decent price for the PhysX ($110~$130), Killer screwed-up $270. But I can understand. They use an IBM PowerPC processor, onboard memory, Broadcomm PHYs, a lot of those components are very expensive in the electronics market. Killer also makes a lower-priced NIC priced at $170, which is still steep.


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## lemonadesoda (Dec 17, 2007)

The Killer NIC is a great "concept" idea, but in practice, techno overkill fixing a "minor" issue.

The killer NIC is effective at prioritising network traffic in/out of your PC, ie. your local LAN. But if you are gaming... it is unlikely you are doing much else on the PC or LAN at the same time. So there really isnt much other traffic to prioritise / deprioritise.

The weakest link is to your ISP - and the ISP prioritisation of YOUR traffic to the internet.  The Killer NIC will do diddly-squat about this.

A FAR MORE EFFECTIVE investment, is to upgrade your internet connection or get a better ISP service.  Note, some ISP's offer a "premium" gamer service where traffic is prioritised, which can help reduce pings by 10ms.  For the extra $5/EUR5 per month... that would give you 2 years of improved gaming experience that would be FAR SUPERIOR to what the Killer Nic can achieve.

REPEAT. Killer NIC is good in concept, but it is only fixing YOUR LAN.  It isnt going to help the router-to-ISP connection, or the ISP-to-internet service.


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## mab1376 (Dec 17, 2007)

i'd say it a good idea for dedicated servers like the kind you would rent out, not so much regular people.


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## Laurijan (Dec 17, 2007)

lemonadesoda said:


> The Killer NIC is a great "concept" idea, but in practice, techno overkill fixing a "minor" issue.
> 
> The killer NIC is effective at prioritising network traffic in/out of your PC, ie. your local LAN. But if you are gaming... it is unlikely you are doing much else on the PC or LAN at the same time. So there really isnt much other traffic to prioritise / deprioritise.
> 
> ...



Hi!

I have to decide if i´ll buy a program license for cFosSpeed a network prioritzion program for windows or a router which can be flashed with the tomato fireware. The license cost about 10€ and the router about 70€ - which should i go for? I hear winamp radio while playing enemy territory and maybe teamspeak at the same time in the near future - i have a 10Mbit VDSL PPPoE internet connection - and usually use a VPN while P2P but turn it of because it slows down gaming a lot. The connections downstream throughput without the VPN is about 1 Mb/s


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## Disparia (Dec 17, 2007)

Most reviews have the Killer NIC against various onboard controllers, has anyone seen a review with it against higher-end NICs? Intel, HP, and others have single-port NIC's in the $70-100 range with TCP/UDP offloading, as well as your choice of PCI, PCI-X, and PCIe interface.

May not have magical ping reducing technologies, but possbility good performance @ low cpu (and lower cost)?


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## killatia (Dec 17, 2007)

Jizzler said:


> Most reviews have the Killer NIC against various onboard controllers, has anyone seen a review with it against higher-end NICs? Intel, HP, and others have single-port NIC's in the $70-100 range with TCP/UDP offloading, as well as your choice of PCI, PCI-X, and PCIe interface.
> 
> May not have magical ping reducing technologies, but possbility good performance @ low cpu (and lower cost)?



good question, i would like to see this kind of benchmark if possible.


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## mrhuggles (Dec 26, 2007)

i would suggest a WRT54G v1-3 or WRT54GS v1-4 but like, i think you can do better than tomatoe or dd-wrt, ive had the best experience with OpenWRT and X-wrt [great web interface for OpenWRT] you can get packages that come with it already there, its defiantly the most powerfull as far as features go


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