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

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Network Gaming Benchmarks, No Load

First, let's have a look at what happens when we run only the games with no other network resource-stealing applications in the background:

Surprisingly, we got nearly-identical latencies and frame rates. The Killer Xeno Pro's method of bypassing the Windows network stack doesn't seem to effectively lower latencies when there are no other programs fighting for network bandwidth.

Let's see how both options affect frame rates:

Notice the fluctuations in frame rates. They are close, but even the Killer Xeno Pro loses a few in the TF2 benchmark and gains a couple in the WoW benchmark. Remember, these types of situations are less than ideal for frame rate testing because no two tests will deliver identical visual output. As a trend, we can see that there's probably no real-world difference as the variances that we see are well within a good margin of error.

As far as the subjective tests go, we noticed no difference between the Killer Xeno Pro and the integrated NIC as far as how it felt and how we perceived the smoothness of the game play.

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