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Intel acquires Rivet Networks, the maker of 'Killer' WiFi cards
Once upon a time Bigfoot Networks was just a startup promising to lower latency with a “network gaming accelerator,” before delivering its tech under the Killer wireless brand.
Hyperspace Beacon: The SWTOR year-end report on PvP
In July, I took the famous Bartle Test and pitted it against the state of Star Wars: The Old Republic at the time. The test, based on the research of Dr. Richard Bartle, measures the types of activities within an MMO that players find fun. Of course, there is plenty of crossover, and very few people fit neatly into one category, but I believe that if an MMO hits all the categories well, it will be highly successful, at least from a player's point of view. In the research, player motivation is divided into four categories: Achiever, Explorer, Killer, and Socializer. I have never been a fan of the term Killer as used to describe the type of player who likes to compete directly with other players, but then, I didn't earn a PhD from the University of Essex, either. The Killer category has always been described as more than someone who likes to PvP in the sense that most MMOs provide PvP. A Killer likes to compete, plain and simple. He wants his skills pitted against the skills of other players, and he wants to be recognized for it. In SWTOR, many Killer-types will hang out on the steps of the Sith Academy on Korriban dueling, partially because they find dueling enjoyable, but also because it is in sight of many other players. (That's where recognition comes in.) In July, I gave SWTOR very poor marks in the Killer category. I wrote, "Later this year, BioWare plans on introducing a content specifically focused on PvP, but given the team's track record, I have my concerns," and then I gave the team an F in this category. Has BioWare been able to raise that grade? And how have things changed since mid-year?
MSI unveils lightweight GS70 gaming laptop, hopes to take Razer's crown
MSI tentatively entered the world of thin and light gaming laptops with the GE40. With the newly launched GS70, the company is leaping in with both feet. The 17.3-inch portable is clearly built to take on the Razer Blade Pro, mating a big screen with a chassis that's even lighter -- at 5.7 pounds, the GS70 is a flyweight next to its 6.6-pound rival. While the system's quad-core, Haswell-based Core i7 CPU, GeForce GTX 765M graphics and 128GB SSD match what Razer offers, MSI doubles the RAM to 16GB and complements its storage with a 750GB hard drive. That makes the GS70's $1,800 base price a potential bargain -- if you don't mind losing the Blade Pro's touchscreen trackpad, you'll get more PC for the money.
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR mid-term report card
It's history lesson time. In 1996, Dr. Richard Bartle, who earned his PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Essex, wrote a paper analyzing the different types of gamers who play massively multiplayer games. At the time, these games mostly consisted of MUDs (a genre Bartle helped create), but there were certainly enough data from Bartle's study that could be ported over to MMORPGs, which is exactly what Erwin Andreasen and Brandon Downey did in 1999 and 2000 when they created the Bartle Test. Since then, the Bartle Test, which breaks up online gamers into four general categories (achiever, explorer, killer, and socializer), has been used as a standard in discovering which online games players would enjoy most. Why bring this up? Well, we are about six months into the second year of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The first year was fraught with high expectations and slow delivery. Many failed attempts at greatness made the first year of SWTOR a bit of a downer. However, in this second year, in light of the ever-changing market of MMORPGs, the Star Wars MMO took steps to put itself on a better path. Using the Bartle Test as my litmus test, I will break down and grade this year's performance so far.
MSI ships AMD Richland A10-based GX70 and GX60 gaming laptops
Just as we knew it would, MSI has formally announced pricing for its newfangled GX70 and GX60 gaming laptops -- the world's first machines to ship with AMD's Richland A10-5750M (2.5GHz - 3.5GHz) within. The 17.3-inch GX70 offers up a 1,920 x 1,080 native display resolution, AMD's Radeon HD 8970M on the graphics front, a 750GB hard drive, 8GB of DDR3 memory, a Blu-ray Disc drive, Bluetooth 4.0 and Killer's E2200 networking technology. You'll also get a SDXC card slot, HDMI 1.4 socket, 720p webcam, a 9-cell battery -- likely good for about 89 seconds of use -- a backlit keyboard and a frame that's 2.17-inches thick and 8.6 pounds. If none of that frightens you, you can plan on parting ways with $1,399.99 to call one your own. The (slightly) more petite GX60 boasts a 15.6-inch panel (still 1080p, though), a 7.7 pound frame and a $1,299.99 price tag. Otherwise, the specifications are essentially identical from its big brother, and both should be shipping any moment now.
MSI ships GX60 gaming laptop to the US, gives us high-end AMD gaming for $1,300
MSI made a reasonable case for AMD-based gaming when it unveiled the GX60 laptop back in September... just not for Americans looking to buy one right away. There's a better argument now that the 15.6-inch portable is shipping to the US this week. The $1,300 asking price isn't quite impulse level, but it's a relative steal for a system whose quad-core, 2.3GHz A10-4600M processor and Radeon HD 7970M should handle modern games without much fuss. The 8GB of RAM, 750GB hard drive, Blu-ray drive, SteelSeries keyboard and Killer networking don't hurt, either. As long as the GX60's 7.7-pound weight isn't too imposing, it might be the ticket to wielding a brag-worthy PC at the next LAN party without having to follow the Intel-owning pack.
MSI makes AMD-laden GX60 gaming laptop official with A10 heart, Radeon HD 7970M graphics
We can't say that there's a huge cross-section of buyers who want a gaming laptop but refuse to touch Intel components. Whatever the size, MSI likely has that group sewn up with the official unveiling of the GX60 following a stealth appearance at Computex. The 15.6-inch portable is built as showcase for AMD's latest mobile technology: it revolves around a 2.3GHz, quad-core A10-4600M processor using the Piledriver architecture as well as a Radeon HD 7970M to feed its 1080p screen at full speed. Thankfully, the PC is more than just a marketing vehicle and carries some of the gamer-tuned parts that we've seen in other MSI rigs, such as dual SSDs in a RAID stripe, a low-lag Killer networking chipset and a heavy-duty SteelSeries keyboard. Buying a GX60 may prove to be the real obstacle -- in keeping with most MSI introductions, there's no mention of a price or ship date, and none of the usual suspects have it in stock as of this writing.
Killer Wireless-N 1202 WiFi / Bluetooth cards in Alienware gaming laptops eyes-on
Last month, Dell announced that its Alienware gaming laptops would be outfitted with Qualcomm Atheros' Killer Wireless-N 1202 WiFi cards. Aside from sporting low-latency capabilities, the add-on also sports some Bluetooth connectivity. Here at E3, we were able to spend some time with the tech to see just how the component and its accompanying software prioritizes your bandwidth and keeps your Call of Duty multi-player sessions in the #1 slot. The Killer application allows you to set different priority levels for anything that would claim a chunk of your internet connection. For example, if you keep your title of choice in the top spot, the tech will only download files or access websites whenever World of Warcraft isn't trying to send hi-pri info across the interwebs. By default the rankings are as follows from high to low: games, real-time chat (Skype), buffer-tolerant programs (Netflix and iTunes) and file transfer or low-level systems utilities. Until the end of June, you'll only be able to snag the tech in Dell's gaming laptops. We laid our peepers on the interface at the Alienware booth, so hit up the gallery below to take a look at what you can expect with the UI.
Alienware laptops to use Killer Wireless-N 1202 WiFi cards, guarantee a few frags at the coffee shop
You might recall that Killer Technology launched the Killer Wireless-N 1202 card as a bit of an orphan: without an immediate laptop partner or an aftermarket reseller, it wasn't clear how and when gamers would get their hands on the low-lag WiFi add-on. Alienware is stepping up and making that much easier as of today by planning to use the Qualcomm Atheros-owned technology across its laptop line. The PC builder didn't say which models are getting the treatment, although it made clear that more than one of the newly refreshed arsenal will tuck the 1202 inside. If you're the sort that needs to crush newbs with the lowest ping times, but don't want to leave the comfort of Starbucks WiFi to plug in an Ethernet cable, your solution now looks to be at hand.
Killer Wireless-N 1202 and E2200 Ethernet controller launch, aim to squash your ping times
Killer Technology -- formerly known as Bigfoot Networks -- has certainly come a long way from its days as a scrappy startup, and now the outfit's taking one more step towards ping domination with the introduction of two new products. Qualcomm Atheros is actually doing the honors, as it formally reveals the Killer Wireless-N 1202 WiFi module with Bluetooth as well as the Killer E2200 gigabit Ethernet controller. Each one is aimed at DIYers and OEMs, enabling machines based on them to automatically classify and prioritizing gaming, video and audio network data -- a bit of behind-the-scenes black magic that's said to "provide a superior, uninterrupted online entertainment experience." As you'd expect, both will include the Killer Network Manager software on associated rigs, giving end users a borderline ridiculous amount of control over how bandwidth is used. We're told that the 1202 will ship next month, while the E2200 is available now; pricing remains a mystery on both, though.
Flameseeker Chronicles: What's your golden carrot?
On the Sunday of the most recent beta weekend for Guild Wars 2, I found myself trying to figure out precisely what incentive my friends and I might have to go through the explorable mode of dungeons before we hit level 80. The question arose, in a roundabout way, because there's not a tremendous amount of XP available (you spend more time killing fewer things), which makes sense if you're a developer trying to discourage players from entering a dungeon they have no intention of completing in order to farm experience, but it left us wondering whether we'd feel compelled to participate in explorable mode dungeons as we progressed through the game. The point of the matter is, unless you're well and truly enamored of the armor attainable through a specific dungeon's tokens, there might not be much empirical motivation to get through a repeatable dungeon. This stood out to me because so much of the game's reward structure is so clear and well-designed. Although I'll certainly never make the claim that the game will please everyone, or even that ArenaNet's fine folks are trying to please everyone, it is evident that they're building in support for a wide variety of play and reward styles.
Alienware adds jitter-killing Killer Wireless-N technology to M18x, M17x, M14x and M11x
And this, friends, is how you make the leap into the mainstream. Bigfoot Networks has been toiling away in an effort to get its gaming-optimized networking guts into just about everything -- there's also a VisionTek GPU with Killer innards, and a trifecta of mainboard makers announced that they too would be joining the bustling integration party earlier in the year. Now, however, the outfit's really got something to hang its hat on: a handshake with Dell's Alienware unit. The Killer Wireless-N 1103 networking adapter will now be listed as an option for the Alienware M18x, M17x, M14x and M11x, promising data rates as high as 450Mbps as well as its Advanced Stream Detect to intelligently classify and prioritize network traffic. Mum's the word on how much the upgrade will be, but based on prior reviews, we'd say the premium will be well worth it for the hardcore among us.
Bigfoot brings Killer bandwidth management to laptops via Wireless N module
Good news for the Bigfoot faithful -- the bandwidth management technology that's been making your desktop gaming experience smoother for years is just about ready for the laptop sector. When we spoke with the company's leadership back at Computex, they hinted strongly that infiltrating the mobile gaming space was a top priority, and it seems as if the stars have finally aligned for that to happen. The company's new Killer Wireless-N 1103 and 1102 half-size mini-PCIe adapters are suited for use in pretty much any laptop on the market, with the primary difference between two being available streams: the former utilizes three-stream MIMO for data rates as high as 450Mbps, while the latter relies on a two-stream MIMO setup capable of pushing 300Mbps. Both units will have Advanced Stream Detect and Visual Bandwidth Control, which should make your wireless gaming and videocall sessions smoother, more reliable and more predictable, regardless of what the network situation is. We're still waiting in tense anticipation for who Bigfoot plans to partner with here, but we're guessing that the gaming mainstays will be all over this in no time flat. Keep it locked for more as we get it. Update: Looks like Bigfoot has come clean with its partner lineup. Killer Wireless-N adapters will be introduced this month inside gaming and media notebook PCs from leading vendors including AVA Direct, CyberPower, iBuyPower, Maingear, Origin PC, Sager, The V-Machine, Velocity Micro and others.
Bigfoot Networks intros Killer E2100-powered motherboards from ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte
Looks like that tease was more than just a tease. It's a truism. Back at Computex, Bigfoot Networks' CEO told us that his next major target was motherboards. The company already infused its Killer E2100 gaming network card into a GPU, and here at CES, it's formally announcing three partnerships with major mainboard makers. MSI, ASUS and Gigabyte are all onboard, with the latter to offer a new line of G1-Killer mobos later in the year. ASUS will be dishing out a ROG Rampage III Black Edition (shown above) which will feature the E2100 on a combined LAN / audio called dubbed ThunderBolt, but your guess is as good as ours when it comes to specifications and CPU compatibility. Pricing and release information remain a mystery across the range, but it's practically a guarantee that we'll see more of these tie-ups in the coming months. %Gallery-113372%
MSI teases Killer NIC integration in Big Bang motherboards
You won't be coloring us surprised here -- when we spoke with Bigfoot Networks CEO Michael Howse back at Computex, he didn't hesitate to disclose his interest in embedding Bigfoot's networking technology into motherboards and GPUs of the future. And now, it seems that the future has arrived. Based on a sneaky, nondescript release posted after the break, it looks as if Bigfoot and MSI will be hooking up at CES next week to introduce a newfangled version of the Big Bang motherboard. The announcement doesn't come right out and say it, but considering that at least one MSI motherboard will be "blazing with Killer 2100 performance," we'd say it's fair to read between the lines. Howse is also quoted as saying that he's "pleased to be working with MSI," and up until now, there's been no public partnership between the two firms. According to him, the Killer 2100 gaming network card "is a perfect complement to the MSI Big Bang family of mainboard solutions," and you can bet we'll be on the hunt for a model name, price and release date just as soon as we hit Vegas.
VisionTek Killer HD 5770 combo NIC / GPU hikes frame rates, lowers ping times for $200
Mama always said that one was never enough, and just five months after revealing its first NIC / GPU combo card to us at Computex, Bigfoot Networks has taken the wraps off of its second. This go 'round, the outfit is partnering with VisionTek to produce the VisionTek Killer HD 5770, a single PCIe card that combines an AMD Radeon HD 5770 GPU (with 1GB of GDDR5 memory) and a Killer E2100 networking card. All told, buyers are presented with two DVI ports, a single HDMI output and a gigabit Ethernet jack. The card is compatible with Windows 7, Vista and XP, and put simply, it's designed to both improve your frame rates (that's AMD's role) and lower your latency / jitter (hello, Bigfoot!). The NIC portion actually has a 400MHz onboard processor that helps minimize the impact of slight changes in your connection, and Bigfoot's management software will be thrown in for good measure. The board is expected to hit North American retail shops within a fortnight or so, with the $199.99 asking price representing a ~$10 savings compared to buying an HD 5770 GPU and Killer 2100 separately. Oh, and you get a pretty sick dragon, too. %Gallery-108536%
Killer 2100 network card sees $40 price drop, adoption by Alienware
For a computer peripherals startup, there's nothing quite like landing a contract with the big boys, and that's precisely what the whiz kids over at Bigfoot Networks have done. When we spoke with company executives back at Computex, we got the impression that they were pushing for OEM integration, and if you're going to aim, you may as well aim high. As of today, Dell's Alienware line can be configured with one of the well-regarded network cards pre-installed, and while you may find it impossible to believe that a NIC could lower your ping time, quite a few critics have been proven wrong. The card can be added to the Alienware Aurora, Aurora ALX, Area-51 and Area-51 ALX desktops, and if you've already got a tower you're pleased with, you'll probably enjoy the $40 price drop on standalone retail units. If you need your memory jogged, that makes the once-$129.99 card a far more tantalizing $89.99.
Bigfoot Networks reveal GPU / NIC combo card, talks up motherboard integration and WiFi
What do you get when you combine a gaming-centric NIC with a GPU? Truthfully, the world's still trying to figure that out, but Bigfoot Networks and TLU (responsible for the PowerColor brand) are jonesing to see what exactly will happen here at Computex. The two have joined forces on Bigfoot's first-ever integration effort -- the heretofore unnamed network card / graphics card hybrid combines a Killer 2100 with an ATI Radeon HD 5000 series GPU, and the prototype board on hand here in Taipei boasted a pair of DVI ports, an HDMI output and a gigabit Ethernet jack. The company's hoping that gamers will be eager to upgrade their GPU with one that also helps lower ping times and give them more control over which programs get priority when sharing bandwidth, and while pricing remains up in the air, the outfit's CEO told us that buying the combo card would obviously be cheaper than buying each one on its own. If all goes well, the first PowerColor / Bigfoot Networks card will be out and about in a few months, which led us to pry a little deeper into the outfit's plans. We asked if it had any other integration tactics coming up, and they didn't hesitate to mention that mainboards are next on the mishmash block. Convincing motherboard makers to swap out the tried-and-true NIC for one of Killer's modules would obviously be a boon for a company that still describes itself as a "startup," and it's yet another avenue to get into a gamer's home that wouldn't traditionally buy a standalone network card. When we asked how long it would take for Killer cards to start showing up within gaming laptops, he seemed rather confident that it would happen in the not-too-distant future, and given their existing relationship with Alienware, we wouldn't be shocked in the least to hear of the M15x and M17x nabbing it first. Furthermore, Bigfoot's intently looking into getting its name on the wireless side sometime "next year," essentially providing WiFi users the same ping lowering, network controlling tactics that it currently does over Ethernet. Finally, we were told that there's nothing at all stopping the Killer 2100 from being integrated into more cards from more vendors, and if the right offer came along, you could definitely see a combo NIC / GPU with an NVIDIA core rather than ATI. Needless to say, the little-networking-company-that-could looks to be ramping things up in a big way, and while we never were much on buying standalone add-ins, we're duly intrigued by these integrated solutions. %Gallery-94244%
Bigfoot Networks Killer 2100 reviewed, 'completely destroys' on-board NICs
We're still trying to wrap our heads around the idea that an aftermarket NIC can really improve your gaming experience, but time and time again Bigfoot Networks Killer line of network interface controllers comes through reviews with flying colors, and its latest, the Killer 2100, is no exception. Boot Daily took one for a spin and found that it "completely destroys the typical on-board LAN port in all the gaming tests." Latency and UDP throughput were clearly improved, and the new software was found to be comprehensive and useful. We're still not seeing this as a product for casual gamers, but if you've ever blamed lag for your inability to rack up the headshots then this is $129 well-spent -- assuming you'll be able to come up with some other excuse.
Maingear unveils Core i7-packin' SHIFT, your own 'personal supercomputer'
We'll be straight with ya -- we're betting these "personal supercomputer" claims are just a bit out of line with reality, but even still, there's no denying that Maingear has shoved an insane amount of horsepower beneath the (admittedly large) hood of its newest rig. The beastly SHIFT does away with copious LED lighting and blinging accents found on many modern gaming PCs and instead opts for a classier, more ominous tower. Within, you'll find a vertical airflow system, a Core i7 processor, your choice of ATI or NVIDIA graphics, 8GB (and up) of DDR3-1600 RAM, up to 6 HDDs or 12 SSDs, DVD and Blu-ray options, an Asetek liquid-cooling solution, Razer peripherals, an optional Killer NIC Xeno Pro and Windows 7 running the show. The Intel P55 rig gets going at $2,199, while the X58 model starts $400 higher; for those in creative design fields, Maingear's expected to unveil a SHIFT just for you in the near future. Head on past the break for the full release. %Gallery-77033%
