Bigfoot Network's Killer K1 NIC review
Staff Writer Jeremy Star takes an in-depth look at Bigfoot Network's Killer K1 NIC.
Performance - Where is the GO button?
WoW
Yeah, yeah. Get it out now. Regardless of whether you love it or you hate it, World of Warcraft is undeniably the 600 lb gorilla in the MMORPG mist. I ran WoW with all the graphical goodness cranked to the utmost.
WoW runs great on this type of mid-range PC. It was practically designed to run full out on a system like this. Anything more is basically overkill. Instances, Ironforge, or just running around killing things, the game runs pretty smooth with the built in NIC. There is some hitching in crowded areas, and people sometimes take a bit of time to appear on screen, but it's generally acceptable.
With the Killer K1 NIC installed, WoW stills runs smooth. It is, however, noticeably less laggy in crowded areas, and there doesn't seem to be a delay when people load in. As with the M1, the K1 really glosses over any lag you may experience. You almost don't notice until you remove the K1 again, then it seems laggy. The ping is much lower with the K1 installed.
But wait! There's more! After my Killer M1 NIC review, many people complained that upgrading to a dual-core processor would negate any benefit you would see from adding a Killer NIC to your system, so I wanted to put that to the test and see if the Killer would help the same system with a better processor. I popped open Ye Olde Teste Machine and ripped out the clunky Athlon 3000 and replaced it with a faster, dual-core AMD Athlon X2 4200 processor.
Running WoW with the new processor was indeed a bit faster, however there was still noticeable lag in crowded situations. While the FPS (Frames Per Second) were higher, the game still didn't feel as smooth as the Athlon 300 with the Killer K1 installed.
After installing the K1 with the Athlon X2 4200, the lag seemed to disappear again. Once again, the game felt much smoother, and pings were much lower.
Athlon 3000 - No Killer K1
| Min FPS | Max FPS | Average FPS | Average Ping |
| 27 | 51 | 36 | 135 ms |
Athlon 3000 - Killer K1
| Min FPS | Max FPS | Average FPS | Average Ping |
| 27 | 56 | 39 | 39 ms |
Athlon X2 4200 - No Killer K1
| Min FPS | Max FPS | Average FPS | Average Ping |
| 30 | 47 | 39 | 131 ms |
Athlon X2 4200 - Killer K1
| Min FPS | Max FPS | Average FPS | Average Ping |
| 31 | 45 | 41 | 60 ms |
Here we can see that the biggest advantage of the Killer K1 is a much lower ping when it is installed. I'm not sure why the K1 actually raised the ping when installed with the Athlon X2 4200, but it was most likely due to a heavier network load than when it was tested with the Athlon 3000.
We can also see that - true to its advertising - the K1 does increase FPS. The amount here seems minimal, but again, with two PCs side by side, it may prove to be greater.
Conclusion? WoW definitely sees improvement with the Killer K1, dual-core PC or not.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
My second test subject was the newly released Vanguard: SOH (hereafter referred to as VG). Simply put, VG can use as much help as it can get running on a mid-range PC, since it was designed with "future proof" graphics. I ran VG on "balanced" settings, with no tweaking.
VG runs like a three-legged dog on this system. There were literally times that I had to stand up and walk away from the PC for a while. I was that frustrated with the abysmal performance. My character would run for three steps, then lag and start walking for a few steps, then run for three steps, and repeat ad infinitum. I lost track of the number of times I died because the program froze while I was fighting something. Unfreeze! Oh, sorry 'bout that, but you're dead. Have a nice walk back!
After installing the Killer K1, the game became somewhat more tolerable, but I still experienced "lag" death. At least with the K1, the "hitching" while running around noticeably lessened. I also noticed more spell effects that the game had apparently determined my system was not fast enough to display before. Interesting, in a maddening, want-to-destroy-something kind of way. As with WoW, the ping was quite a bit lower, although it wasn't quite as dramatic.
Ok, so now we remove the Athlon 3000 and retire it to the great junkyard in the sky. (Or, build my mother a PC with it. Same difference.) Ah, glorious dual-core power, thou art restored to me in the form of the Athlon X2 4200.
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Well it was better than the last review
A lot of people here will play one of those games and they do cover both ends of the hardware requirement spectrum. If you're playing VG though, that X2 CPU is still pretty mid-range. I got this and overclocked it to 3.29GHz.
I'd like to see how a card like the M1 performs with a CPU like that. /flex
Thank you for your comments. Please point me towards a more professional review of this card, and I'd be happy to read it over and see what I could do to improve my reviews.
Please keep in mind that the professional reviews of the K1 in print magazines such as PC Gamer consist of 5 short paragraphs, and they tested with 3 games. I think we are slightly more in depth than that.
and here's a decent review of the K1 I found on extremetech: www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2105487,00.asp but like the review on this site, it's only tested against one onboard network card and in only a few games.
The review on this site is actually the first time ive ever heard anyone report drastic changes after getting a killer NIC.
So you are basically not looking for "professional" but rather something more in a style that you like. I can respect that, but I cannot provide it for you. Bad review is your opinion, and you are entitled to it, although I must say your two major complaints seem to be invalidated by the example reviews you posted. Neither review tested on more than one processor, and neither tested more than a handfull of games.
When a review just throws out averages, without defining what they are averages of, I would say that it's enough to make a review bad.
I still think $180 for it is a bit steep. Talk to me when it is closer to the $100 range.
What I want to know is how it compares to the new nVidia 680i motherboards with their:
180?
Is still crazy for a NIC. Your reaching the cost of RAM again which would improve your systems performance way more than the POS products put out by Big Foot.
A better internet connection service and 1gig Ethernet port on any modern motherboard will easily compare or do better.
Why are you reviewing these products? Whats the point? You really out of stuff to write about? We mmorpg.com goers I believe would much rather see the performance differences in mmorpgs, and graphical setting differences than reviews of something that NOBODY BUYS, Cares for, or even has a market for.
Big Foot tried to cash in on the whole "gamer" hardware and failed. 180 bucks is better spent on water cooling parts, hardware, or some good'ol reading material about networking or optimizing your PC.
I am still waiting to see how it compares to a 10-15$ standalone nic.
How much of the performance increase is because it's "The Killer NIC" and how much is just because it's a standalone and not integrated?
In my experience anything integrated will have a noticeable hit on performance, be it a NIC, a sound card, a sata controller, a usb hub or anything for that matter.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. I was under the belief that cable internet is no longer a "shared" process. Now, I did think that some low quality providers still provided that old system, but doesn't larger companies in metropolitan areas, like Comcast, have a more dedicated line? You, alone, used to be able to consume your entire neighborhoods bandwidth with the old system which is no longer possible.
I just had my internet/phone/cable hooked up and this was the exact question I had asked: cable internet is a shared bandwidth so how is this going to affect my usage, or vice versa in terms of me affecting my neighbor? The guy who installed everything was a gamer; fps games, America's Army, BF1942, etc. He went over a plethora of technological changes that's been implemented by his company; also his ISP. I had already signed up for everything and wasn't "being sold" a product.
I am experiancing a better dl/ul speed and less packet loss with a 3mb cable connection then I was with my previous 8mb DSL service. I him hitting 12,000 bps whereas the old DLS was barely breaching 10,000 bps. The cable connection fluctuates between 10k bps -to- 12k bps and functions better then my old DSL ISP.
To the persons responding this review isnt "proffesional" enough. The review does have a disclaimer saying that it is not intended to be a "hardcore" review, its merely one persons experience with the card and whether or not they felt it improved. I have learnt something from this review, namely that the Killer NIC is for people with too much money to waste..
Thanks for taking the time to write it!
This card doesn't change the underlying principle of how TCP/IP works, but simply changes the prioritization of the network packets. If you still have a crappy connection, you're still going to get crappy performance. If you have a good connection, you may increase spead a slight bit, but not enough to justify the cost. The only market I could see this increasing performance in is in FPS, where getting the highest ping is king, but even then, it will only help you in a LAN setting, since your ping is deterermined by your ISP, not your network card.
IMO, it's not really designed to do anything except rob another rich idiot of his money.
Nah, to be on topic, I felt this review was quite bad.
First of all, the article it self is not well formed. Also, no matter if you say "it's not a real review", it certainly comes off as an attempt at it and, as such, it fails because it's almost purely based on the "feeling" of the writer, too few setups/games tried, and also not compared to any other NIC (that isn't integrated).
On top of that, even if it DID WORK. You would be MUCH MUCH better off spending the $180 on a new video card, 2GB of ram or the often overlooked 10K rpm raptor HDD. Each will provide REAL performance gains and extend the life of your PC. Paying $180 for this NIC card will do absoutely nothing.
The reviwer is either totally clueless or just trying not to piss off the sponsor. Do you honestly believer Big Network will continue to pay mmorpg.com if they gave a bad review to their flagship product? Not a chance in hell....
What a load of BS, dont buy this useless piece of crap. Go ask around in some of the more well known tech sites like tomshardware and anandtech forums, and people will laugh their ass off if you wasted $180 on this garbage...
Just a few points:
1 - Did you read the review? Did you miss the big section where I point out that advertising money has nothing to do with me? It doesn't make one bit of difference to me if someone stops advertising here or not. It has nothing to do at all with my reviews.
2 - If it did nothing, I imagine there would be quite a few irritated customers demanding their money back and filing lawsuits. Instead, we have the rants of people who have no experience with the card, and believe they are qualified to make a judgment based on that lack of experience.
3 - Some of the well known tech sites have given Killer NICs awards. ([H]ardOCP for one)
I think that was an attempt at a witty analogy, however it fails since plenty of bridges in NY have a lot more lanes than the roads leading to them. It also really has nothing to do with how the Killer NICs work.
Any of those bridges in NY for sale?
I have one for sale... :-) Still interested?
i read your review and found from your own review that this card falls under waste of money....
if you can tell the difference in the slight change that is to improve your system then you might need to walk out side once a year.
I will not be buying this card......
And after reading your post here after people found your review lacking...I find I will not give your review to much credit from now on.
Staff Writer Jeremy Star takes an in-depth look at Bigfoot Network's Killer K1 NIC
also in your words in-depth does not mean 2 mid level games to most gamers and we look for more from MMORPG
The K1 NIC is simply not price efficient for what it is. A RAM upgrade or a CPU upgrade is far more cost-effective as far as replacement goes. For you to get such improvements on your ping leads me to believe that something is wrong with your network and/or computer, because that's all the K1 NIC will affect. It will have no affect on your ISP's connection to the rest of the world. It will have no affect on your router's connection to your ISP. From everything I have read about the card, the improvements are modest, at best and fairly miniscule in real world applications. The only application I can see this card being absolutely worth it, is in a LAN gaming environment for a FPS contest where ping is king. In a MMORPG environment, your ping honestly doesn't matter that much unless it's way up there. And if it is way up there, then you're having problems besides what this NIC can do for you.
I'm sorry, but this review is pretty bad and seeing that Big Networks is waving it about on their website like it's some big deal further makes me doubt the effectiveness of the review, as well as the card.
Where, exactly, did you read that it improves the ISP connection? I certainly did not write that. And you are right, something is wrong with my computer: Windows XP. The way it handles packets from games is pretty inefficient. Vista claims to do better, but I haven't had time to verify that yet.
Thank you for sharing your opinion. Twice.
Secondly, I'd love to hear your explanation of how a $180 NIC is a better investment than a CPU upgrade or a RAM upgrade, especially since most people have only 1 gig at most. Your review is riddled with all the little buzzwords that Bigfoot Networks uses in their advertisement flyers and such, with little or no understanding of what is actually happening, especially if you think Windows is responsible for your network having a 60ms overhead.
I know I'm being a troll here, but it bugs me that I see this kind of pandering on a site not even dedicated to these type of reviews. You say you're not influenced by their advertising and such, hey...I'll accept that. But if you think you're serving the community putting up trash like this, you might want to become a little more knowledgeable about what you're talking about. That is my only point.
You know, I have been doing network support for eons, I am very good at it.
Cards like this are gimmicks. More often than not it is your ISP that limits your throughput than a silly NIC.
To the average gamer, cards like this are useless. There are far better ways to spend $200 to get improvements in your system.
I think the reviewer did a disservice to the readers by not at least noting that there are far better options for improving game performance.
The analogy about the 8 laned bridge was precious. The reviewer responding to that just made it clear of his lack of understanding of how computer systems work.
My analogy to this card is kind of like an old man living in a shack with no indoor plumbing going out and putting an expensive jacuzzi inside. It certainly looks and sounds impressive, but it sure as heck is not going to make him smell any better.
I'm not going to feed the trolls. It is quite obvious by now that you merely wish to display your "superior" knowledge without really being concerened about the review itself. You did not cite any assumptions, you changed your approach and asked me to prove I know about networking. You state that you are knowledgeable about networking, but have yet to prove it yourself. I'm sorry, I don't have time to play your game.
In fact, this has come down to petty people trying to make themselves feel superior by claiming that I have no idea what I am talking about. If it makes you feel good, go for it, but I am no longer willing to waste my time replying to all the trolls.
The 7 layer OSI model is what TCP/IP protocol is based on. The seven layers being Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link, and physical. You can find this information in any second or third year college class or even on the web. Now, with that in mind, all of your packets that travel by TCP/IP goes through those 7 layers. If you wish for further clarification, I can give you a lecture on how the packet is processed through those layers.
With that in mind, you also have to understand how TCP works. I'm sure you know already that TCP is the transport method of IP. (That's a sarcastic remark btw, as I already know the answer.) It is also the more reliable transport method than UDP, which is what games use. Now, with UDP, the translation overhead of reforming the packets back from what was sent is much lower, meaning that it is faster than TCP, but far less reliable, because it doesn't require that the packets be numbered, tracked, or even remembered. The UDP packet is sent and then forgotten about. With that in mind, the NIC is not going to have to deal with a lot of overhead with dealing with the packets, ie. the translation time between Windows implementation of TCP/IP and the NIC is going to be fairly negligible. That's why I said if you were seeing such an improvement between your pings, you've got something else going on besides what you're saying.
All that crap that they're going on about, such as the LLR(tm) and such, it's not going to be much use to anyone but a hardcore FPS player, and even then, it's only gonna come into its own on a LAN during a tournament, or if you wanna bump up your pings to appear to be less effective than you really will be but that will just get you accused of cheating more often than not.
Now, if you further wish for me to educate you on network technicalities, or you have further questions about my own qualifications, I'll be more than happy to discuss them with you.
I normally don't necro; but after seeing all the vitriol directed at Jeremy for making a report that didn't contradict reports from reputable sources, before and after he wrote this, just annoys me.
Just recently my preferred choice for any hardware review Tom's Hardware took a look at Killer NIC and they said esactly the same thing the author did with more stringent testing guidelines. I hope the loudmouth know it alls eat crow.
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/killer-m1-nic,review-1083-5.html
I'm convinced this will be a good buy.