Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
General: Bigfoot Network's Killer K1 NIC Review
Meddle
Administrator UncommonPosts: 758
Staff Writer Jeremy Star takes an in-depth look at Bigfoot Network's Killer K1 NIC.
A couple of months ago, I reviewed the Killer NIC here at MMORPG.com. While my testing concluded that the Killer NIC did indeed smooth out the MMORPG experience, a common complaint in our forums and elsewhere was that it was just too expensive to justify purchasing one.
The people at Bigfoot Networks have heard the complaints, and have answered the call for a cheaper version of the Killer NIC with their newest product: The Killer K1.
The Hardware - My what big ports you have!
The Killer K1 is a PCI NIC designed to replace your onboard ethernet ports. Just like its big brother - the original Killer NIC, now designated M1 - the Killer K1 runs its very own Linux operating system on an onboard processor and 64 MB of RAM.
Unlike its older sibling, however, the K1 runs its OS and LLR technology on a 333 Mhz Network Processing Unit (NPU). The M1 has a 400 Mhz NPU. Does this make a big difference in performance? Not according to Bigfoot Networks. They told me that the extra processing power on the M1 is used for the FNApps programs, so the K1 and the M1 should have almost the same performance effect in games. If you are running a game and an FNApp, then the M1 has the decided advantage, but at a higher cost. (FNApps are Flexible Network Architecture programs, designed to run on the Killer's NPU so they don't slow down your gaming.)
Read the entire review here.
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
Comments
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
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.
Agent_X7 AKA J Star
[/URL]
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
UO-EQ1-SWG-DAOC-WOW-EQ2-WAR-GW2-RIFT
Please keep in mind that the profesional reviews of the K1 in print magazines such as PC Gamer consist of 2 short paragraphs. I think we are slightly more in depth than that. By professional reviews I meant something more along the lines of something you might see on anandtech or tomshardware, not something out of a gaming mag. Here's a good example of an user review of the M1 on NCIX forum.ncix.com/forums/topic.php
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.
Please keep in mind that the profesional reviews of the K1 in print magazines such as PC Gamer consist of 2 short paragraphs. I think we are slightly more in depth than that.By professional reviews I meant something more along the lines of something you might see on anandtech or tomshardware, not something out of a gaming mag. Here's a good example of an user review of the M1 on NCIX forum.ncix.com/forums/topic.php
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.
Agent_X7 AKA J Star
[/URL]
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
Please keep in mind that the profesional reviews of the K1 in print magazines such as PC Gamer consist of 2 short paragraphs. I think we are slightly more in depth than that.By professional reviews I meant something more along the lines of something you might see on anandtech or tomshardware, not something out of a gaming mag. Here's a good example of an user review of the M1 on NCIX forum.ncix.com/forums/topic.php
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.
Well you're right neither review has tested multiple CPUs, and me thinking they should is a matter of preference really. But as for professionalism, the number one thing that a professional in depth review needs to do is lay out the procedure, like extreme tech has done. and btw, the NCIX user review had 7 games, which is plenty.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 $100 range.
What I want to know is how it compares to the new nVidia 680i motherboards with their:
I am still waiting to see how it compares to a 10-15$ 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.
"Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason."
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.
Which is a noble thing indeed!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)
Agent_X7 AKA J Star
[/URL]
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
Agent_X7 AKA J Star
[/URL]
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
Any of those bridges in NY for sale?
I have one for sale... :-) Still interested?
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.
Yes i did read it, but how do you expect the readers to take you seriously after this review? you have lost your credibility. Anyone with just a slight clue and understanding of PC hardware will realize how silly this "killer" network card is. But just in case you are actually clueless and not marketing this for the sponsors:The $200 killer nic card justifies its price tag by claiming the following:
1) Reduce CPU utilization - The CPU utilization of nic card is negligible at best even back in the pentium days. Now with core2duo and x2 processors, to market a $200 nic card over this is comical, nic cards wont even make a dent on the modern day CPU processors.
2) Reduce lag - Even more ridiculus, the network latency is bound by your ISP and the network between your pc and ISP. It is NOT limited by your network card, so how does upgrading your network card help? The analogy someone made about the bridge is dead on - doubling a 4 lane bridge(network card) will not help if the traffic is delayed because there are only 2 lanes onto the bridge...
2 - If it did nothing, I imagine there would be quite a few irritated customers demanding their money back and filing lawsuits.
Are you really this naive or just pretending? ever heard of false marketing or hype? If you are really this clueless, turn on the tv and buy a few of those "instant millionare" or "lost 20 pounds in a week belt" infomercials....or remember all those "increase your internet speed by 70%!" softwares a few years back?
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.
You dont need to buy this card to realize how stupid it is, like i said as long as you have some basic hardware knowledge.
3 - Some of the well known tech sites have given Killer NICs awards. ([H]ardOCP for one)
The award for the worst hardware? from anandtech's article apparently bigfoot network was using viral marketing and posting false positive reviews on neweggs a while back to promote the card. Anandtech usually NEVER bad mouth any hardware company, so when they have a problem with a vendor it's not a good sign.
Here's the conclusion from anantech (you can search the site for the full article)
[quote]
This is the real irony of the Killer NIC as the systems that show the greatest amount of improvement (in a very limited number of titles) belong to owners that would never consider spending $279.99 on a NIC. Those who can afford the card are probably running system specifications in which the game performance improvements would never be noticed. In fact, we could simply overclock our systems by 5% or a little more and end up with the same frame rate improvements. That leaves a very small audience of buyers who would potentially purchase the card for the gee-whiz factor or the professional gamer who has the ability to take advantage of a 1ms or better improvement in ping rates in Counter Strike: Source or could tell the difference between 58 fps or 53 fps in F.E.A.R..
[/quote]
Here's a conclusion that summarize this whole scam pretty well from: www.legitreviews.com/article/478/7/
[quote]
After spending an evening of gaming with and without the Killer NIC and Killer K1 on both our Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista Ultimate test systems it was the unanimously agreed by all that the Killer NIC and Killer K1 is not worth the added $180-$250 cost. The Killer NIC and Killer K1 did reduce our pings and improved frame rates, but by less than 5%. The difference was so small that no one could correctly tell when the Killer NIC was or wasn't installed in our 'blind' taste test, which was rather alarming. If someone is going to spend $180-$250 on something they better be able to see and notice the difference when they game.
Only after recording ping times for a couple hours with and without the Killer NIC installed could we see the difference on GRAW. The 3ms difference was seen on a server that we pinged 103ms to normally. Is that worth $180? To us the answer is no, but at least we got together and had a good time gaming and hanging out!
............
For a price tag of $180-$250 the vast majority of gamers would be better off upgrading their graphcis card, processor or adding additional memory that will help improve gaming performance by more than a couple percent here and there.
[/quote]
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.
Agent_X7 AKA J Star
[/URL]
Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.