Killer Xeno Pro: Do You Really Need A Gaming Network Card?

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Installation

Installation of the card is simple–just find an empty PCIe slot and you're off to the races. From there, though, things can get a little trickier.

We tested the Killer Xeno Pro on a Windows Vista 64-bit operating system, and in addition to the driver we got on the CD, our contact let us know that there was a hotfix we had to download from the Bigfoot Networks Web site. So we installed the software and were good to go. Or so we thought...

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Initial testing demonstrated that the Killer Xeno Pro's Bandwidth Control feature wasn't working. Different bandwidth settings had no effect on our download speeds through both Internet Explorer and uTorrent, so we went through a troubleshooting process with the Bigfoot Networks technical support staff. In the end, while the card seemed to be operating properly from a hardware perspective, we couldn't get bandwidth control to work on two separate test systems.

I am told this hasn't happened before, so we got a second test sample card and tried again with the same unpleasant result. Knowing something was odd, I tried the card on a third test system and hit pay dirt. Bandwidth Control seemed to work in Firefox, although not in uTorrent. Note the picture below, where we've set applications to be limited to 16 Kb/s for testing purposes. Remember, 16 kilobits is about 2 kilobytes, so Firefox is correctly being throttled down to about 2 KB per file transfer. The uTorrent application is still charging along at about 100 KB/s total download speed.

This is not an ideal result, but now I could at least test the Killer Xeno Pro in a working environment where the Bandwidth Control feature could be tested.

Don Woligroski
107 Comments Comment from the forums
  • tryceo
    I won one of these from wowhead.com, but i havent fitted it inside the case yet...

    IMO its a waste of money... I just keep my internet idle when im playing online.. plus you can get a better upgrade for your GPUs if you dont spend money on this...
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    Wasn't there an article similar to this a while back, and everyone bashed it saying that it was pointless? (It was, but just saying)

    Doesn't seem like its still worth the premium yet.
    Reply
  • ColMirage
    Hah, I've been wondering about how bad of a scam this card was today.
    Reply
  • haplo602
    try a quality server NIC like an intel f.e. and you'll see better results for less money, the killer nic and derivates are just hyped nonsense
    Reply
  • IronRyan21
    eddieroolzWasn't there an article similar to this a while back, and everyone bashed it saying that it was pointless? (It was, but just saying)Doesn't seem like its still worth the premium yet.eddieroolzWasn't there an article similar to this a while back, and everyone bashed it saying that it was pointless? (It was, but just saying)Doesn't seem like its still worth the premium yet.
    When I saw the headline for the articles, I was thinking the same thing....Yes, they did an article before and yes this product is pointless. +1 eddieroolz
    Reply
  • tirzono
    Wow, I have bought this card and it even cured my AIDS!

    Thanks Killer Xeno Pro!
    Reply
  • tryceo
    yep... after about 1 minute of testing(removed 1 9800 GTX) The lagg is still there.

    If anyone wants mine tho... willing to sell it for $90. it just got opened..
    Reply
  • Neggers
    Some important testing is not done here which I would like to see.

    I live in Australia and I am a WoW player on the US servers, so a typical ping for me is 250-300 and 300-400 when raiding.

    Now when you guys are testing with a 60 ping a difference of 10% for you is going to be 6ms and not going to translate into anything noticeable.

    However for someone like me, if this card can improve my connection with the WoW servers by 10%, that could be upto 40 or 50 ms, which could be a huge difference.

    So I would like to see more testing done in Higher ping situations, prehaps if you guys tested connection to MMO server in korea or europe, so you were testing in a 300+ ping enviroment, and see if this effects the results.
    Reply
  • Ciuy
    And i was thinking spending 50$ on a PCI network card , now i wont ...
    Reply
  • cangelini
    NeggersSome important testing is not done here which I would like to see.I live in Australia and I am a WoW player on the US servers, so a typical ping for me is 250-300 and 300-400 when raiding.Now when you guys are testing with a 60 ping a difference of 10% for you is going to be 6ms and not going to translate into anything noticeable.However for someone like me, if this card can improve my connection with the WoW servers by 10%, that could be upto 40 or 50 ms, which could be a huge difference.So I would like to see more testing done in Higher ping situations, prehaps if you guys tested connection to MMO server in korea or europe, so you were testing in a 300+ ping enviroment, and see if this effects the results.
    I never understood why the AUS guys would play on mid-west servers. I knew some really nice raiders from Australia, but they'd lag everyone and either do lower DPS or be unable to tank as a result. Not their fault, but they had way more success playing on Oceanic servers when they eventually swapped over.
    Reply