Bigfoot KillerNIC Review
Jeremy Starley takes an in-depth look at Bigfoot Network's Killer Network Interface Card from the perspective of an MMORPG gamer.
Hardware Reviews By Jeremy Star on December 13, 2006
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What I think of it: To me, having a Killer NIC installed in my system is great. I love that even in games like Guild Wars, where it has very little to improve, I can still see some small benefit. I love that in other games I can see a noticeable increase in FPS and that it seems to smooth out and equalize the performance. Now, I'm sure some of you have heard the rumors that installing a Killer NIC will cause you all sorts of headaches and problems. Let me tell you what I experienced. I am lucky enough to have a motherboard that has three PCI slots. This means I can install Killer without removing my sound card or my PhysX card. Well, it means that in theory, anyway. In reality, my motherboard refused outright to see the Killer NIC in any slot but the bottom. That was not so great, since it meant moving all my cards around until I discovered where it would work, but it was a problem with the motherboard, not the card. Fine, now it's in, I can start testing. Wrong. Once I had the card in, I found that it would randomly not power on with the rest of the system. This meant that every time I turned on my PC, there was a 50/50 shot of the Killer actually receiving power and being detected by the software. Once again, the Killer is blameless, and I can curse the manufacturer of my motherboard. A BIOS update seemed to fix this up nicely. The Killer NIC can be run in gaming mode, or normal application mode. Bigfoot claims that if you experience problems with something in gaming mode, switching to application mode should solve them. I pretty much forgot to ever switch to app. mode, since I never had a problem with any software. Firefox 2.0 is locking up, but the same problem occurs on my laptop and my work PC, so I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with the Killer NIC. I think a majority of people tend to blame the most recent change in their system, rather than realize that adding something to the system can expose an existing instability. Add to that the fact that the Killer NIC has, in the past, had a few problems of its own and I can see why people automatically blame it for their problems. However, I want to be clear here, I experienced no actual problems with the Killer NIC itself. In fact, when I installed it on my fiancée's system, I had no trouble at all - from the card or the system. Who I think can benefit most: Drawing a conclusion from testing on my own PC as well as a lower end PC, I would have to say the people who would benefit the most are people with mid-range PC specs. My fiancée's PC is by no means the slowest thing I have heard of running WoW or GW, but it can certainly benefit from less CPU overhead. It could also benefit from a new processor, new RAM, and a new video card, all of which would require a new motherboard. Adding all that up, it would definitely be cheaper to purchase a Killer NIC for a boost in performance. For people with really low end systems, you will undoubtedly benefit more from upgrading your other components than from installing a Killer NIC. You simply don't have the resources to free up to see any benefit. For those of us with higher-end PCs, it comes down how much you are willing to do to increase performance, and if you are willing to do it intelligently. For example, I could very well upgrade my BFG 7800 GT video card to a 7900 model, but it would be cheaper to install a Killer NIC, and the performance boost would be greater. However, I could certainly save that money and upgrade my processor to an AMD FX for an even greater performance boost. For the people who already have the latest and greatest, let's face it: You have probably spent more than the gross national product of some countries upgrading your rig. If you are in to squeezing every last ounce of performance from your system, $280 for 1 or 2 more FPS is probably worth it to you. (At the time I am writing this, the Killer NIC can be picked up for $249 from many online stores. The MSRP is still $279, however.) Final Thoughts: What it boils down to is that the Killer NIC does what it says it does, and you can definitely feel the difference in MMORPG games. It may not appeal to everyone, but I think that those of you who do pick one up will be pleased. As an added bonus, Bigfoot Networks will undoubtedly be releasing more FNA programs in the future, which can only improve its value. And me? You'll have to compete with my fiancée to get it away from me. Now excuse me, I feel the urge to go hurl fireballs at some orcs. * How hardcore is Harlan Beverly? He met his wife online while playing Ultima Online. Their characters married and had two children, Christopher and Samantha. Eventually, Harlan and his wife married in real life, had two children, and named them - you guessed it - Christopher and Samantha. Harlan says the biggest difference between his online family and his real family is that he can't send the children off to mine gold for him. ** For those of you not familiar with these shows, I offer the following explanation: In Star Trek, characters gibber on and on about technology and exactly how they are going to make it do what they need it to do. In Farscape, when a character attempts a techno-babble explanation he is quickly shushed by other characters who don't care how it works, they just care that it works. |
Bummer I missed the previous comments.
My only concern is that having any software operate outside the boundaries of the windows kernel (i.e. any software talking directly to the hardware) can have disasterous results. I wonder if it will be windows "approved".
I question its usefulness given lag usually is coming from beyond your nic card as pointed out in the WoW example.
I guess if you go out and buy a physX card, you're going to get this too.
I didn't know what to expect from the article considering how much advertising I see for on this site, but as a network professional I can tell you the article pretty much fell into line with what I expected the Killer NIC to do..
And not do.
Hehe,
Now, if I feel that a game that was not made by SoE/Sigil has a lot of lag and I want to reduce it, I will know there is another option, if I am ready to bypass all the techs issues (I don't think I would have try all the slots on the motherboard myself hehe).
But...as a PvE player who value instancing and relatively high-end computers, I dunno...see, my computer is still much better than his fiancée, and I am about to change it...I don't update regularly, I change.
For example, the only places where I would have appreciate less lag would be lagville in CoV (Grandville) and some bases-missions with instanced grids, way too many grids prolly. He talk about lag in mayhems, and honestly, I didn't lag much at all in any mayhem ever. I wouldn't spent $300 for Lagville alone or 1 particuliar mission, since in CoV, I don't play in Lagville, I go to my mish, so I can endure the lag while I bump between mishs...even if it is really annoying.
If I would play WoW, well, I wouldn't do MC and if I lag in Ironforge, it suck but I would live with it...just like I was living with lag in the Bazaar.
Anyway, 1 more option to attack the evillagmonster is always good.
*Bite at the lagmonster*
I'm curious as to how it affects performance with regards to RF Online during Chip Wars? Some Chip Wars in my server have up to 500-700 people duking it out in the same map at the same time (which generally kills performance). If anyone has tested it on this particular game and has any feedback, please post. Thanks.
High end sys dont need it,low-mid end sys can use that money for better stuff.Killernic is kinda castrating themself imo
I agree there. I think that the network card is probably at the very bottom of the upgrade list on low to mid range machines. If I had 280 bucks to dump in to my system, I think I could get more of a performance increase from increasing my RAM or a new video card. I also have to say, as a network engineer, even with an on-board NIC on a cheap motherboard, it probably isn't having a noticeably adverse affect on your actual latency or throughput.
What I see this card doing is freeing up other resources for use in other places, It just doesn't make any sense to me to go this route, rather than just upgrade and increase those resources at the source.
When I read this review I hear 2 things. Reduce CPU needs and give game trafic priority.
One thing pops in mind when reading this story. If the network trafic is screwed because the CPU can't handle it, why not buy a second CPU (Dual core CPU). I am really curious if this NIC still has an advantage with a dual-core system.
Another thing is the trafic priority. This can also be done with a good router and/or software running on the PC managing the trafic. With a dual-core system the CPU load does not matter.
Same goes with the teamspeak software. Using a dual-core will solve the CPU problem.
Im in the "sure it can smooth things a bit on a lower spec machine but there are a bazzillion things that will give more bang for your buck" school of thought.
Internet latency and throughput is not going to be solved by a NIC and some of the slow down issues the author mentions are clearly server latency problems. Buy another stick or memory upgrade the graphics card or upgrade the motherboard and cpu and see noticeable performance increases across the board is my advice!
Cheers.
I'm still a spetic on the issue, but I think you figured there would still be those spetic's still around on the issue of this card. (Wasn't there some software, I think it was called "Gear" that did something similar to this NIC card that many FPS's and MMO have banned people from servers for?
I'm still using an onboard, non-nForce network card and was considering a Killer NIC but now I'll probably spend the cash on a new board and I won't have to worry about the extra slot, card not booting etc. It would mean upgrading all my system components though - so not as 'cheap' as the Killer NIC option but certainly more future-proof.
I'd like to see a review of the top end nForce vs. Killer NIC vs. the best other PCI network card out there.
Great review though
I don't know how much it costs them to manufacture the card, but I do know that the only other NICs on the market with built in network processing units cost upwards of $800 US, and they aren't really meant for consumers. Also, it's new technology, so the retail price is bound to drop as the cost to manufacture them goes down. Remember earlier this year when the new NVidia 7900 video cards cost over $500? Now you can pick up a new 7950 for less than $300. It's not just because the new 8800 cards are out, it's because the cost of manufacturing the chips for the 7900 series dropped dramatically.
Traffic prioritization can be done at your router (or via software on the system)
Offloading CPU only means you need a faster CPU which is probably cheaper to just get an upgraded CPU for your system.
All in all for power-tweakers this might be an option but I don't see it as something your average gamer is going to want to sink money on. Bleeding edge systems are going to see VERY little, if any, benefit from this sucker and, honestly, anything else you'll get a lot more bang for your buck by upgrading ram, processor, mobo, audio or video (or all of the above).
Good review, though. It's nice to see a well written and thought out review on this site. I would love to see more reviews done in this manner.
it's misleading to state this to people who don't know what hardware is and what it does. you say your self that you aren't a hardware site, and one of the first comments on this article even points out 'that this is the first positive review of the Killer NIC i've ever seen'.
then we have people chiming in with crap like:
This is a great article. It relates to the MMOG gameplay and is not tech-infested with charts. I had a fun time reading this article and I hope more like this will come!
god forbid we have charts. those might show how much something like this is a huge waste of money.
and:
I'm still a spetic on the issue, but I think you figured there would still be those spetic's still around on the issue of this card.
spetic?
bottom line:
don't waste your money on this crap. it'll give you as much of an increase in performance as a new exterior case (i.e. ZERO).
a faster connection will help lag, not a swanky new NIC with a big stupid K on the chipset.
i hope anyone actually reading this review does more research before they plunk down hard earned dollars for this thing.
[H]ardOCP says:
I see a product such as this carving out a solid niche in the high-dollar boutique gaming boxes that we see sold from companies like Velocity Micro, Maingear, Falcon Northwest, and Dell's XPS class machines. When you are buying a $3000+ computer, I see many opting for the fancy NIC that they likely know nothing about to begin with.
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTE1MywyLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
Anandtech says:
Our current opinion is, without FNapps, improved performance across a wider variety of titles, and a significantly lower price tag, this card is destined to be nothing more than an interesting footnote in the annals of hardware history.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2865&p=11
these are HARDWARE REVIEW SITES. not fluff guys that put it in their box and look around orgimmar for a sec.
First of all, i enjoyed reading the test. Very good writing, Jeremy.
As for it's usefullness, i suggest you first check your provider and his routings. My provider offers a fast ping routing for an additional monthly fee. This instantly changed my ping from ~200ms to 60-80ms.
I like the concept of the card with the ability to provide more specialized applications (like Ventrillo/Teamspeak) possibly even USB keyboards/controlles to free up more CPU resources. It might all be small improvements but it could be quite good if used to it's full potential.
Thanks for the interesting review.
It's interesting that you choose to quote from a preview article at [H]ardOCP, but ignore the fact that Killer NIC won an Editors Choice Silver award from them in the December 08, 2006 review.
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTIzOSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
Anandtech also notes that while they were unimpressed overall, the Killer NIC does do what it says: i.e. it lowers ping and increases framerates.
As for us not being a hardware site: it's true. I admit it. I review hardware from the Every-Joe perspective, so that the people who play MMORPGs can read a review and figure out if it is right for them and their game without trying to decypher a bunch of techno-babble. Does this mean I don't know what I am talking about and I am not qualified to techno-babble? NO. Truth is, my day job is at a pharmaceutical automation company supporting computers, robots, and bleeding edge technology. Before I worked at my current job, I worked for IBM supervising the inspection of chip carrier products for customers such as ATI, Nintendo, and Tivo. If I'm not qualified to review hardware, I don't know who would be.
You may want to actually read articles instead of cherry-picking comments that you think will support your point of view. Both sites you quote from confirm that the Killer NIC does indeed improve FPS. Have fun with your cute little blender-toast analogies over there in blissfull ignorance land.
I read the reviews when this crap first came out, and then just went back to the sites and punched Killer Nic into their search fields. The results I found weren't flattering, and I linked them. You'll notice that the results I linked weren't even BAD, per se... they just weren't good.
God forbid you confuse your readers with techno-babble. We wouldn't want to confuse their simple little minds. Insulting the intelligence your reader base is a surefire way to get new fans. Go ahead and recommend a $300 LAN card to them. I'm sure they'll appreciate it when they could have spent that money on a better video card or more RAM.
So many things contribute to lag, but to say the "killer nic" is for an 'everyday joe' that can't decipher a simple benchmark chart is stupid. A fool and his money are soon parted, I suppose.
Your title of "chip carrier product inspection supervisor" is certainly impressive. It's right up there with 'middle management at a software firm'... a.k.a. 'can't code himself, but took a business class, and knows how to organize shifts'. Congratulations on that. It must have gone smashingly well since you've now been promoted to 'everyday joe hardware reviewer for an MMO website'. I've worked in IT for 6 years as the IT Manager for a PDF conversion firm in the california bay area. We regularly slosh large amounts of data back and forth across the LAN on a daily basis. I'm not trying to throw that around like it means anything fantastic, I'm just saying that I don't "supervise the inspection of chip carrier products". I build boxes and put them out on the floor.
The Killer NIC has a place. It might be on a local counterstrike server in a gaming cafe, or a high end workstation at a video editing lab. To say an 'everyday joe' will get increased framerate in molten core is laughable, considering most motherboards these days come with onboard gigabit jacks, and the average DSL or cable line uses only a very small fraction of that pipe.
Good luck out there. You'll notice I registered just to post on this ridiculous article. Feel free to delete this post and ban this account, I won't be coming back.
I'm sorry, did someone kill your dog or something?
For those of you without serious attitude problems and superiority complexes, you will no doubt be intelligent enough to know that in order to supervise the inspection of any sort of micro-chip product, you must first know how to inspect it so that you can instruct your employees to watch for certain defects in certain chips, etc. Again, you cherry pick your commentary and choose to launch an attack on one aspect of my reply, conveniently ignoring the fact that I work in tech support.
You will also, no doubt, be aware that I would not insult the majority of our reader base by assuming that they could not decypher techno-babble. We merely assume that the average MMORPG.com reader would rather not, since they are most likely here to learn about MMORPGs and how/ with what to improve them. Were we stupid enough to go around insulting the reader base, we would not long survive in this market.
--"To say an 'everyday joe' will get increased framerate in molten core is laughable, considering most motherboards these days come with onboard gigabit jacks, and the average DSL or cable line uses only a very small fraction of that pipe."--
Have you read any of the reviews, by anybody? If you have, you clearly do not comprehend what is being said. YES, the Killer NIC will increase the FPS of most PCs or smooth out performance on most PCs. It has nothing to do with bandwidth. The question is not will it increase your FPS, it is do you want to spend that kind of money on it, and I fail to read anywhere where we or anyone else told people to go buy one. Worth is a personal opinion, and we invite all readers to make their own decision. We merely state that yes, it does do what it says.
Have a nice day.