BIGFOOT NETWORKS INTRODUCES AFFORDABLE NEW KILLER K1

[toolegit2quit]

It seems , Imho, that Bigfoot is a bit before its time. It sounds like a great and promising product for the future. When Broadband expands to the " Internet 2 " that I've heard about which scales faster downloads is made available to the masses I would imagine that the K1 would be a must have nic.

[Cinrellik]

Looking forward to the review!

Me too!

We would have had a review a long time ago, but Killer cut our sample after we published this article: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/358/1/ Promptly after I posted that article no one at Killer would contact me and even Harlan Beverly wouldn't return my messages. I found it odd that they let me post the very first pictures of the card and then never send a card when they said they would.

Just a few weeks ago I bumped into KillerNIC in the bar line at a PC Charity Race in Las Vegas during CES and thanked the guy for never responding to us (Legit Reviews). After that awkward moment, I was promised the card and started getting contacted by KillerNIC again. I had a conference call with them last week on the K1/M1 and was told I was going to be sent both.

They were supposed to send a sample out last week, but I have yet to get any cards or even a tracking number... Two promises of review samples and no products yet...

I don't know the situation you've been through. I don't run in the same circles with marketing or management. (I'm in QA)

I will find out what's going on and try to make sure you get something to review. You have my email address? And I don't intend to to give up on this till you get one.

Unless its fully supported by Vista.... useless?

And really, what kind of a boost (% wise) does it provide to the average modern computer?

We have Vista 32bit drivers that have been tested with home basic, home premium and vista ultimate. Vista 64bit drivers are taking longer than expected to complete, but they are being worked on. (and of course we still support XP 32 and 64bit)

The largest boost is from skipping the windows network stack, this cycle normally requires windows to examine every other action its taking along with the frames being drawn onscreen before it can send the next ping/pakcet of data out over the network. Killer takes the UDP (game data) away from windows and sends/recieves your game data before or during each windows data cycle, allowing your CPU to stay focused on its other tasks. Delivery of game data faster in this method reduces ping spikes, smooths out the network performance and makes it feel like a better connection, even when the ping numbers themselves arent always affected directly (since most of the lag being removed is from in between those pings being sent out and recieved).

The second boost is UDP priority (all other "optomized" NICs are TCP priority for browsing and downloading improvements). UDP priority ensures that no matter what else your computer is sending over the network, your game data is sent first.

There may also be some FPS improvement, depending on your system. This is more of a side effect of freeing up CPU power so that it can better communicate with your graphics processor. Some games/systems are already well ahead of the power curve and may not see a higher FPS max number, but even the best systems usually see at least a smoother FPS average, with less drops in frames and less stutter during explosions or close firefights.

[Cinrellik]

They were supposed to send a sample out last week, but I have yet to get any cards or even a tracking number... Two promises of review samples and no products yet...

I asked our marketing director today and was told "Nathan from Legit Reviews has a card already in the mail."

If you don't get it within a couple more days, please let me know and I will find a way to get the tracking number and resolve this.

[Apoptosis]

They were supposed to send a sample out last week, but I have yet to get any cards or even a tracking number... Two promises of review samples and no products yet...

I asked our marketing director today and was told "Nathan from Legit Reviews has a card already in the mail."

If you don't get it within a couple more days, please let me know and I will find a way to get the tracking number and resolve this.

Cheer, I'll let everyone know when they arrive.

[InsolenceAndHeresy]

So Cinrellik, those with a CPU Power : GPU Power ration thats heavily balanced toward the GPU would see the most benefit from this since it would free up CPU resources to send data to the yet 'untapped' potential of the GPU?

[Cinrellik]

So Cinrellik, those with a CPU Power : GPU Power ration thats heavily balanced toward the GPU would see the most benefit from this since it would free up CPU resources to send data to the yet 'untapped' potential of the GPU?

IMO yes. Any system where the CPU is a bottleneck compared to another part of the system is going to get the most benifit from killer. Your taking away an entire process from the CPU so that it can deliver its other data in a more timely fashion.

The windows network stack is a nasty beast.

Killer isn't some miracle cure all that solves every internet related problem. But it does deliver a better environment for game networking than windows by itself.

[Apoptosis]

Still no cards, but they are checking into it.

[odie2190]

Hi,

I work for Bigfoot Networks (we make the Killer M1 and K1). I just wanted to respond to a few of these replys.

What's the point, seriously? Unless you computer comes with a really crappy NIC, or you're REALLY into 'every millisecond counts' gaming, no.

For a competitive gamer, every milisecond does count.

For a casual gamer, just the smoother more reliable network performance can make your gaming more enjoyable.

This is hilarious.

Was it funny when they first released slot based video cards instead of onboard video cards? Was the first GPU funny when they told you it would free up CPU power to improve the apperance of your games? People bashed those too, until they woke up and realized it worked.

Welcome to the future. Killer is the only network card with an NPU. Bypassing the windows network stack to gain a performance increase in online gaming.

how does this actually help over say gigabit ethernet onboard? connected to your router at 1gb/s your internet isnt' even that fast for most people. you'd have to have a direct tap into optical lines running from one of the major cities.

1gb is your bandwith, this has nothing to do with speed. That's the volume of data able to be passed at one time, not the speed at which it's being passed. Having 1gb compared to 10mb may prevent a bottleneck at that point IF you have ton's of data being moved at one time. The reality is, games don't use much data at one time; they need tiny pieces of data being moved faster.

You could increase your bandwith to 100gb and never see a speed increase until you add two things: bypass the windows network stack, and priorty UDP over TCP.

The other network cards/motherboards claiming to improve your network connection: improve TCP speeds. This does nothing for games. To improve network speed in games, UDP needs to be prioritized over TCP.

And before you even ask: Yes I know there are "routers" that claim UDP priority, but what you need to realize is that the difference between the Killer and a gaming router is that a gaming router is designed to get data to your computer as fast as possible.

Killer is designed to get data to your game as fast as possible once it hits your computer. Killer completely replaces the Windows Networking Stack with a hardware implementation, which allows it to get data to the game faster and more directly. Getting data to the game more quickly means data can get incorporated into the game up to several frames ahead of what users normally experience.

Killer frees up a small amount of CPU cycles because your CPU doesn't have to do networking anymore, and these cycles become critical when you need the CPU power the most -- i.e. -- when bombs are rocking your world in BF2 or when you are raiding Molten Core.

Just to be ultra-clear, the benefits of Killer are additive to the benefits of a gaming router. In other words, one does not replace the other and both offer different types of benefits.

most id spend for that is $39.99

It may be a kick ass NIC but they sure didn't do much consumer analysis before they marketed the thing.

The Killer has it's own CPU, RAM and operating system. Your asking for a computer to be sold for $39.99. We won't reach that price point any time soon.

The Killer isn't "just" a network card, it's a linux computer plugged into your PCI slot.

As for consumer analysis; we've done tons of market research, performance testing and so on. Everyone who has actually tried it, agress that it works. Price points are for another debate though; as there's too many factors involved from manufacturing to development costs to profit markups for retailers.

This isn't a mass produced piece of 10-20 year old technology like a normal network interface device.

Is this the same NIC as before without that ugly-azz heatsink? Is this why it is now "affordable"? Wasn't their other one like $250??

Guess this is their "Value" line.

The heatsink isn't really that expensive by itself; and was needed to cover all the various processing chips on the card. Removing the heatsink and running the card at a slower speed allowed for some minor reengineering that gives the K1 nearly the same performance as an M1 with a lower manufacturing cost that we pass along to consumers.

But the K1 is running at 333mhz instead of 400mhz and is not FNA enabled out of the box (it can be upgraded). There is also the potential that not all FNA products will run at 333mhz, and those will be M1 only.

who the heck is paying that much for a NIC card? When did $150 become affordable?

$150 for the K1 compared to $250 for the M1. It's a price comparison to our own product line. As for who is paying that much. Anyone who wants a more enjoyable online experience; and considering how many we've sold; there's clearly alot of online gamers who want that.

I play BF2 just fine on DSL on a wireless (G) network.

There's people who think they play just fine using AOL for games too. I wouldn't, but than I'm a pro gamer so to each his own.

can u say owned

[Schwarz]

I know lots of pro gamers not using AOL nor the KillerNIC also.

[Apoptosis]

The cards arrived today and were shipped over night...

[Schwarz]

Alright nice !!
Looking foward to the reviews of these new K1s.
How will you guys go about to test them?
I mean what will be your methology?

[Apoptosis]

Alright nice !!
Looking foward to the reviews of these new K1s.
How will you guys go about to test them?
I mean what will be your methology?

Still thinking that one over.... I have a couple ideas that I think will make for an interesting read.

[atlr]

In the mid-90's I paid a couple hundred dollars for an Intel SatisFAXtion 200 modem. It also was a computer on a card; an 8088-family processor took care of communications chores. I could play Doom and receive faxes with nary a hiccup running DOS 5. Offloading communications is cool. But at the time this price tag was not too different than other name brand modems. I loved that thing until Windows 95 came out and Intel dropped support for it as they have done with several peripheral products.

Also in this time period, I tried to resell serial port expansion cards with 16650 UARTS in conjunction with the gaming BBS I ran at the time. I sold one (1). I was unable to communciate the value of a larger buffers smoothing serial traffic with modems when playing Doom online.

I wonder if this niche product is seeking the most profitable niche. There must be other latency sensitive applications which enable commercial interests to make or save money and therefore would be willing to pay for and buy more of a card like this.

When basic network cards are either already paid for in a motherboard or cost $30 or so, I just don't see how many people would buy a $150 solution; no matter how well-designed, slick and efficient at what it does.

I also need to see some results versus other ethernet solutions recorded by experiments using the scientific method to become a believer.

[bigblockmatt]

awesome!! looking forward to it!