$85 for a network card???

[nageov3t]

Ah, the legendary Killer NIC. IIRC, the main benefit was to reduce CPU load from networking. Mind you, it was marginal at best.

Stuff like this always reminds me of that Fatal1ty crap they were selling a few years back. Zalman was painting their coolers red and charging up the arse for them because they had the dude's name on them. You could get an identical unpainted one for $10-$20 less. I'm glad that style of "modding" died out.

I have a Fatal1ty headset

and I felt a little douche-y buying it, but it really is the best USB headset I've ever used.

 

[classy]

classy is on troll mode.

Please go on and list the unique features that optimize the network traffic.

Here is a recent review of the card. For $85 if you want this kind of control, then its not bad. I have purchased job related network cards for over $1500.



http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/bigfoot_killer_2100/

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/bigfoot_killer_2100/3.htm

And as a couple of guys have also pointed out, their wireless card is very good. All nics are not the same, some are just better than others. $85 is not a lot of money............sheesh

 

[busydude]

$85 is not a lot of money............sheesh

Yes it is.

 

[bobdole369]

For the "Desktop" -

This is probably the best card you can buy in terms of reliability, performance, compatibility, and features.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833106121

For servers - esp virtual machine hosts, this one is hard to beat:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833106028

Gamers don't need "special network cards". Total farce, just like 56k winmodems back in the day were shitty and you should buy an external and make sure your UART was 16550 LOL. IIRC it was mostly Linux compatibility that made me go external with my modems in 1999. As far as working well - the winmodems did fine and didn't use much CPU.

"gaming sound cards" actually do add features that often publishers take advantage of, but not so much as say in 2005. Nowadays onboard sound *can* (but often don't mostly due to lousy cheap (noisy) motherboards) "sound" more clear and have better specs than any PCI or PCI-e card. Of course situations vary and I'm sure there are very good sounding expansion sound cards. The bees knees are USB as its outside the case, or the simplicity of a DAC.

 

[SlitheryDee]

AT just did a review of the wireless Killer NIC and it cleaned house. I was frankly astonished. The ethernet version is practically useless though.

 

[bobdole369]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if you are looking to prioritize layer 1/2 -> 7 at your machine, maybe you ought to stop running other things. If skype or vent or whatever you stupid kids are using to talk is too much to run while playing your vidya games - maybe your money is better spent on other upgrades. Also, noting that you probably shouldn't need to prioritize the ONLY traffic coming into and out of your NIC. Even 10mbit nics can run wow with only fractions of millisecond latency added by the NIC. I wonder how much latency is added by the packet classifier and filter on that NIC?

Now if this were a VM host, that would be a decent use of that tech. However that isn't sexy.

 

[mmntech]

I have a Fatal1ty headset

and I felt a little douche-y buying it, but it really is the best USB headset I've ever used.

Not all of Jonathan Wendel's stuff was crap. I'm just saying you can't slap a coat of red paint on a CNPS7500 or X-FI and ask a lot more for it.

Huh, apparently he's still around, still selling crap with his name on it.
http://www.fatal1ty.com/
The website commits the ultimate computer geek's sin: needlessly using Flash in the banner. D:

 

[Ichinisan]

Can't you read? It's a GAMERS card! Adding the term "Gamer" to any product automatically makes it 4x more expensive.

One time I saw a Monster Gamers HDMI cable. It cost $42 million dollars.

 

[Red Squirrel]

This has no competition!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833106042

Unfortunately the switch you need costs more than your PC.

I'll take two! :biggrin:

But seriously the bigfoot is nothing more than snake oil. If you believe in that shit you probably put slick 50 in your car...

Me want!

I even have a switch and patch cables that would fit in that. Problem is, it's a fabric switch so it would not actually work. :awe:

 

[mmntech]

Can't you read? It's a GAMERS card! Adding the term "Gamer" to any product automatically makes it 4x more expensive.

One time I saw a Monster Gamers HDMI cable. It cost $42 million dollars.

Well played, but now you've given them ideas. D:

 

[OutHouse]

Not even remotely close. The card is very unique in being able to control many things you can't do with onboard nics. Thus it allows network traffic to be optimized just for gaming. $85 is really not a lot of money considering what this card can do.

controls it from your NIC to your router.... yea thats useful.

 

[LegendKiller]

Not all of Jonathan Wendel's stuff was crap. I'm just saying you can't slap a coat of red paint on a CNPS7500 or X-FI and ask a lot more for it.

Huh, apparently he's still around, still selling crap with his name on it.
http://www.fatal1ty.com/
The website commits the ultimate computer geek's sin: needlessly using Flash in the banner. D:

I met the kid in 2004 at CES in a Bellagio suite from OCZ (IIRC). First off, the OCZ guys were douches, second, the kid was a douche. They all deserved each other. Only person worse than those was a guy who ran a hard website. I always liked the guys from Asus and Seagate.

 

[Schadenfroh]

LOL, Qualcomm thought the company that makes it is worth buying!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4726/qualcomm-atheros-acquires-bigfoot-networking

Qualcomm Atheros states that they believe "Bigfoot’s technology and expertise will help to deliver an enhanced end user networking experience.

 

[IronWing]

I remember the NE2000 cards I set up over 20 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ne2000.jpg

cost as much as the card model number implied.

I think that was it. Yes, we were running Novell.

What really chapped my ass though was that to get to the T1 line (might have been a T3) we had to hook into our host's network (we were working as a subcontractor). Our host employer's IT god had this thing for DEC and refused to allow us to hook non-DEC routers or switches to his network. At the time, DEC equipment was five times the price of similarly speced HP stuff. But he was god so we had to cough up the bucks for the DEC switches. I recall dropping $6k for a DEC backplane and four six port ethernet switches.

 

[Bateluer]

Didn't AT do a write up on these cards when the first launched, and basically concluded that, while faster than onboard, it was a complete and total waste of money because it didn't translate to real world gain?

 

[busydude]

LOL, Qualcomm thought the company that makes it is worth buying!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4726/qualcomm-atheros-acquires-bigfoot-networking

Qualcomm is the worst in terms of driver support for Linux.

 

[brblx]

And still making tons of $$$.

doing WHAT?

i remember playing with that dude back in the day...he really wasn't that abnormally great. i mean, yeah, i was a pretty hardcore quake dude and he was definitively better than me, but so were a LOT of people.

i thought creative labs just bought the rights to his handle and murdered him or something.