Killer NIC NPU? Anyone try it?

[daviddoran]

http://www.killernic.com/games/wow.aspx

It seems a bit optimistic to me, that such a device can do what standard NICs cannot, but given that multiboxing on a single computer must mean lots of network traffic, you have to wonder if a dedicated network processor might actually help. I don't get much lag, if any, but I know that it could be 'smoother'. I am considering buying one, but I wanted to know if anyone had used it for multiboxing wow on one PC, and if it helped you or not.

[Akeldema]

I would be a bit sceptical about the massive improvements your supposed to get using one. Its not gonna let the Wow servers talk to you any faster.

[Harem]

It completely replaces the microsoft network stack. Doing so allows it minimize time the game spends on the network portion of the 'game frame loop'. It is optimized for udp (standard throughput nics optimize for TCP).

The designer/engineer worked for Intel and helped develop the Intel Pro nic - which is top-notch in terms of throughput (not what the killer nic is about - overall throughput may go down).

It offloads firewall and bitorrent from the cpu (supposedly more apps coming). It is esentially a linux computer that you plug into a pci slot on your machine.

IMHO it is the replacement of the windows stack that provides the greatest improvement.

I've read tons of testimonials and most people that down the card compare it to a throughput card and download speeds - not what the card is about. Its about minimizing game lag. It is about minimizing udp delays. The testimonials also mention that even though, on average, only a few fps are picked up that the game has a smoother feel - less 'hitchy'.

I used to be a critic because I had no clue what the card did. Now I'm a fan of what the card does but...

I'm still a critic of the price :(

Its more for the min/max type that has $3k they are going to put into a machine and then - why the hell not?

[Quix]

It will improve WoW by a few fps. Both Toms hardware and Anandtech did a review of it. My impression of the articles were the writers were trying to slam it, but there benches showed a minor improvement in most
games for the reasons harem mentioned.

it's still not worth the price IMO, but if money is no object, it does help. I put one in my main machine because I saw an improvement on the review benches, & haven't regretted it, but it will not work miracles.

No network card in existence can make what happens on the next network link from your computer happen any faster.

[daviddoran]

Thanks for the input. I think I'm gonna go ahead and get it. My system has every other aspect in the high end bracket, so why not go the whole 9 yards? I think this is one of my last bottlenecks. I'm not expecting much, but ever since I read about the killer nic, I was always intrigued, and wanted to try.

Newegg has it for $129, (I almost went for their sale on the high end one for $150 but i hesitated, and they are OOS)

It's less than I spent on WotLK, so it doesn't sound too bad to me.

[Ualaa]

When I built my most recent (current) system, I opted for one of these.

It can run applications, such as your firewall and torrent downloads directly on the card.
If you plug a USB hard drive into it, the downloads never slow your system down.

The card prioritizes your gaming packets, so the game gets as much bandwidth as it wants, with everything left over going to torrents or other downloads.

I'm not sure if the gains are huge or not, as this system is a hefty upgrade from my previous, in pretty much every category.
The top alienware and falcon-northwest systems do include the Killer NIC in their systems.

I'd imagine, you're paying a fair bit for a small upgrade, but if you have the cash to spare it is an improvement.
Playing at my dad's place, my system but his wireless network (did not want to go a whole summer without a PC capable of gaming), my load times of npc's when landing from the gryphon or loading the auction house increased by a few seconds, so the card does do what it says. His connection is similar to mine, 200k - 1mb /sec torrent downloads for popular torrents.

For FPS type games, you can set the card to increase your latency, which effectively handicaps you a bit forcing your play to improve to compensate.
I've not used that feature, but its neat the card gives options like this.

[entoptic]

I think that is a cool idea but a huge waste of time and money.

Who downloads with bit torrent and games? Come on everyone knows that when you game you shut off all apps and services you need. Why even bother to turn them on or even attempt to download while gaming? Isn't the reason to get the most out of your pc at the time of gaming?

This product may look cool and make sense but I feel it is geared toward the noob player that knows nothing of PCs.

Squeezing one last heal off before death is not worth the price they are asking.

However replacing the windows stack is HAWT but if I am going to do that why not just game on a linux box?

[Fizzler]

Yup price sucks. I see the NIC prioritizes the packets between the computer and the router but who tells the router to do the same? If you have a Netgear router Tomato perhaps....

[nomenquis]

Please, go ahead and ping your router if you're using one. Most likely you'll get something like

Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

See the sub 1 ms part? All the killernic could ever do to reduce latency would work on this sub 1 ms part (we usually have 0.05 ms).

Your isp and your router won't care at all if your nic 'prioritizes' anything, and thus any kind of prioritization would be on outbound traffic only. The nic can not influence how your isp sends packets to you at all. >99% of all latency you're ever going to have is from your dsl modem / cable modem / router onwards, and not between your pc and the router.

The only thing this nic could realistically do is reduce cpu usage on your machine by somehow fiddling with the network stack. However, cpu usage by the network stack is really completely insignificant if you're not running a file server or something like that. Also it might not be a good (save) idea at all to run some kind of third party network stack, after all these years it took m$ to fix their (already copied from bsd afair) network stack.

Realistically using such a nice is pretty much like using something like http://www.monstercable.com/productdisplay.asp?pin=2359
Someone will always hear a difference

just my 2 cents.
kind regards

[not5150]

I helped review the card... don't get it.

The guy who invented it also made Intel's server line of Ethernet cards. Just think of the killer NIC as a modified Intel Server NIC card in your desktop pc.