$280 Killer NIC card "for gamers"

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ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
106
Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Originally posted by: fire400

X-fi came out, blew the transistors out of every soundcard in the market, offering studio quality sound and technology that marked history, the card sells for a price that a gamer will pick it up, considering they had the time, money and desire for such a soundcard.

Please stop with the X-Fi nonsense. The card is hardly studio quality - as a matter of fact you will not find one in any reputable studio. It may be fine for sound in games - which samplings are very mediocre at best when compared to studio sound. Products with superior specification and sound quality have been around for *years* before the X-Fi. Don't even get me started on their so called driver support.
Not to mention Creative is a monopoly and bought out two different firms creating competing technologies in order to get a patent lock on most of the required tech for advanced spatialized sound.
 

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Originally posted by: MS Dawn
A real "killer nic" has a true hardware firewall, vpn concentrator, os, ram, etc. built in. They use them in places where space is tight like colocation where they charge by the 'U'. (whatever that means. :p)

But seriously, a Marvell Yukon or Intel Pro 1000 MT/XT on PCI-X or PCI-E would "own" this little "Fatal1ty-esq" whateveryoucall it useless gamer snake-oil, gotcha-should-be-on-an-infomercial thing 1000x over. :laugh:

The Killer NIC is running on a special version of linux and it includes a USB port that can be custom configured to work as a lan based usb device. The Killer NIC's Linux is intended to be customized the way firefox uses plug-ins.
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
17,768
485
126
Originally posted by: Googer

The Killer NIC is running on a special version of linux and it includes a USB port that can be custom configured to work as a lan based usb device. The Killer NIC's Linux is intended to be customized the way firefox uses plug-ins.

Doesn't it seem kind of out of place to have such a "high end" product available only in plain vanilla pci? A gigabit (capable) interface would be much better suited with pci-e. The USB interface is OK but most of the managed solutions have their own internal IP that can be accessed via telnet. ;)

 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
106
Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Originally posted by: Googer

The Killer NIC is running on a special version of linux and it includes a USB port that can be custom configured to work as a lan based usb device. The Killer NIC's Linux is intended to be customized the way firefox uses plug-ins.

Doesn't it seem kind of out of place to have such a "high end" product available only in plain vanilla pci? A gigabit (capable) interface would be much better suited with pci-e. The USB interface is OK but most of the managed solutions have their own internal IP that can be accessed via telnet. ;)
To be perfectly honest I'd be terrified of that thing as a PCIe card, all that would be holding it in place would be a screw at the top and the tiny x1 interface at the bottom.
 

gramboh

Platinum Member
May 3, 2003
2,207
0
0
Originally posted by: holotech
how about running some sort of encryption program on the nic card before any of your data leaves................. maybe even double encryption, first from the cpu then from the nic card.

Hahahaha.

Why does it seem that all the viral marketers involved with this awful sham of a product are incompetent? I hope 'Harlan' didn't waste all of his family's seed capital on this joke of a project paying off IGN and HardOCP to say good things about this piece of crap.

It makes me mad because some suckers will probably buy this useless piece of junk. Harlan (CEO of Bigfoot or whatever that joke of a company is) doesn't deserve anything for this sham. Anyone with a brain knows

a) ping from onboard NIC/5 year old 3COM 10/100 509 to router = <1ms
b) CPU load from network gaming (~10kbyte/s) = <1%
c) usefulness of this product = <1%
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
17,768
485
126
Originally posted by: ViRGE
To be perfectly honest I'd be terrified of that thing as a PCIe card, all that would be holding it in place would be a screw at the top and the tiny x1 interface at the bottom.[/quote]

They have brackets that reinforce the card from the upper edge of the pcb back to the mounting bracket for this reason. :)

 

Polish3d

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2005
5,500
0
0
Originally posted by: holotech
can you clue me in on how to run an anti virus , bit torrent, and a firewall in a similar fashion?

l0lz, bumping your shill post
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
23,114
13,215
136
You know, guys like the OP give viral marketting a bad name.

The whole point to a good viral marketting campaign is to be honest about your product and to try and create buzz in the community. This can only be done when the product is actually worth buying.

Some stunts like the ilovebees crap were amusing and even got a lot of people interested in Halo2 leading up to its release. I guess you can't say it was entirely "honest", but it was pretty clever and it got a lot of attention. And, in the end, the product being advertised was at least fairly popular, and it wasn't something one would be ashamed to plug either directly or indirectly (as was the case with ilovebees).

The KillerNIC, on the other hand, is a generally worthless piece of hardware. I don't care how much it costs; the integrated NICs I've used on my last two el-cheapo motherboards have been fantastic. And the OP keeps acting like we're harping on the price when we're not. We're generally unimpressed by what it does (or claims to do).
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
20
81
Originally posted by: holotech
but the freakin site says pre-order , how can it not be new?

I think some hardware awhile back came with coupons for Duke Nukem Forever, though I may be remembering incorrectly.

Pre-order doesn't mean it'll ever be available. It is partly a way of getting an idea of how much demand there is for the product. At this point, I have yet to see a real picture of this Killer NIC, only a 3d rendering of it. It may not even exist yet. Maybe the whole "Pre-order" thing is just to see if there are enough potential customers out there willing to pay $200 for a network card, and if there are, then they'll start designing a card that'll meet expectations.
 

gramboh

Platinum Member
May 3, 2003
2,207
0
0
Wow, take a look at the comments in the thread at HardOCP related to Kyle's "preview" (aka cut-n-paste of the KillerNIC marketing spam), people actually think this is a good idea at $280US?!?! It's frustrating people will buy this and give Harlan money :(

Never going to visit HardOCP again, blatent bias by Kyle being paid off to put a front page article on this worthless piece of crap.

On the other hand, happy to see AT forum calling this thing out like the piece of crap that it is :)
 

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Originally posted by: Googer

The Killer NIC is running on a special version of linux and it includes a USB port that can be custom configured to work as a lan based usb device. The Killer NIC's Linux is intended to be customized the way firefox uses plug-ins.

Doesn't it seem kind of out of place to have such a "high end" product available only in plain vanilla pci? A gigabit (capable) interface would be much better suited with pci-e. The USB interface is OK but most of the managed solutions have their own internal IP that can be accessed via telnet. ;)


Killer NIC is a Gigabit NIC and I would suspect that if this card proves to be popular they will be quick to develop a PCI-e version (serial bus' have tangable amount of extra latency). But from a buisness perspective PCI-32 is a smart choice since it is the most common denominator in all PCs, 100% of them have at least one PCI slot while about 25-30% of todays PC's have a spare PCI-e slot (other than the graphics slot).

USB just makes this card much more flexible in its customized configurations.

I am not pointing at MS Dawn or anyone in perticular, but I feel that there are a few of you who are not too informed or have a grasp of the possiblities that this thing could and can do. Think of this as the new Linksys WRT54G of Gigabit NICs with custom firmware that could be arriving sometime very soon. This NIC may be the next killer product that you may feel the need to own.
 

rise

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2004
9,116
46
91
Originally posted by: Googer
This NIC may be the next killer product that you may feel the need to own.
lmao, yeah line forms to the right. :laugh:
 

JackBurton

Lifer
Jul 18, 2000
15,993
14
81
Originally posted by: Googer
Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Originally posted by: Googer

The Killer NIC is running on a special version of linux and it includes a USB port that can be custom configured to work as a lan based usb device. The Killer NIC's Linux is intended to be customized the way firefox uses plug-ins.

Doesn't it seem kind of out of place to have such a "high end" product available only in plain vanilla pci? A gigabit (capable) interface would be much better suited with pci-e. The USB interface is OK but most of the managed solutions have their own internal IP that can be accessed via telnet. ;)


Killer NIC is a Gigabit NIC and I would suspect that if this card proves to be popular they will be quick to develop a PCI-e version (serial bus' have tangable amount of extra latency). But from a buisness perspective PCI-32 is a smart choice since it is the most common denominator in all PCs, 100% of them have at least one PCI slot while about 25-30% of todays PC's have a spare PCI-e slot (other than the graphics slot).

USB just makes this card much more flexible in its customized configurations.

I am not pointing at MS Dawn or anyone in perticular, but I feel that there are a few of you who are not too informed or have a grasp of the possiblities that this thing could and can do. Think of this as the new Linksys WRT54G of Gigabit NICs with custom firmware that could be arriving sometime very soon. This NIC may be the next killer product that you may feel the need to own.
Please give me a scenario where using custom software on the NIC would benefit anyone? I'd like to hear this. Please give me the "possibilties" of this NIC.
 

BoberFett

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
37,562
9
81
Originally posted by: Googer
Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Originally posted by: Googer

The Killer NIC is running on a special version of linux and it includes a USB port that can be custom configured to work as a lan based usb device. The Killer NIC's Linux is intended to be customized the way firefox uses plug-ins.

Doesn't it seem kind of out of place to have such a "high end" product available only in plain vanilla pci? A gigabit (capable) interface would be much better suited with pci-e. The USB interface is OK but most of the managed solutions have their own internal IP that can be accessed via telnet. ;)


Killer NIC is a Gigabit NIC and I would suspect that if this card proves to be popular they will be quick to develop a PCI-e version (serial bus' have tangable amount of extra latency). But from a buisness perspective PCI-32 is a smart choice since it is the most common denominator in all PCs, 100% of them have at least one PCI slot while about 25-30% of todays PC's have a spare PCI-e slot (other than the graphics slot).

USB just makes this card much more flexible in its customized configurations.

I am not pointing at MS Dawn or anyone in perticular, but I feel that there are a few of you who are not too informed or have a grasp of the possiblities that this thing could and can do. Think of this as the new Linksys WRT54G of Gigabit NICs with custom firmware that could be arriving sometime very soon. This NIC may be the next killer product that you may feel the need to own.

If you want a 400mhz Linux machine to function as a router, firewall, etc. it can be put together for a hell of a lot less than $280, and will have greater functionality.
 

MrUniq

Senior member
Mar 26, 2006
307
0
0
If the company really wants to push this excessive piece of hardware they'd do well to sell it for well under $100. I wonder are they aiming at OEM gaming market rather than actually expecting "gamers" to buy it individually. That way they'd get paid their money while having the costs rolled into the total system price.
 

Lord Evermore

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
9,558
0
76
Originally posted by: Googer
But from a buisness perspective PCI-32 is a smart choice since it is the most common denominator in all PCs, 100% of them have at least one PCI slot while about 25-30% of todays PC's have a spare PCI-e slot (other than the graphics slot).

Pretty nearly 100% of PCs belonging to people who'd be looking at buying such a product are likely to have at least one usable PCIe x1 slot, and having it in PCIe would make those people MORE likely to decide that it's worthwhile.
 

Goosemaster

Lifer
Apr 10, 2001
48,775
3
81
Originally posted by: JackBurton
Originally posted by: Googer
Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Originally posted by: Googer

The Killer NIC is running on a special version of linux and it includes a USB port that can be custom configured to work as a lan based usb device. The Killer NIC's Linux is intended to be customized the way firefox uses plug-ins.

Doesn't it seem kind of out of place to have such a "high end" product available only in plain vanilla pci? A gigabit (capable) interface would be much better suited with pci-e. The USB interface is OK but most of the managed solutions have their own internal IP that can be accessed via telnet. ;)


Killer NIC is a Gigabit NIC and I would suspect that if this card proves to be popular they will be quick to develop a PCI-e version (serial bus' have tangable amount of extra latency). But from a buisness perspective PCI-32 is a smart choice since it is the most common denominator in all PCs, 100% of them have at least one PCI slot while about 25-30% of todays PC's have a spare PCI-e slot (other than the graphics slot).

USB just makes this card much more flexible in its customized configurations.

I am not pointing at MS Dawn or anyone in perticular, but I feel that there are a few of you who are not too informed or have a grasp of the possiblities that this thing could and can do. Think of this as the new Linksys WRT54G of Gigabit NICs with custom firmware that could be arriving sometime very soon. This NIC may be the next killer product that you may feel the need to own.
Please give me a scenario where using custom software on the NIC would benefit anyone? I'd like to hear this. Please give me the "possibilties" of this NIC.

Seriously.

It only one interface so it's useless for anything except as a NIC. I NEVER EVER see this catching on. Business customers deman the absolute best in network peripherals, and it's probably resonable for me to say that the needs of gamers don't even come close to the demans of SAN/NAS/server/blade systems:p Hell, because of the systems talency and the CISC nature of CPUs, stand alone special purpsoe devices TROUNCE pc based routers.




probably reasonable...:p
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,134
2,450
126
If this thing is sooo great, why aren't they building a business version for systems that have REALLY high bandwidth requirements, like file and backup servers?

Sure, Battlefield 2 or World Of Warcraft is going to use up a lot of bandwidth, but not as much as a server for those games that's handing 100 MB patches to thousands of users.
 

spidey07

No Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
65,469
5
76
Just let it die. This is a scam of tremendous proportions. It has all the makings of a scam..

1) put out website that gets hits on lag
2) this website just so happens to pump a product
3) get the buzz going
4) offer 'be the first on your block to own the ultimate network card!'
5) profit

Ignore this nonsense, it will go away soon. Let it die and don't you dare give the snake oil salesmen a dime of your money.

This is the monster cable/bose of network cards. In every way shape and form. What is so sad is there are still people buy it. Let it die. You are being fooled by people with very good marketing skills. Everything I have read in their "white paper" is full of dark brown bullcrap. Every bit of it. If anything people/gamers should be offended.

-edit-
throw a sniffer on the line and you'll see about a 192-384 kbit stream of small udp packets. This is trivial to even a 1995 computer. It takes less than 1 percent of your processor to do this. It's a scam.
 

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Originally posted by: ultimatebob
If this thing is sooo great, why aren't they building a business version for systems that have REALLY high bandwidth requirements, like file and backup servers?

Sure, Battlefield 2 or World Of Warcraft is going to use up a lot of bandwidth, but not as much as a server for those games that's handing 100 MB patches to thousands of users.

Thats because such devices already exsit and those NICs only support Hardware TCP/IP and do not support the UDP protocol that all games use to transmit across the internet. I believe it was LSI who made a NIC with an onboard Intel Xscale Processor (similar to the one used in PDAs) and dedicated RAM. I have not seen it for a while, so I am not sure if they still make it. But I do know Adaptec still makes an awesome ($600+) Gigabit NIC that fully offloads TCP/IP from the system.

(and no I do not work for Killer or any of it's competitors)