Killer NIC K1 and Custom BitTorrent Client Tested 106
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?"
Screw the "NIC" aspect but.. (Score:4, Interesting)
An even better solution... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just get one of these [theinquirer.net]. An external hard drive with built-in wireless networking and a built-in bittorrent client. No computer needed to download.
Set it up, let it leach off of an unsecured wireless network until the owner catches on, then switch to another one. No DMCA letters (at least not to YOUR door), and gaming performance on *your* network won't suffer at all!
Yes, that's bad in several ways. But it's still an interesting/funny thought!
Re:Firewire vs USB 2.0? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, UDP traffic is rather important for all of us who use NFS heavily. I haven't seen any Linux drivers for it, though (that doesn't mean they don't exist).
But a NIC with a CPU and memory that offloads the CPU and increases speed isn't new at all -- the existing cards just haven't been hyped up as much. The real question here is how the KillerNIC holds up to the already available cards that offer this, like the 3com 990 series, which has been out on the market for some 5-6 years now.
Another good question is how it, being 100 Mbps, will hold up compared to 1000 Mbps solutions. Since you can get a decent Intel Gigabit NIC for four machines plus a Gigabit switch for the same price as this one card, that's definitely a valid question.
Regards,
--
*Art