[H] Killer NIC Evaluation

NvidiotPrime,

The HardOCP review was posted last week: you can't say that their "sneak peek" was a review, that's just not fair. A sure way to get them to stop doing sneak peeks.

Especially since the problems you experienced have been worked out for quite some time... and the [h] folk wouldn't necessarily have known about the flashing problem a small % of our customers have had. (note: no other review mentioned those issues either, since it was only a small % of folks).

I'm sorry again, you were one of them. We can only appologize so many times. It's just not fair to blame [h] for a bug we had in our software... we take responsability, we've corrected the problem... you got your money back. (you did get a full refund correct?).

It's all we can do mate!
 
Thanks for your thoughts NVP. Thanks for reading our pages. I dont see any reason to discuss this further with you as you are obviously pushing your agenda. Again thanks. I hope you found the information you needed somewhere else.
 
The article is certainly worthwhile and presents useful information that can help a consumer make a purchasing decision. It is not, however, in the vein of what we are used to seeing as a comprehensive, "dig around under the hood", [H] review. The question, to me, is whether this article itself is substantial enough to grant an [H] award. IMO, an [H] award is not for just a nifty piece of tech. It is the editorial staff of [H] stating, "If you buy this product, we believe you will be satisfied not just with the performance, but with the overall experience of owning it". ATI's Crossfire is a good example - nobody doubts the performance, but [H] has been very clear in their criticism of the installation and the dongle interface.

As I said above, the impressions of gamers using the card are valuable. What we don't see in this article is what you get when you purchase (what's in the box), installation, driver/utility interface, etc. This brings me back to my point that I just don't think the article is comprehensive enough to have an [H] award associated with it.
 
I can't say what qualifies for an [H] award... I can say that this is a new kind of product, a whole new concept of gaming, and so much more will be happening with it going forward.

We are very close to releasing the FNA BitTorrent client (to run torrents fully offloaded into killer, with packet prioritization, et. all, and download the torrents directly to a USB flash/hd (so it doesn't even TOUCH the host CPU or HD or MEM)... and that's going to rock. And that's just the start.

So, think of the new kinds of products released this year there:

Physics Accelerators.
Online Accelerators (Killer).

This kind of dedication and attention to PC Gaming, I think, bodes well for those of us who love the hobby: regardless of if we can afford the technology yet or not.
 
tomstomper, you guys have created a more powerful network card, but is that really going to make enough of a difference for users who are behind a router? Sure it will help if you are downloading to your computer and trying to game at the same time.. but downloading and gaming have never gone hand in hand. You can muddle through some games, but playing a high precision game online while downloading is pretty much a bad idea.

Im on a 3 computer network, and if any other computer on that network is accessing the connection for extended transmissions, uploads or downloads, i can notice ping spikes in my gameplay. The pings do not reflect it all the time, but hit registration, and player updating seem to suffer.

For those of us behind a router, we are still going to have to contend with fighting for priority over someone who is accessing the connection simultaniously, even with a Killer card if you are behind a router i dont think it would provide much an advantage to you. What are your thoughts on this?

I only ask that because pretty much any gamer is going to stop his downloads before he goes gaming. (With new apps comming out Killer might remedy that) But what about latency and network congestion being caused by other machines on the network? Any recommendations there, or things to stay away from when using the Killer card?
 
tomstomper said:
This kind of dedication and attention to PC Gaming, I think, bodes well for those of us who love the hobby: regardless of if we can afford the technology yet or not.
Click to expand...

I don't really disagree - even if any of these technologies flops we'll still have learned something. But I feel like my question referring to Linux was left a little unanswered: could you expand on future Linux (the operating system, not FNA apps) support? I see no reason to purchase this if offloading/FNA will not end up supported - as it stands Intel cards are much cheaper and will likely perform much the same functionality (since it seems as if you are using the host CPU for this and not doing full offloading - correct me if I am wrong).

Thanks again
 
WOW! What I wouldn't give to be able to really test the Killer NIC out.

The only other NIC's I've ever seen with a TCP/IP offload engine are about $2500.
But then again, the $2500 NICs are 4-port GigE Copper and geared towards high throughput servers.

If I could line it up against some other NICs, I'd pick the following:
Intel Pro/1000 GT Quad Port Bypass PCI-E
Intel Pro/1000 GT Quad Port PCI-X
Intel Pro/1000 MT Dual Port PCI-X (PWLA8492MT)
Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual Port PCI-E (EXPI9402PTBLK)
Alacritech SEN2100
HP NC340T


I'll get right on that (lawls)
 
LightningCrash said:
WOW! What I wouldn't give to be able to really test the Killer NIC out.

The only other NIC's I've ever seen with a TCP/IP offload engine are about $2500.
But then again, the $2500 NICs are 4-port GigE Copper and geared towards high throughput servers.

If I could line it up against some other NICs, I'd pick the following:
Intel Pro/1000 GT Quad Port Bypass PCI-E
Intel Pro/1000 GT Quad Port PCI-X
Intel Pro/1000 MT Dual Port PCI-X (PWLA8492MT)
Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual Port PCI-E (EXPI9402PTBLK)
Alacritech SEN2100
HP NC340T


I'll get right on that (lawls)
Click to expand...

*looks over the desk and sees 3 Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual Port'ers*
Those Intel cards do not support full offloading of the stack, so it isn't really a fair comparison as I'm betting the Killer would blow them out of the water (at least as much as the pci 32/33 bus can). IIRC the head guy for Killer used to be one of the designers of the Intel chipsets as well. No idea about those other cards though.
 
You guys do a great a job and this is super information on this card.

But no one is going to buy into this thing until they can send you a retail one new in box and have you install it on your testing rigs. Better yet order one off of Newegg. Then honestly put it through the paces. Going there to a preconfigured system at their site to me puts a dent in the credibility of this card. I could understand if they were not out yet and this was some kind of pre-release test.

Not trying to be a pain just what I understand this test to be.
 
LightningCrash said:
WOW! What I wouldn't give to be able to really test the Killer NIC out.

The only other NIC's I've ever seen with a TCP/IP offload engine are about $2500.
But then again, the $2500 NICs are 4-port GigE Copper and geared towards high throughput servers.
Click to expand...
??????

Intel PRO/1000 MT PCI Gigabit Server Adapter - Large Send Off-load/TCP Segmentation Off-load
Price:
$139.75 CDN
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=876204&CatId=1175

That's less than half the price of the Killer NIC. I don't know of a single copper NIC that is more expensive than the Killer NIC. Of course ignoring the 2 and 3 port versions which are more expensive of course.

Intel NIC's
http://www.intel.com/network/connectivity/products/server_adapters.htm
 
On the Linux question:
There is a 'basic' linux driver in beta and free for download now on our website. FNApp support will be coming for Linux soon (I believe Q1 '07), and Linux stack bypass support is not yet in the queue. Hope that answers the question, if not pm me, and maybe we can discuss offline.

On the Intel NICs question (full offload):
Large Send Off-load/TCP Segmentation Off-load are NOT FULL offload, they are very simple aglorithms that are TCP only (nearly all online games use UDP). The simple Segementation Large Send algorithms are designed to break apart large data packets and messages (something games don't usually do) into smaller ones in the NIC. That's it.
Some NICs also offload TCP/IP Checksum (and even UDP checksum), but checksum is certainly not network stack bypass. [killer does Checksum offload as well, btw].

And as for Copper NICs that are more than Killer, there are TONS of em', all over the server world... here is one: http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4062041190.html

On the "HardOCP retail box" question:
They did receive a 'retail box' version... still have it (though the drivers we ship on the disc are out of date now, but the latest are auto-patched or can be downloaded from our support site http://www.killernic.com/support

Also, thanks for all the tough questions everyone... i think one of the benefits of [H] is that it has these forums and users like you in it... if there was anything missing from the review, this thread has certainly covered it!
 
tomstomper said:
On the Intel NICs question (full offload):
Large Send Off-load/TCP Segmentation Off-load are NOT FULL offload, they are very simple aglorithms that are TCP only (nearly all online games use UDP). The simple Segementation Large Send algorithms are designed to break apart large data packets and messages (something games don't usually do) into smaller ones in the NIC. That's it.
Some NICs also offload TCP/IP Checksum (and even UDP checksum), but checksum is certainly not network stack bypass. [killer does Checksum offload as well, btw].
Click to expand...

My knowledge in this area is small but I assume what Tom describes above is what is responsible for the lower pings and more fluid gameplay. Forget about torrents and Linux/FNA and such for the moment - if they were able to put out a card at the $99 mark that was able to achieve the strict gameplay results, I think their market could grow substantially.

My only other question would be is there anything else on the market today that does this, including UDP, as he described above?
 
tomstomper said:
On the "HardOCP retail box" question:
They did receive a 'retail box' version... still have it (though the drivers we ship on the disc are out of date now, but the latest are auto-patched or can be downloaded from our support site http://www.killernic.com/support
Click to expand...

If that is the case then why did we not get a review like the ones HardOCP is famous for. The ones that used to bring me back to their site time and time again. It happens with everything else they receive and test. The only other info I see on their reviews pages about the Killer NIC is just like this last trip to TX. Referring to documents on the mfg's website is not a review.

Aug 28
"Assuredly you will be seeing reviews forthcoming that showcase the Killer NIC. Many of those will be jam-packed with synthetic graphs showing this and that."

Still waiting...
 
How is an onboard chip at all a comparable to a specialized pci device? You are literally taking the best of the best and comparing it to the absolute minimum. You could at least specify what motherboard chipset is being used, as this would tell us whether or not it has gigabit running through pci or pci-x (or even a board with dual gigabit with teaming like nv550+ or rd600). Hell, there are even some NICs out there that reach past $100 that would be worth comparing it to.

Why not also review a X-Fi and only compare it to onboard audio? Or a 7950GT versus onboard video?

If you wanted to make a real review, just ask Bigfoot for a card. Then you can take it to your lab and do all the tests you want and give us real results.

This is just another example of [H]'s failing review techniques (the last [H] review I read compared 2 comparable cpus' gaming performance, but the rest of the specs didn't match up). With all these 'canned' reviews and recycled news, it seems like [H] is becoming less and less a review/enthusiast site and more like just another adspace...
 
I'd really like to see where the NIC intersects the OSI model as far as offloading. I read their "Whitepaper" but it was still more of a marketing piece than technical information. The NIC doesn't truly offload the TCP/IP stack, they state this in their "Whitepaper."

As far as I can tell, the Killer NIC seems to sniff the address where the software interrupt for network activity maps to, and then just writes to that memory address via DMA whenever there is incoming traffic for that session.

There's a finite limit to the benefit you can get from that. Personally, even a 10% increase in framerate is not worth $230 to me. That money could be spent on making other components faster that would be more useable 24/7. For instance, I could sell off my Pentium D 950, upgrade to a Conroe E6600 and realize a 10%+ increase in performance in many applications. :rolleyes:
 
Manny Calavera said:
Have you guys seen this ??

http://www.xyzcomputing.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4557

:eek:


What to think now ?
Click to expand...

Funny you posted that because out of curiosity I went to the Killer Nic forums last week and checked them out. I saw one post where a guy complained(and this isn't verbatim) he was getting a BSOD with the card and that he had to flash his Killer Nic over and over and it never worked and in his rig or something along those lines. There wasn't much of a response to help him out except one of the reps posted that he's never seen that problem before and a new driver version was released and to send an e-mail to the support dept. The rep made it clear that the support team does not support via the forums and that it should be dealt with via e-mail. The post is probably deleted by now anyway.

Why put your forums under the support category on your site if it's not for support?

To me it just seems like they want the people with technical problems to send an e-mail to the support staff and keep it off the boards so perspective buyers won't get turned off.

Nvidia has a forum where people talk about Nvidia driver issues all day long:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showforum=33

And hardware issues:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showforum=26

ATI has Rage3d.com the "unoffical" ATI support forum where ATI engineers post pretty frequently helping people out.

It's nice that Tom is in this thread answering questions about the card's technology. How about answering questions from people on the Killer Nic forum who are having problems with the card?

I have more respect for a company when they have a forum of some sort and let people openly discuss problems they are having with their product. Nothing is perfect so why try and keep complaints under wraps.
 
Hey again everyone (I though this thread died!),

I'm here to answer questions so here goes:

1.) I'm not on the marketing team, but I know our CEO wouldn't allow that kind of crap.

2.) We did try to do support via forums, but it got REALLY complex. So we changed the policy (clearly written here: http://www.killernic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4 ) because our support team really needs to be able to talk to ppl 1:1 for almost any issue. It's working well, lots of ppl happy with our support staff, and even I help with support sometimes (lvl3).

3.) Onboard NIC chips are usually the EXACT same chips in NIC cards (except Killer which has a 400Mhz NPU in it of course).... Even the interface (PCI or PCI-E) is the same. So testing with onboard is the same as testing with an addon...literally...even the same drivers.

Hope that helps
 
tomstomper said:
3.) Onboard NIC chips are usually the EXACT same chips in NIC cards (except Killer which has a 400Mhz NPU in it of course).... Even the interface (PCI or PCI-E) is the same. So testing with onboard is the same as testing with an addon...literally...even the same drivers.

Hope that helps
Click to expand...

No,I dont buy that cuz I dont see onboard nic models of the same ones sold as cards.

Theres a difference from onboard nics to quality PCI nics, and thats what I'd love to see compared.
 
@ tom
Have any apps come out for this card yet? I forget what you call the feature but it was something along the lines of running apps with the processor on the card.
 
tomstomper said:
2.) We did try to do support via forums, but it got REALLY complex. So we changed the policy (clearly written here: http://www.killernic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4 ) because our support team really needs to be able to talk to ppl 1:1 for almost any issue. It's working well, lots of ppl happy with our support staff, and even I help with support sometimes (lvl3).
Click to expand...

The nice thing about a support forum is that you can see if someone is having the same problem as you, and if so what they did to fix it. Makes things easier on your limited tech support and allows for users to fix problems without ever having to post/email and wait for the subsequent response...

Not only that, but some users who are really interested in the product will gain a deep understanding of how it works (through problem-solving) and you'll start to see tweaks and even homebrew emerge. If countless other hardware developers see fit to have a free and open support forum, you had better have a good reason to not have it. "REALLY complex" is not a good enough reason; you'd be surprised at how adept the hardcore crowd can be.

Your reasoning behind a 'semi-open' support forum is really not going to cut it with the hardcore crowd (your target market, no?), and if anything it seems as though you have something to hide. Let it get complicated, we won't mind ;)
 
I sometimes check forums for products I am thinking about buying. I will use DFI as an example... dfi-street.com was one of the main reasons I bought a DFI board a while back.

The killer nic screams "hack me", but there is not a huge tech forum there... it doesn't make sense... The argument about needing support 1 on 1... is valid on it's own, but as argument against a forum is crazy. After a little time, you will have the users helping each other on a forum, providing support in new ways for people that don't need to waste the time of dedicated 1on1 support.

The way the killer nic is being marketed... the way it is being reviewed, the way support is being given... it is like a big giant coverup or something... what do you guys have to hide? I feel like... the marketing dept. is running the company.
 
After reading this, I get an even more sick feeling in my stomach. This type of guerilla marketing is not acceptable for a company like Sony (with www.aliwantforchristmasisapsp.com ), so why should it be acceptable for Bigfoot?

Just look at the facts... they have infilitrated the review system at etailers like newegg and chiefvalue to provide artificial reviews, they have been proven to have deleted posts of problems with the Killer NIC from their support forums (thus making it seem like their poduct doesn't have any problems, let alone any posts about "where is my performance improvement?"), and, worst of all, their infiltration of our 'trusted' review sites like the [H].

I know the [H] has got to make ends meet, but all this canned news is getting ridiculous. Everyday, your feeds recycle the same old half-news, half-ad garbage. And how many times have you given a company a 'second-chance' when given a bad review, only to make everything to seem 'one big misunderstanding.' I don't know whether this is a sponsor of [H], or you guys are just getting duped...

For what it's worth, several years ago US Robotics released an 'Internet Gamin Modem.' They packaged it games, marketed it very well, and their were many positive reviews. The onlly thing they didn't tell you is that the "gaming mode" only works when you dial into a USR-based server, otherwise it just limited download speed to whatever your upspeed was. I was duped by the marketting, and bought one for around $100. Since then, there have been no driver-updates, and XP support is limited to the built-in generic XP driver. I just hope everyone else isn't duped by the guerilla marketting of Bigfoot.
 
noc_81, you talk as if you think you know something, but what you are stating are NOT facts, and in fact are quite baseless.

I'm not going to respond to crap like that. I (and our entire engineering and support staff) work too hard to get treated like that.

It's just not true.

The ONLY thing true about your statement is that we delete support requests in our forumss... Not because we are hiding problems, but because most problems are specific to individual questions; and can be confusing to people with the problems.

If you look at our Technical area, we talk about all the bugs we're fixing, and if you look at our knowledge base we publish all known issues with the card (that havn't been fixed)... and there isn't many left (just weirdness with NForce 3 Motherboards, if the onboard NIC isn't disabled).

Also, I think you are being unfair to [H]. At their own expense, they came to austin, brought in 3 pro gamers to see if they can "feel" the difference with Killer (the ONLY thing not yet reviewed elsewhere)... and were extremely diligent in their interviews (note: i wasn't present, but that's what I get from reading the review).

Anyways, Rant off... I just think it's rediculous that you can think we would do that kind of thing. (IF YOU ONLY KNEW HOW HARD WE FIGHT WITH NEWEGG TO MAKE PEOPLE NOT POST FAKE STUFF UP THERE...)
 
Tom....


After watching Nvidia go through with hacking there drivers,and ATI doing the same in the past few years,as well as the infamous Quack/Quake garbage,I have very little trust in Hardware companies and there supposed 'goodwill' towards the PC gaming community.
It is far to easy to do (Planting fake reviews),and is likely done far,far more then we as a community know of.I am not suggesting your employer is taking part in that type of stuff,
but at the same time,lets just just say,I have a long memory,and I am just a little bit skeptical.

I think your product is great,but is a little to much cash outlay for what you get currently in return,IMHO of course.When its cheaper I might consider it.As to the pratice of deleting
users posts on your employers forums,I think it needs to stop ASAP,as it sends out the wrong types of messages all together,and optics are everything.
 
5 years ago if someone told you guys you could have multiple processors in the same core you might have been skeptical and now its all the rage.

Remain skeptical, but what if this is the next big thing?

I'll bet the wright brothers had shitloads of people saying they couldnt fly, even after the fact...the only way youll know is to try it out yourself. If you were one of the engineers who developed something like this you would be defending your passion just like tom is, having pride in your work is something I think we can all agree on, and tom is proud of his work. Tom, do you have any graphical benchmarks (graphs/ charts) of throughput for these cards? Id love to see some non-marketing style spec sheets even if you would just PM them to me, Im very intrigued.

Remember folks, the IT industry literally changes at least something every day...dont try to count this before it's out.
 
Darakian,

Yes, the firewall has recently been released (and it even has an easy to use control GUI)... The firewall is based on the popoular iptables linux program, and all runs inside the Killer. We call the feature FNA (Flexible Network Architecture).

Another one is in the works, and there is a contest for people to be able to develop more (up to $15,000 in prizes).

alll about FNA and The FNA Firewall here:
http://killernic.com/KillerNic/KillerDownloadsFNApps.aspx
 
Not because we are hiding problems, but because most problems are specific to individual questions; and can be confusing to people with the problems.
Click to expand...

This has to be the largest bunch of BS I have ever read... seriously.

A public forum can aid people with problems and questions... other people's issues and solutions are EXTREMELY helpful to enthusiasts. There is no good reason to keep this stuff private... none! A public tech support forum is, infact, so beneficial, even from a buisness perspective (it saves support guys alot of time when users solve their own problems, esp minor ones, users also discover new solutions)... that... seriously... you embarass yourself and your company by trying to defend information supressment... esp with such a BS answer.

I mean look what you are saying, basically... you are telling us, potential users, that we are not smart enough to use a public tech forum. We are *ON* a public tech forum right now! Your card is being marketed towards US!

You are not making us feel very welcome to buying your product.
 
Sorry you feel that way Yashu. I don't make the policies, but in this case I understand it.
 
As was mentioned..this is new technology, maybe a lil early, but guys..

the harshness is really un necessary.

I swear this thread sounds more like momo's defending to the death..the world is flat , dam it!

uuu..it's round..kk? took a few years to prove that, but we now know it is

obviously, anything that offloads tasks from cpu to a blade offers to free the system of that task That has constantly been the future with computers.. I mean first audio, then video..duh..of course networking is part of that future. maybe the claims are grandiose, but we should be applauding these guys for trying to improve our gaming. Networking is fairly over looked, I think...so Im glad to see BFN trying to change that. Read one of Tom's respoinses..the freakin CEO was a eng on the Intel nic..

The other largest complaint is price.

So you'll spend 200 for 200mhz ( which is practically meaning less ) but your all freaking about 250 for a card? wtf?

Sad to see this place degraded by immature flamers

don't like it, dont trust it..etc..then dont buy it. wtf?

Offer something intelligent to the conversation, then please do
 
The other largest complaint is price.
Click to expand...

Price is not an issue when you get your money's worth.

What this thing desperately needs is an active hacking community. It is sad that the company itself cannot cultivate that kind of atmosphere themselves... but then again people aren't rocking the DD-WRT on the linksys.com forums either.

Hopefully enough documentation can be published to give the linux hackers enough to work with... and maybe then some really cool uses can come out of it. $250 is overkill for a slight ping reducer but it is not bad for a 100-in-one addon linux computer-in-a-card that is easy to get started developing on and working with.
 
You'd think they'd spend more time preaching that "Linux-on-a-card" usability than simply lowering a ping a few places. That aspect of the card is totally useless to me honestly, and ever since I saw the very first advertisement for this card I've been laughing at it and I still am. If it was powered by some FTL circuitry and actually did some time-travel time-shifting then yeah, I can understand it's use, but really... a few milliseconds?

Any true gamer knows ping has nothing to do with winning or losing anyway... I have fond memories of being on a dialup (over 25 years on dialup, beat that, only recently getting broadband full time finally) and laying the smackdown on low pingers in the sub-80ms range with my HPB mad skillz and 250ms or higher pings.

Didn't matter that I was moving in slow motion compared to them, what mattered is I knew what they were doing before they did, hence they got hit with rockets/bullets/grenades when they half-expected me to die... silly people... I tell ya.

Best compliment I ever got (and I got it multiple times): "YOU'RE A GOD DAMNED BOT!!!" :D

But anyway... the Linux aspects of this "Killer NIC" seem to be a far far more important draw for people, and I'd agree that a community could spring up pretty quick behind it if only enough information about it is released.

Dare I mention the Linksys WGRT 54 routers that were absolute shit when they first appeared until someone realized, "Hey wait a second, this thing runs off Linux..." and now there's an entire community behind them with mods coming out all the time.

Could happen with this product too... who knows...
 
Indeed. If I could have a full function linux subsystem running with command line access I would drop $250 for one of these in a heart beat.
 
sorry..that was a rude introduction

just guess I am enthused about the idea.

I just ordered a maingear F131 bad boy..was going to go with the killnic as well..but ..for now will let it mature a bit first i reckon..

So..I'll wait and see myself as well..but I do think it has a lot of potential. 250 isnt that crazy of a cost ..i just speant 4500 on a pc..whats 250 more.. however..seems like it may be best to let the killnic mature and if it become more widely recieved as productive..add it later
 
Darakian said:
Indeed. If I could have a full function linux subsystem running with command line access I would drop $250 for one of these in a heart beat.
Click to expand...

QFT. That would be hella cool, really...
 
As a long-time reader of [H], I have to admit a measure of confusion over this psuedo-review.

Kyle has indicated that if we want hard stats on this item, we can easily Google it. While that's true, I often use [H] as a definitive guide to hardware. I would expect other sites to tell me to go to [H] if I wanted hard numbers, not [H] to tell me to look elsewhere.

Not questioning Kyle's reasoning, but I'm taken aback by this item being given a silver award with such a dearth of concrete information about this item in this article.

It would be easier for me to understand this 'first look' (it's hardly a review, though apparently, it wasn't meant to be one in the first place), if the KillerNIC wasn't given an award. I just feel that such an award should have the usual detailed explanations and stats that I've come to expect from [H].

I'll continue to read [H], but I have to admit, I probably won't take the subsequent awards given out that seriously, now that I've seen that they can be dispensed with only subjective 'feelings' about a product.

That said, I have to agree with the posters that take exception to the BFN poster's statements that a tech forum is 'complex' or inappropriate in this case. As larger, smarter and more profitable companies have found that tech support provided via public forums is just hunky-dory, his claims about tech support being provided better via email find me extremely skeptical. Add in their unrelenting hype about their card and the issues that users have experienced and I find it far more likely that they would are trying to cover up such issues.

The last thing I would like to ask is for tomstomper to bring in his PR guy. There are a lot of questions left unanswered that he's indicated should be answered by marketing or someone outside of their technical area. This is fine. So, go get marketing. Once you do, I submit this to them:

Since you're charging $250 bucks for something that ostensibly decreases lag and increases FPS by a nominal amount, at best, the card must be aimed at the higher end computer purchasers who would seem to have the least need for another 8FPS (at best apparently, having taken Kyle's advice and looked elsewhere for stats). However, the users that could benefit most from the hardware, those with lower-end computers, could probably find five things to spend that $250 on that would increase their FPS significantly more than the KillerNIC, which may or may not increase FPS or decrease perceived lag.

Who exactly are you trying to sell this to and why?

I mean we're talking no hard stats in the [H] review, highly suspect forum postings and retail customer reviews that look to me (though I could certainly be wrong) like viral marketing, a $250 NIC that will do very little for high-end computers and would be a stupid financial move for those with budgets that only permit lower-end computers, a public tech support forum that deletes posts and ridiculous marketing hype like 30+% increases in FPS and I'm flabbergasted that all of this equals an [H] Silver Award.

I guess I'm missing something. I just wish someone would tell me what it was.
 
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