VisionTek Introduces its Killer Xeno Pro Gaming NIC

[Mussels]

can push allot more I brought my pc over and my CPU Stayed Max just feeding video files to the Xbox and the 360.

for the majority of your post, please - learn sentences and paragraphs.

For the part i quoted, depending on the files and containers used, you actually have to re-encode the files on the fly. that re-encoding is what uses the CPU.

On my generic onboard network card, i can upload 90MB/s and use about 20% CPU (its only when antivirus joins in that it spikes to 40-50% for me)

 

[csendesmark]

The only problem is these cards cost more than an Athlon II 620.

Even an Atom 230 (with HT) can handle gigabit traffic.

 

[Mussels]

Even an Atom 230 (with HT) can handle gigabit traffic.

a pentum 3 can handle it - it was merely the hard drives of the era that could not

 

[Animalpak]

Matchmaking compatible ? hahah

Stop with that shit please, the future of online PC gaming is close to dead

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

Fred can review this (PCI-E Xeno, on today's hardware) if there's demand.

Fred fredburger?

 

[Reefer86]

Interesting to see Visiontek pick this up as last time, Killer was the only one with their card. While it does very very very very very little help with latency and ping times, it taxes your processor and hinders on some other things. There was a review in either MaximumPC or CPU mag about this new card. BFG was the only other one offering the card. Maybe it might be worth a look, dont know.

Evga also have one now.

For me its there price point, its just too dam exspensive adn as others have mentioned the money can be spent else where to give a much large boost.
If it was £20 i would be tempted to pick one up and make my own conclusion.

 

[GAR]

I have one of these, worst peice of hardware ever purchased, drivers suck, BSOD in alot of games, NFS Shift = BSOD, COD5 = BSOD, the list goes on, do yourself a favor and dont buy this piece of crap. They really need to contact Realtek and Intel to find out how to code proper drivers for a NIC card. I have since taken mine out and am using the onboard Realtek and damn its so much better, this card also killed my download and bandwidth speeds, lowered my downloads by 50-100kbs.

 

[Suijin]

They were originally brought to market when people only had single core CPUs. So if your CPU was maxed out on some games then yes you would see a nice improvement with this card. So if you have that old of a computer, still don't buy this go buy yourself something new.

With 4 core CPUs and the better motherboards nowadays, yeah it's not going to do shit for you.

 

[wolf]

i'd like to see both.


more or less is this device worth it on standard internet, yes/no

is this device worth it if you're an asshole with internet faster than most peoples home networks, yes/no

+1 and thanks for the lol while you were at it

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

get a good intel nic and fudge off

as a matter of fact .. wizz do a comparo with an onboard, an intel nic and this

 

[btarunr]

Fred fredburger?

Flintstone.

no, Frederik S (who reviewed the PCI version for us).

 

[Emanuel1788]

Here is an old review of the past PCI model:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13010

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

Flintstone.

no, Frederik S (who reviewed the PCI version for us).

Oh ok, pass on the suggestion in my last post to whizz

 

[PP Mguire]

I dont think Cheez Wiz wants to waste his time on such a worthless piece of poo poo

 

[Steevo]

the one and only benefit to this is the workload transfer, and the slight decrease in ping time from PCIe latentcy.


A standard onboard network solution uses the CPU and driver interface model to do all the network processing, so if a application sends a request to the network stack to send packet A of data, it has to send the request through the driver, the driver passes it on to the CPU, which sends the information to the NIC throughthe PCIe bus, it processes it, sends back the instruction set to the CPU through the PCIe bus, the CPU processes the data into the form the NIC can use, sends it back down the PCIe bus, the NIC then performes whatever processing it needs on the data, and then finally out the ethernet port.


This will cut off about three trips through the PCIe bus, and thus decrease latentcy, it will also prevent teh CPU regesters from needing to be reprogrammed to perform the NIC's dirtywork, then reprogrammed withthe games instruction set.

So yes a whole 3% improvement in LAn gaming could be seen, and even more on horrible long pipe CPU's like the preshott.

 

[wolf]

I still strangely want one.... don't want to pay for it, but I still want it.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

I have used the old Killer NIC for a few weeks on my school's T1 and I have to admit it works. It did exactly as advertised by lower my ping a few points (I think it was like 6 to 12 ms less) and improved my frame rate when playing online a little (not noticeable as I was getting 50+ FPS anyway).

Did I go out and buy one when my friends computer was fixed and I had to give it back? Hell No.

Is it worth the money Killer originally charged? Hell no.

Does it work and do as it claims? Yes, if something locally was limiting FPS or ping to begin with. In most cases getting around Microsoft Firewall, port scanning, Flow Control, and other misc. networking crap.

Would I spend my money on it? Maybe $50 to $65. For me this product idea works, but cost too much.

I remember one NIC (I think it was the Killer NIC) that had a USB port and it would micromanage torrents and downloads to an externally connected drive. It claimed to run the torrents and downloads a near full speed, but due to how it handled the network you are not suppose to notice a drop in regular browsing, but I am not sure about all that.

I concur. We need a new review with new hardware, because my computer is a whole different animal than it was 2 years ago.

 

[Imsochobo]

Actually thats wrong, if somebody even gave me this card i would smash it in my back yard to make an example of how stupid this really is. The only thing that creates your ping is how fast you get to your ISP, then to the game server. No "NPU" is going to increase the latency and speed of a WAN when your paying for "X" amount of speed from your ISP. And i know for damn sure this piece of shit will not increase my FPS because it is not doing anything but acting as a dedicated ethernet that STILL has to use my CPU to get information. /rant

With a GOOD nic i can get 0 ms to the capital, without i get 2, thats 2 ms, and thats not a killer NIC.
Dropped packages was decreased by 3%
FPS increased by 2-3 in crysis.
FPS increased by not enough to be measured in COD4.

Intel QUAD gigabit PCI-E nic. ( i belive it has a higher price than this, prolly cause it is a quad nic from intel)

so there you go, 2 ms, and fps increased when cpu is really used... which isnt often.

 

[zCexVe]

Personally in my mind, its just like a bling.Its cool to look at, specs seems to be great, shines but useless for most of the people.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

Personally in my mind, its just like a bling.Its cool to look at, specs seems to be great, shines but useless for most of the people.

Exactly, which is why we need a review. Who does it help? Is it better or the same as other dedicated NIC cards?

 

[LaidLawJones]

I am going to get shot for this post but WTH. I have one of their earlier cards. I did not notice much diff in ping, but I did notice a very nice improvement in smoothness of online game play. I could only test by logging in and out of the server, using the card then the onboard, (BF2) during a very long round (15 min) and I noticed that it did not stutter when everybody and their uncle was trying to overrun a flag. At one point, everybody (32 players) was going for one flag, this meant that there was multiple tanks, aircraft, APC's, jeeps and ground crew shooting dropping and throwing bombs etc. The ping time between connects only varied by 2ms, but the game play WAS smoother.
no stuttering.

I bought this card on sale, $50 and it was the LAST thing I bought for my rig.

IMO it did make a diff in smoothness, not fps or ping.

Let me finish my smoke before you start shooting.