Will this network card make a difference?

[DME543]

Killer NIC® M1 provides smoother, more responsive gameplay in all of your favorite MMO and FPS games. The Killer NIC® M1 increases frame-rates and minimizes lag that occurs in high-action or crowded games.Built For GamingKiller NIC® M1 is the ultimate gaming networking card for the ultimate online experience. From its custom-crafted K-Blade ThermaltakeTM heatsink to its overclocked 400MHz Network Processing Unit (NPU), the Killer NIC® M1 sacrifices nothing to pure performance. Combine its native acceleration and offloading with even more new features: Killer Hardware Bandwidth Control to manage your PC's non-game traffic and Killer Hardware Firewall to live fast and worry-free in your router's DMZ, and you can have unprecedented online gaming speed on your PC.

[Trillea]

Killer NIC® M1 provides smoother, more responsive gameplay in all of your favorite MMO and FPS games. The Killer NIC® M1 increases frame-rates and minimizes lag that occurs in high-action or crowded games.Built For GamingKiller NIC® M1 is the ultimate gaming networking card for the ultimate online experience. From its custom-crafted K-Blade ThermaltakeTM heatsink to its overclocked 400MHz Network Processing Unit (NPU), the Killer NIC® M1 sacrifices nothing to pure performance. Combine its native acceleration and offloading with even more new features: Killer Hardware Bandwidth Control to manage your PC's non-game traffic and Killer Hardware Firewall to live fast and worry-free in your router's DMZ, and you can have unprecedented online gaming speed on your PC.

Short answer - no.

[gserlenga]

Although the features on this NIC are great, having a fast CPU, fast and lots of memory, video card with solid drivers, and a tweaked for performance OS install are all more important. And I am not convinced that this NIC is really that much better than the integrated NIC found in any motherboard.

[Gelandor]

The main reason that NIC would make no difference is because the NICs most people have are already faster than thier internet connection, so the network card is not really a bottle neck.

[Melkor_The_Mighty]

I have/used the Killer cards when they 1st came out but didn't see any disernable difference in the games i used them for (FPS's). In those games you want every advantage possible and if paying $300 gives you 1/10th of a second advantage its worth it. If you have a high end gaming PC (10k) and the free slot it takes up go for it, even if it does nothing but make you feel like its faster when in fact it may not make any difference. I have freinds that swear by it and others that swear it wont have any effect at all due to a number of technical issues. If you have the free slot which you should if you arent use 2-3 video card configurations then go for it, but to be honest DDO isnt resource intensive at all and that card may/may not help you more playing FPS's.

[ThrasherGT]

The main difference with the Killer NIC is that it handles "Network Processing" files on the card with hardware instead of using software, which frees up some system memory. Is it enough to notice a difference? Kinda doubt it, but IMO someday ALL network cards will work this way. Killer is just ahead of it's time.......

[Freeman]

I looked at one of those when they first came out, and every review I read said there just wasn't any real difference in performance. I think some lab tests may have found a very small increase in the performance of some games, but in blind tests, the gamers could never tell which machine was using one of these versus an onboard NIC. In other words, no.

[Theboz]

The main reason that NIC would make no difference is because the NICs most people have are already faster than thier internet connection, so the network card is not really a bottle neck.



Not the correct reason.

the reason you will not see a difference is that computers are much faster and can handle the extra work load from the Nic, off loading to the processor.

The first Killer card accually did improve a few frames per second and maybe a few latency numbers, but over all not much considering the price tag for the Killer card.

the new Kiler card does have some very nice features but does very little to improve anything since processors now days hardly ever get stressed and dont even blink a eye at handling the extra work from a Nic.

Some of the neat aspects of the card allows you to use the card for bitorent downloader, leaving the rest of the computer to do other things.


But, I dont think its worth the 130, to maybe to get a very very very little improvement.