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'Killer' Network Card Actually Reduces Latency
fatduck writes "HardOCP has published a review of the KillerNIC network card from Bigfoot Networks. The piece examines benchmarks of the product in online gaming and a number of user experiences. The product features a 'Network Processing Unit' or NPU, among other acronyms, which promise to drastically reduce latency in online games. Too good to be true? The card also sports a hefty price tag of $250." From the article: "The Killer NIC does exactly what it is advertised to do. It will lower your pings and very likely give you marginally better framerates in real world gaming scenarios. The Killer NIC is not for everyone as it is extremely expensive in this day and age of "free" onboard NICs. There are very likely other upgrades you can make to your computer for the same investment that will give you more in return. Some gamers will see a benefit while others do not. Hardcore deathmatchers are likely to feel the Killer NIC advantages while the middle-of-the road player will not be fine tuned enough to benefit from the experience. Certainly though, the hardcore online gamer is exactly who this product is targeted at."
Killer network cards have been around for so long, there's actually a Localtalk version here:
http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/
Business Development Guy: We need a new product. Something... niche. Something overpriced. I know! Don't we still have a bunch of boxes of old network cards?
Hardware Engineer: Uh, yeah. We were about to offload them on eBay to make room in our closet...
Business Development Guy: No! Lets tack on some parts from China and sell them! We'll call it, hmm.. the Killer NIC! Since no one wants to buy NIC cards, we'll overprice them for no apparent reason! $250 a pop!
* Hardware Engineer bashes his forehead on the desk.
Hardware Engineer: You've got to be kidding me. Isn't that, like, fraud?
Business Development Guy: Not at all. We'll just never say how it works, only that it works. The processor will be for like, decorative purposes. Consumers love that kind of stuff!
It requires a fiber-optic cable because it needs to be able to send the photons in a superposition of states. By the time your program gets around to sending a packet, the photons are most of the way there and merely need to collapse into the same state as the packet. The naysayers who claim that the card can't actually improve latency are only thinking in terms of classical physics.
Badass Resumes
25 years and counting, they still haven't caught me. :-)
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Clearly you didn't read the review. The card works.
Maybe you shouldn't accept everything you read on wikipedia as scientific fact.
Badass Resumes
Yeah, you definitely need to have a Cisco router with Monster Cable CAT 6 running between it and your computer to make full use of Gigabit. Anything less and you're dropping packet fidelity through crosstalk line expansion. Not to mention the undervoltage latencies.
Paragraphs are fun.
And a great way to break up thoughts.
But each sentence,
does not need its own
paragraph.
Unless
you are making
poetry
OMG! William Shatner reads Slashdot!
khasim (12/9/06): In a blind taste test, more people preferred Coke over the Pepsi that I had previously pissed in.