Bigfoot Launches 'Fastest NIC Ever' Killer 2100

I never really could understand the purpose of these high end NICs. I'm not sure if the price is worth the maybe 2ms ping reduction with online gaming.

On top of that, if a person was seriously worried about absolute speed and performance (not just connection-wise) they wouldn't even be running all these extra applications such as the kind included with this product.

As for bandwidth control, there are already many free aplications out there with the same functions, granted it may not have the "fancy" UI.

mmmm placebo effect

This is analogous to Monster Cable's logic with their $400 power cord: After your power's been run over 150 miles of the lowest-bidder built infrastructure and the cheapest cable, that last 4' absoultely MUST be perfect.

DSL is a great example of why in a lot of cases, money could be better-spent elsewhere. That 200 dollar nic isn't going to clean up the signal running 2 miles over 60 year old copper, or get your packets to the net any faster than the infrastructure can after you hit the first hop on your provider's network.

Uh, snake oil?

128MB RAM for a network card? Oh dear, My Spectrum 48k is officially an antique!

High-end NICs? Come on. NIC stands for Network Interface Card. This is merely the entry point to a vast NETWORK of other equipment. Whatever fancy voodoo this card can do is not going to counteract the weakest point of your connection with a game server, whatever that point may be, and your connection is only as good as the weakest link. The next device in your own setup is probably going to be a consumer-grade router, then a consumer-grade cable modem. You're not going to accomplish anything by providing a super-fast, extremely efficient connection to your own network equipment. If you want a better connection to your game servers, invest in a better connection to the network, i.e. FiOS.

My MOBO has two NIC's.
Good enough for me.

I'll buy a new sound card before I buy a NIC(I use 10W speakers, with a $50 sound card, I have no reason to change any time soon).

what a waste of money!!...spend it towards better memory or faster vid card or better cpu...the few ms you save ISN'T WORTH IT!!

If it was $129 cheaper I would be all over this.

Well i guess it's got a nice case, but i notice at LAN's that even having 5 ping can prevent me winning myself a headshot, but the card would also look nifty in a computer case if the side is glass, i'd buy one since most servers i game on have low ping to begin with, lowering that further would make playing more enjoyable.

Interesting...my laptop's build in 100 mbps port probably sporting a massive 10 mhz processor and an awe-inspiring 512 kb of buffer can handle true 100 mbps internet up/down (university isp) and give me 6 ms ping...with a software+multiple hardware firewalls and switches.

So huge middle finger to Bigfoot.

You have no clue what you're talking about do you? 5 ms is at least 3x faster than you can even react to a visual stimulus. And don't forget that even if you get 120 fps in a game, it means you're only getting a new frame every 8 ms.

If I had the money to really be an enthusiast, I *would* be all over this, but unfortunately I realized it's only single-RJ45, so what's the point? I'd have to buy an Intel card...

NIC = Network Interface CONTROLLER. When it is on a CARD it is a NIC card. When it is on the motherboard it is just a NIC. Please learn computers, kthx

while the performance differences for gamers is questionable at best, i'm still curious as to how it might perform in a low to medium-end server situation (compared to onboard and server-level cards), to see how it handles a high network load in a server setup

I own a Bigfoot Killer NIC. The preformance games are there, but they are entirely dependant on the games you play. If you play MMORPGS then these NICs are great. If you play FPS then the preformance gains are there, but you might get better bang for buck by putting money toward some other hardware.

The only thing I can say about this new Killer NIC is that it looks way way better than the old one with the jackass 2 pound "K" heatsink.

Maybe this will make the old Killer NIC card prices dive. If it gets low enough, I'd get it just for the linux/torrent feature.

The performance is there, very nice when using voice program like ventrilo or mumble and playing a FPS or MMORPG. Is it worth the price? ehhh probably not to the basic gamer but if you play semi-pro online to an invite league that actually has cash payouts then it could be that little bit of an edge that you need. I personally don't have the free time to play pro/semi-pro anymore so I wouldn't spend the money on it anymore but 3 years ago I would be all over this.

Uronacid, youre 100% wrong. Tomshardware reviewed a Killer" Nic card last time one came out and it offered absolutely NO difference, even losing in some cases. Any difference you or anyone else 'thinks' they are seeing is in yor head. Until I see actual proof, these are useless and only idiots will be fooled.

They even went into 25 man raids in wow and still no difference.

For internet gaming, this would be a complete waste of money. I could potentially see it paying off at a LAN party where you are playing off a dedicated server on the same network. Could be a slight improvement/advantage there.

This has got to be the biggest waste of your money right behind having 3 or more video cards in your system for gaming.

The power KNOWS the difference. It straighten itself in fear of the monster cable... lol

Its like a magical Chuck Norris effect.

It seems that many people don't understand the benefit of having a hardware engine processing the TCP stack. While I have to agree, for the average user doing gaming / light file transfers, the benefits are negligible, under heavy throughput, there is a considerable difference.

And i'm for one glad they got rid of that gaudy "K" heatsink. Looked like some kids toy.

I wonder how this compares to low end enterprise class Ethernet nics such as intel pro series, and various nics made by 3com and cisco. The article suggested a forthcoming review; hopefully they will be comparing competing products in the same price range rather than comparing it to onboard/cheapie $20 nics which don't even offload the processing.

I think marketing a high end nic (if this truly is one) to end users is questionable as far as a business decision for the very reason you mention. On-board and cheapie nics are not great for high demand use. There's benefit even to end users / gamers, but I'm not sure it's worth the price to most. Personally I think if all you're concerned about is your quake score or your wow ping you should probably look elsewhere as neither of these put high demand on a nic. Obviously there's *some* market for it, but I'm suprised "killer nic" or whatever the company is called can survive on this business alone. Perhaps that's why you see companies like eVGA selling killer nic products now.

NPU? Give me a break. Every chip can be a "processing unit" if you really want it to be. But this card is so racy, I'm surprised it doesn't come with it's own water cooling solution.

Marketing hype. Unbelievable. This card would offer zero gain for 99% of gamers out there. I suppose if you were using an on-board nic that is older, and plugged into a heavy traffic multicast network for some reason, this would be helpful. Beyond that though.. not gonna help gaming. Now, I DO wonder what this little bugger would be capable of in packets per second / multiple heavy transfers etc. Seems like a better server idea than gaming system one.

This NIC is a white elephant and for the price it won't sell that well except to those who got more money than sense. I rather buy more hard drives than this.

ASIC almost always = fail

Sort of like those Fatal1ty branded items. Take a 99 dollar sound card, wrap it in a metal case and tack on 50 bucks.

Spend the money that you were gong to spend on this on buying a faster internet connection or a better video card.

The thing I think youre missing is that they are selling it to gamers... not enterprise admins. Sure you need multiple high speed nics in a data center server... not in your dell at home playing counter strike. This is essentially an enterprise level piece of equipment being sold to the consumer market as "the fastest nic ever!!1!" and in reality your gigabit nic on your mobo isnt the issue with your lack of skills.

yeah cause your cheapie onboard nic giving you a 5ms ping at a lan is such a drag right?