Killer NIC

[Lazybones]

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTIzOSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

HardOCP Takes a look at the KILLER NIC, and finds out some interesting things..

[Mr. Analog]

I started reading this with a grain of salt of course.

While being a fairly simple goal, you have to admit it is a hell of a robust claim for a Network card.

Was pretty much my thought when I started reading however from the sounds of the article this NIC actually works hard at delivering a better gaming experience, and that has to be good!

[Shayne]

However the quote at the end sums it up...

That is the lowest price we have seen on the Killer NIC since its release, but that is still far from inexpensive. Heck, you can buy a GeForce 7900 GT video card for that much money and to be direct, it would likely be a better upgrade for you depending on what video card you now have.

What is probably $300 Canadian I just couldn't see myself owning one.

[Darren Dirt]

from their earlier technical overview ...

...you still might be wondering why there is a USB 2.0 jack on the card. This could be used with a microphone for in-game communication as mentioned above, or you can even plug a Windows formatted USB Flash drive or external hard drive into it. I expect that if the Killer NIC weathers fighting for a new market we will see Bittorrent clients popping up for it soon. Just imagine having your favorite open source file sharing program sitting on the NIC card not touching the rest of your system having its shared packets being fully prioritized so as to not negatively impact your gaming experience.

Neato, so "don't buy this NIC just for the networking features, use it as an efficient embedded-mini-OS!"

[Mags]

Maximum PC did a review of the card and gave it a 6/10. "Imperceptible ping reduction; very little preformance gain."

Basically the jist was, if it was compariable in price to todays nics, then sure why not even if it was only a 1 - 2 % gain in performace. But for the $280 american it costs, it's a total dud.

[Lazybones]

It would be highly dependent on the other equipment you have at home, I am sure you would see more performance connecting it direct to the net than through a home router.

The embedded aspect is neat though, having firewall and network functions not depend on your main CPU has to be a benefit.