Does Killer Network card improve network performance?

[elkinm]

This is not for gaming but but for company networks focusing on fast and quick data streams of mostly small amounts of data.

This is a securities trading firm, so we have lots of data stream with market and historical data.

Some people have utilized the Killer network card on some older machines (I don't know the exact specs, but probably older P4s) and they claim definite improvements in performance.

I would like to know if Killer packet forwarding can actually help in non standard, non gaming applications, of it is simply offloading some load off the CPU and therefore improving performance, which can be done by other far less expensive hardware NICs.

If it really helps, we have no problems with Killer in every box, but I don't know if it should offer any benefits beyond the dedicated hardware and I don't want to pay the extra cash if is not worth it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Your best bet is to pick up a few and test them out in your test environment. No one will be able to tell you, especially if you're dealing with custom software.

 

[elkinm]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Your best bet is to pick up a few and test them out in your test environment. No one will be able to tell you, especially if you're dealing with custom software.

I am going to do that, but I would like to know what to look for. Do I need to find the optimal ports to prioritize with the card for best performance or is it automatic with emphasis on gaming?

Has anybody tried Killer in a not gaming environment?