Killer NIC K1 and Custom BitTorrent Client Tested

NetworkingNed writes "The new Killer NIC K1 is the successor to the much debated original Killer NIC card that offers the same features at a lower price: this time for about $170 or so. Not cheap, that's for sure. But in this review at PC Perspective, not only is the new card tested under the drastically updated Vista networking stack with improved results, but the free BitTorrent client that runs on the Killer NIC is reviewed as well; with it you should be able to download torrents without affecting online gaming performance. Enough to warrant a $175 network card?"

Re:Enough to warrant a $175 network card?

[smallfries]

Yes. Yes it is. Out there are people willing to spend money on gold-plated scart connectors. I say the more overhyped, overpriced pieces of junk on the market to separate these fools and their cash the better.

Spend the money elsewhere

[tomhudson]

If you're so worried about bittorrent degrading your performance, save your money - haul out that "obsolete" 1-2ghz machine and you won't have to leave your main box running (and costing electricity) when you seed.

Do they take your brain when you get one?

[khasim]

In every single one of the "reviews" of this card the "reviewer" has been a complete idiot.

Having never tested a network card (except to stress the maximum bandwidth of on-board solutions), especially one with claims of gaming benefits like this, I spent a long time finding a testing method that I was comfortable with.

Why not just setup a test network with a workstation with that NIC, a test server, a sniffer and some test scripts?

You image the workstation so you can start clean with each NIC you're testing.

You use the sniffer so you can see what is actually on the wire.

You use the scripts instead of doing anything manually because you want to remove the human factor as much as possible.

Online gaming is notoriously unreliable and unrepeatable as we all should know by now. Servers can be slower or faster based on the time of day, number of users online at the time; personal ISP connections can vary based on line quality, number of users in the area online at the time; global networks can go up and down and stream traffic anywhere at any time!

YES! Those are all the reasons why you run your own test server instead of adding additional variables to a test. So, are you going to do the test correctly?

For WoW, I selected a busy server, and attempted to play at the same time during a week day to try and always have a similar traffic level.

I guess not. Even with knowing every reason NOT to do that, you went ahead anyway.

I then used FRAPS to monitor our frame rates during the online game play and used the in-game ping monitoring for each title, reported every 10 seconds or so to another person writing the answers down. Each test was run 10 TIMES; nope, not kidding here. I wanted to be VERY sure that our results weren't a fluke, in either the Killer NIC's favor or not.

So what I'm wondering is why haven't we seen any REAL evaluations by people who know what they're doing? Do the Killer NIC people simply refuse to provide hardware to anyone who has a clue?

The on-board networking on the 975XBX2 motherboard was used for the non Killer NIC tests.

So you didn't even bother to test against a mid-range card? You used the chip on your motherboard.

Here is the torrent FNApp at work! You can see I have four files being downloaded at one time, though only two are transferring at the time. One of the things I wish BigFoot Networks had included was a transfer rate and maybe a way to see what you are actually uploading.

That's why you would use a sniffer.

In Day of Defeat: Source, I saw a 5% frame rate increase when using the Killer NIC versus the on-board networking on the Intel 975XBX2 motherboard.

And, once again, you didn't even go out and pick up a $50 NIC to compare it against.

The game did "feel" a bit faster, just as I reported in my testing under Windows XP, but once again, I am hesitant to put too much weight on that claim as it is such a vague and hard to verify point.

That's why you script the tests.

Under FEAR, I saw even more impressive results, especially considering that in Windows XP I saw NO change in performance.

And that didn't tell you something?

The model that supports FNApps is going to cost you around $179 retail, and Newegg.com has it for sale for $178 as of this publication date.

Seriously, you didn't test against a $50 NIC?

Re:Spend the money elsewhere

[snowgirl]

I said it before, and I'll say it again. If you buy this card, then you deserve Everything You Deserve To Get(tm).

I'll still say that you don't need to trademark every silly thing that your card does "special". Like, "This case now with SafeCorner(tm) so that you're likely to get less BloodNStuff(tm) on your NetworkBOOST(tm)"

It just sounds way too much like you're marketing snake oil...

That's the whole point of the story.

[DrYak]

But will it run Linux?

That's the whole point of the Killer NIC : It *does run* Linux.
The whole story can be broiled down to the Killer NIC being in fact a nice small router with loadbalancing/QoS/Pcket prioritizing. Plus a small server with it own mass storge pugable in USB.
The Killer NIC is nothing more than a glorified router shrinked to the size of a PCI card.
Once you get the basic idea there are only two quirks :
- It is sold completly ready to go. Whereas /. geeks lovingly tune their traffic shaping scripts to reach optiml balance between their latency sensitive application (VoIP, interactive SSH, gaming), their bandwith critical apps (File download, file sharing) and the rest (IMing, real-time meteo, etc.), this card comes "pre-tuned" so joe six pack has only to plug it to enjoy the benefits of QoS.
- As this is a PCI card and not a box that must communicated of the internet, the driver can use special hooks and directly tap into the Windows TCP/IP stack. Thus the router can sort and select packaets before they even leave the computer. Thus joe's gaming traffic gets put in front with higher priority than the traffic generated by the dozen of spywares/trojans/virus/spam zombies running in background.

Basically it's targeted to the same people who need quad-core CPUs : geeks who want to hack it, and clueless users who need to still have performance even when everthing is crawling under the load of crapware.

Re:Do they take your brain when you get one?

[King_TJ]

Hey, Monster Cables have a huge market too. Mostly from people's word of mouth that "I'm telling ya, it really sounds better with these gold-plated connections!"

paranoia, but paranoia is good from a security POV

[Blymie]

I've always wondered if there was a world-wide conspiracy with NICs and key points on the net. Naturally, if you wanted to analyze all traffic that existed (yes, yes... imagine the CPU power required for that!) the place one would start would be the NIC!

I'm just referring to packets that are tagged, and when the packets are tagged as such, the NIC effectively ignores them if not specifically destined for its MAC (making same packets impossible to detect even with a hub and another box with a same nic). One could have NICs send out detailed, compressed data concerning addresses and ports, and perhaps even a complete duplicate dump of data being sent to a specific host, if requested remotely.

Now sure, this is the ultimate in paranoia. First, you would require complete complacency on the part of those designing NIC chips, and in many cases this is even done by contracted IC Design firms. There are just too many people involved to have some form of high level conspiracy, allowing for the ultimate in government control.

However, we now have a NIC that is effectively a machine of its own, making it inordinately simple for all sorts of black hat shenanigans. Even if one were to trust the company, a card like this, if exploitable remotely, would be great to set up a nice little monitoring station and even a spam relay on. How would you detect it, if you're a simple user and you don't have another Linux box or firewall to detect the traffic outgoing? Firewalls are also effectively useless (unless in a locked down state that few put them in) once a box is allowed access to NAT. There are simple ways to punch holes through firewall, and using NAT, keep them open with little traffic.

Of course, one could also just phone home every few hours anyhow.

Frankly, while I *like* real hardware NICs, I at least trust that Intel's 100% hardware NIC is going to be relatively unexploitable. It's a single purpose device, so you're not going to be (I hope!) easily loading a trojan on there.

This thing however? It sounds like you could load anything on that "NIC".

Stay away. We don't even know anything about this *company*, let alone it's security review process for the software running the NIC.

Its that Gamer rip off branding again

[JackMeyhoff]

Yup, every thing they stamp "Gaming" on its 2x the price (or more in this case) just to RIP YOU OFF. Box sets, RIP OFF Gaming hardware, RIP OFF and more flimsey CPU "G" brands on Dell hardware, RIP OFF and you arnt covered by WARRANTY for OCing anyway. STOP paying the GAMING tax! dammit.