Bigfoot intros lower-end Killer K1 network interface card

Perhaps a $250 network interface card was a bit too much for your wallet to handle, and even after reading the review, you were left wishing that Bigfoot would introduce a slightly less-spec'd rendition for the budget-minded set. If that's you, today's your lucky day, as you can take the money you didn't end up spending on an overpriced-for-the-day bouquet of roses yesterday and put it towards a probably unnecessary NIC. Similar to its big brother, the PCI-based Killer K1 boasts Lag & Latency Reduction (LLR) technology that "optimizes the way networking works in your computer" in order to deliver the best possible ping times. Moreover, it touts gigabit speeds, a 333MHz network processing unit which runs a unique version of Linux to remove the burden of processing packets from your CPU, 64MB of DDR RAM, a USB 2.0 port for future FNApps upgrades, and support for both Windows XP and Vista. Of course, with a card that looks this good, you'll probably end up forking out for an acrylic case while you're at it, but the Killer K1 itself can be picked up now for a "special price" of $149.99.

[Via ExtremeTech]

[Arno @ Feb 15th 2007 8:07PM]

Hmmm, my $10 white-box NIC does the job just fine, thank you.

[Matt @ Feb 15th 2007 8:23PM]

Pure garbage.

[StevO @ Feb 15th 2007 8:30PM]

The day they stick this technology into a wireless card (the notorious 802.11n perhaps?) is the day the mass market will be interested. Until then, it's just a toy.

[Matt @ Feb 15th 2007 8:32PM]

I wouldn't call it garbage, some of the features it offers are kind of nice, and while I can't speak for the Vista network stack (which was completely overhauled), the XP network stack was crap.

I liked the original Killer NIC, but $250 was really over the top, this brings it down a little bit, and this product is obviously targeted at the "enthusiast" market so don't complain about the price.

I am sure that AC'97 intergrated audio works just fine for a good portion of the people, but if you want advanced features like EAX 5.0 and Crystalizer, you have to spend the money and throw down for a Creative Soundblaster, or if you want DTS or Dolby Digital direct out you have to buy an Auzen card. While it would be over the top for 98 percent of all PC users, to some people this is just what they have been waiting for, and too the lucky few that can throw down $150 or $250, they are getting a good product that offers something that IS needed.

[Brennan @ Feb 15th 2007 9:30PM]

those of u who get parts from newegg.com, there have been a lot of bad reviews of the first Killer NIC, but i still want to get it, it will give u the best damn connection for games.

[ECL @ Feb 15th 2007 11:02PM]

No, actually you're wrong. UDP and TCP are both protocols within the IP family (along with ICMP and other more obscure protocols). Saying "UDP/IP" is completely correct.

(This doesn't make the network card any more valuable, though. Even if it can do better on some benchmarks, those benchmarks are not going to have any bearing on your score in a game. This is one of those cases of something being technically correct but completely irrelevant.)

[Quentin @ Feb 15th 2007 11:18PM]

$150 is still expensive for a "lower-end" K1.

[jptech @ Feb 15th 2007 11:38PM]

none of you realize what this is!

nor did I when I first heard about the killer nics.

it's an embedded Linux firewall in a nic!

absolutely brilliant!

it's a bit expensive, but I am waiting to get my hands on one!

[demetrius @ Feb 16th 2007 1:19AM]

noice.... it'd match my black asus board and x-fi quite nicely. it's a bit pricey, but i couldn't really throw down $250 for a nic. even though it's a little less in performance $150 sounds a lot more reasonable. once again this is targeted to those "enthusiasts" that are a little over the top. most of the people that buy this thing will already have dual/quad video card setup with super speedy OC'n ram and high quality sound card. sure onboard sound, video, and ethernet are all fine n dandy, but no sense in bashing on something high end. kinda like driving a camry and saying a lexus is over the top. ;p it's a good idea in my eyes, just not super awesome (much like that physX card)... $300 extra to watch stuff blow up prettier and slower.

[Keaton @ Feb 16th 2007 1:31AM]

Screw this... Its a complete waste... what are you seeing with this thing? Like a 2% speed increase? :-O

I'm waiting for the CAT6a spec to finally get ironed out... Fiber is just way too expensive and it would offer 10gbps speeds to the medium-ish sized companies who need the throughput but can't afford a full-on fiber installation.

What we need is cheap fast copper, not some silly adapter that bypasses the network stack... You are just as good off with a $20.00 1gbps Ethernet card... Its completely ludicrous!

[Malfeis @ Feb 16th 2007 7:05AM]

I've been running the original KillerNIC since December (Christmas present, so the price didn't sting so much), and while I cannot say much for it improving my online gaming, I love the FNApp concept - an embedded Linux system with dedicated RAM is really a sweet option for offloading other processes. People keep talking about what this card might be capable of with a built-in antivirus, torrent client, or xfire client.

Had the hardware launched with such features, I'm sure a lot of people would not scoff so loudly at Bigfoot's attempt. They have already implemented a decent firewall, free to download for anyone who already has a card. Personally, I'd love to see a full mini-GUI for the thing - I'm looking specifically at ddWRT and the like here, complete customization and easy configuration of the card from an interface that any end-user could grasp.

This thing definitely has hidden value, though I think the price is a high entry-point for a "hackable" NIC. I wanted one simply for the novelty of having a PC inside my PC. Definitely a niche market right now...

[E71 @ Feb 16th 2007 7:57AM]

I have one PCI and one 1x PCI-E slot available... I don't think I wanna waste a PCI slot for this. They really should make this card for the often-redundant PCI-E 1x slots out there.

[TomStomper @ Feb 16th 2007 9:36AM]

Just thought I'd weigh in from Bigfoot Networks (where I am an engineer), and say:

Killer K1 is designed to completely bypass both the XP and the VISTA stack... and we're actually seeing some BETTER performance boosts in Vista (due to our super mature drivers, and the fact that VISTA network stack was only rewritten for the TCP/IP portion, not the UDP/IP portion that most games use).

As always, I'm here to answer any questions as needed.

TS

[NetGuy1 @ Feb 15th 2007 10:46PM]

You're no engineer. UDP is a protocol within the TCP/IP Suite. Anyone with a CCNA would know that. Stop pretending and give us your corporate email adress so we can email you at work.

[TomStomper @ Feb 16th 2007 10:44AM]

I won't respond to personal attacks, however, I will correct an error.

TCP/IP is a reliable Layer 3 protocol which uses "ACKs" and so forth to ensure data is reliably sent.

UDP/IP is an 'unreliable' Layer 3 protocol, which does not use aks, and data is delivered on best effort.

IP is the layer 2 protocol on which both TCP and IP travel (layer 2 is essential IP addresses).

So, to say UDP is within TCP/IP is grossly incorrect, as they are completely different, and have seperate stacks associated with them (at layer 3).

Hope that helps,
TS

p.s. I am a regular on KillerNIC.com forums as well, and I am an engineer for BFN, makers of the Killer NIC.

Check this announcement I posted on Killernic.com forums regarding the release of the new FNA BitTorrent application (which allows Killer owners to run BitTorrent inside of Killer with 0% impact to their host CPU!)
http://www.killernic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1107

[Russell @ Feb 16th 2007 1:54PM]

For the market of suckers who were stupid enough to want a Bigfoot Killer NIC, but not rich enough to blow $250 on one...

[arcsine @ Feb 16th 2007 2:21PM]

NETWORK NERD TEAM, ASSEMBLE! *conch horn blowing*

It's the same thing as an iSCSI HBA with a bunch of game-specific offload code on it. It's built for gamers, who are notorious for spending more than twice that on video cards just for an extra run of FSAA. No matter how much you pay for a network card, it's driver still uses the card's bus slot to get stuff to and from the card. This card (like an iSCSI HBA), offloads a lot of the high-layer crap that the driver/OS network stack usually does to firmware (only this thing uses Linux instead of VXWorks). Yes, it's excessive, but you're applying joe-schmoe-car ethics to a rice-burning tunermobile. It's the excess that's the whole point to the enthusiast market.

[Jarrett Kaufman @ Feb 16th 2007 3:32PM]

While I would vaguely consider one of these, primarily for its Linux and dedicated RAM functions, PCI is a no-go for me. These days boards are more and more limited in slots, and especially the users they're aiming for are probably using SLI or Crossfire, possibly with a PhysX card already. Odds are they have no available PCI slots. My board has two PCI and two PCIe 1x, and both of my PCIs are taken, and that's with me biting the bullet and dropping a card from my previous rig. The lack of support for PCIe by the card manufacturers is completely out of sync with the lack support for PCI by the motherboard manufacturers. Similar to, but worse than, the lack of SATA optical drives.

[Shibathedog @ Feb 20th 2007 12:15AM]

Im interested to see some benchmarks comparing this one to the more expensive one though