Killer NIC pre-order - Should I get it?

[imported_tonjohn]

The Killer? Network Interface Card (NIC) is the world?s first network card designed to speed up and accelerate online video games. Powered by Lag and Latency Reduction (LLR?) Technology, it offers gamers superior speed and performance in their online games. Killer?s 400 MHz Network Processing Unit (NPU) and 64 Megabytes of dedicated DDR will give you the edge over your opponent in the field of battle.

Pre-Order
Price: $279.99
Pre-order shipping date: between Aug 21st - 28th

Sneak Peak Performance Results

I'm getting a brand new computer with the following:
* Core 2 Duo E6600 oc'd to 2.99ghz 1333fsb
* Asus Republic of Gamers mobo
* Video card unknown for now (eventually an r600 or G80)
* BFG PhysX 128mb
* 2x 1gb Corsair PC2-8500C5
* Integrated sound until Creative released a PCIe soundcard
* 500gb Seagate 7200.10
* Lian Li PC-V2000B PlusII
* Not sure about the PSU
* Dell 2005FPW
* Logitech G5
* Logitech G15

 

[rdukeman]

what the? seems like a scam to me... (the network card)

 

[Mikey]

Its not worth it. You really think $300 is worth that performance increase? why not just get a better video card or get more bandwidth for your network connection?

 

[Lord Evermore]

Oh god no. If you buy it they'll actually think they came up with a product with some value, and they might start making all sorts of other overpriced marketing gimmicks. Well, more than there are now.

In other words, my PC with onboard networking might have slightly lesser technical benchmark performance, but if you sat in front of the two, you wouldn't actually be able to tell the difference. At least not $280 worth of difference, maybe 10 dollars worth.

Are you uploading files at megabyte per second speeds continuously while you're playing games, with nobody else using your Internet connection? If not, you aren't going to care about the features on this thing.

Plus, the nforce590 has TCP/IP acceleration and latency reduction built in.

"Lag and Latency Reduction" is redundant marketspeak that sounds good because people know what lag is, and latency sounds technical. Lag is defined partially by latency.

I don't for a second believe they cut 20ms off of the ping time JUST because the network card was doing the TCP/IP processing. No FX55 system could possibly be so slow that it couldn't handle the processing without introducing that much latency. And is that 20ms just one single time that they recorded, and the rest of the time it was 10ms (which is still unbelievable)? Don't depend on their own "sneak peak" numbers to tell you what performance will be like, obviously it's going to be astoundingly good according to them.

The only way they cut such high latency out was if the two systems were in fact doing some serious file transfers in the background. The latency reduction, by giving priority to the game packets, can make a huge difference, but it's entirely dependent on you using your system in a particular way to actually see the difference. If you're constantly flooding your Internet connection's upload, or constantly uploading to another computer on a LAN, the latency reduction can help. But again, the nforce 590 does this.

 

[PurdueRy]

I like how empty that PCB is...

 

[imported_tonjohn]

Here is my thread over at the steampowered.com forums on the same topic.

Announcing the First Network Card for Gamers news release from Daily Tech.

Yes, it is definetly a lot of money but if you look at the specs of my new rig, that really isn't too much of an issue.

My biggest beef with it is the fact that it is a PCI card and not a PCIe card. Why make this badass gigabit NIC and then put it on a bus where it can't be fully taken advantage of? Sometimes I wonder what the hell these companies are thinking...

So I guess the answer is a resounding "no!" then? haha

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: tonjohn
Here is my thread over at the steampowered.com forums on the same topic.

Announcing the First Network Card for Gamers news release from Daily Tech.

Yes, it is definetly a lot of money but if you look at the specs of my new rig, that really isn't too much of an issue.

My biggest beef with it is the fact that it is a PCI card and not a PCIe card. Why make this badass gigabit NIC and then put it on a bus where it can't be fully taken advantage of? Sometimes I wonder what the hell these companies are thinking...

So I guess the answer is a resounding "no!" then? haha

You really think its going to saturate a PCI bus?

 

[imported_tonjohn]

If current gigabit cards can then this definetly should.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: tonjohn
If current gigabit cards can then this definetly should.

They don't

 

[dexvx]

All I have to say is LOOOOOOL

If you want a good nic, just buy a server grade Gigabit NIC from Intel/Marvell (or buy 2 for auto-load balance andfault-tolerance!). Being someone that has worked closely with making NICs for years, I can say this is 100% BS.

 

[Arcanedeath]

This gaming NIC looks like it has good actual specs but certainly not $280 good, the most I'd pay for a quality NIC is about $50 and thats about what this thing should cost for what it does, its at least about 5 times too expensive for what it does I can get a server grade PCIe dual gibabit Intel NIC for that kinda money and it would blow this outa the water.

 

[Mikey]

Simply said, you have to be an idiot to buy that. It's hardly worth the money, and realistically speaking, you wont notice a damn thing.

 

[imported_tonjohn]

yeah, I guess I just like wasting money on hardware haha. Well, thanks for the advice guys!

 

[imported_tonjohn]

FYI: I just sent them an email asking about a PCIe version, will let ya'll know if I hear anything.

 

[soydios]

Totally not worth the money. You would *NOT* notice the difference. Maybe 1 FPS difference if your system is CPU-limited, and definitely no difference worth the $280. I'd almost go so far as to say that the motherboard-integrated NICs would be faster, because they're often on a PCI-Express bus.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Originally posted by: soydios
Totally not worth the money. You would *NOT* notice the difference. Maybe 1 FPS difference if your system is CPU-limited, and definitely no difference worth the $280. I'd almost go so far as to say that the motherboard-integrated NICs would be faster, because they're often on a PCI-Express bus.

Most motherboard NICs don't even use PCI-Express. They're integrated into the "southbridge" so they have a direct link to the bus to the northbridge, or they don't even have to go over that bus if it's a single-chip chipset.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: soydios
Totally not worth the money. You would *NOT* notice the difference. Maybe 1 FPS difference if your system is CPU-limited, and definitely no difference worth the $280.

1 fps is giving it way too much more credit than it deserves.

 

[w00t]

It's not worth it and btw I suggest you look into the Seasonic S12 series of PSU's

 

[cleverhandle]

Holy crap! Someone posted about this week or two back, and pretty much everyone said it looked 99% useless. But we didn't know the price was going to be $280!!!

You would have to be a complete freaking idiot to waste that kind of money. We're way beyond neon lights and RAID0 disk systems here. Way beyond. Anyone who buys that turd might gets ooh's and ahh's from their kiddie gamer friends, but would get instantly pegged as a complete tool by anyone who knows anything about networking.

 

[imported_Yonzie]

64MB of DDR... LOL!
There no need for any amount of memory on a NIC since the purpose of the NIC is to transfer data to/from the network and CPU as fast as possible.

Anyway, the reason this is so expensive is that it's basically a Linux computer that plugs in your PCI slot... Which means you can run programs on your network card that do stuff... Yay. This is useable in which way exactly?

In their white paper they write:

For gaming systems that have older graphics cards, the additional performance in CPU, cache, and main system memory will improve the efficiency of the older graphics card allowing it to run at more FPS, or at higher resolutions and settings.

So... If your system is GPU-limited, you can speed it up by putting in a faster CPU?!
In any case, spending $300 on a NIC is surely a better purchase than a new $300 graphics card to replace the old one... NOT

I am not knowledgeable enough to weigh the validity of all the claims in the white paper, but I know bullshit when I see it...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: tonjohn
FYI: I just sent them an email asking about a PCIe version, will let ya'll know if I hear anything.

I bet you will, since you are obviously a "killer" viral marketer.

 

[rasczak]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

Originally posted by: tonjohn
FYI: I just sent them an email asking about a PCIe version, will let ya'll know if I hear anything.

I bet you will, since you are obviously a "killer" viral marketer.

off topic - DAPUNISHER Where do you paddle out?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: jpbelauskas

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

Originally posted by: tonjohn
FYI: I just sent them an email asking about a PCIe version, will let ya'll know if I hear anything.

I bet you will, since you are obviously a "killer" viral marketer.

off topic - DAPUNISHER Where do you paddle out?

I am in Central Florida.
Been hittin' the burned down Officer's club at Patrick Airforce Base mostly, just south of Cocoa Beach. There is about 60 miles of coast I'll use depending on swell direction, ect. though. You being in Cali, you are probably a short boarder eh?

 

[cessna152]

Is it April 1st already?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Oh god no. If you buy it they'll actually think they came up with a product with some value, and they might start making all sorts of other overpriced marketing gimmicks. Well, more than there are now.

In other words, my PC with onboard networking might have slightly lesser technical benchmark performance, but if you sat in front of the two, you wouldn't actually be able to tell the difference. At least not $280 worth of difference, maybe 10 dollars worth.

Are you uploading files at megabyte per second speeds continuously while you're playing games, with nobody else using your Internet connection? If not, you aren't going to care about the features on this thing.

Plus, the nforce590 has TCP/IP acceleration and latency reduction built in.

"Lag and Latency Reduction" is redundant marketspeak that sounds good because people know what lag is, and latency sounds technical. Lag is defined partially by latency.

I don't for a second believe they cut 20ms off of the ping time JUST because the network card was doing the TCP/IP processing. No FX55 system could possibly be so slow that it couldn't handle the processing without introducing that much latency. And is that 20ms just one single time that they recorded, and the rest of the time it was 10ms (which is still unbelievable)? Don't depend on their own "sneak peak" numbers to tell you what performance will be like, obviously it's going to be astoundingly good according to them.

The only way they cut such high latency out was if the two systems were in fact doing some serious file transfers in the background. The latency reduction, by giving priority to the game packets, can make a huge difference, but it's entirely dependent on you using your system in a particular way to actually see the difference. If you're constantly flooding your Internet connection's upload, or constantly uploading to another computer on a LAN, the latency reduction can help. But again, the nforce 590 does this.

It's going to depend too on what the routers are like between you and the other gamer. If you've got a 1Gb/sec fiber optic NIC, but the routers you're passing data through are 10 years old, running on noisy 10Mbps networks, your expensive network card is now no better than a $5 one from SVC.
And what gives with the CGI picture? Vaporware?