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Testing the Killer 2100 Gaming Network card is going to be a mixture of Synthetic and real world testing today. We need to analyse performance under controlled conditions and once we figure out what the card is doing then we will put it to the test in a variety of real world, gaming and networking tests.
Firstly, we need to discuss Latency V Throughput. Latency is commonly refered to as ‘Lag'. This is a measurement of delay for a network packet or series of packets. Latency is a good measure of the real speed of your network or Internet connection – low numbers indicate fast networking.
Throughput is different, because this is a measure of bandwidth, basically how much data can be delivered to its destination. This is often the system by which consumer Internet connections are classified and priced.
It is important to understand that Latency does not measure Throughput. 30Mbps might seem like its a service ‘speed' but in actuality its explaining what bandwidth is available to a connection. Standard networking devices are designed to maximise throughput. They are not however designed or optimised to lower latency for online games.
When you play a game online you might think its using 8mbit of your bandwidth, but in reality you will often find its hovering around 25-100kbps. Sometimes if you are playing a game and you notice lagging, its not that your connection isn't handling massive amounts of data its that the packet delays are causing lag and therefore game responsiveness.
The Game Networking DNA Technology that is utilised in the Killer 2100 Gaming Network card is tuned to reduce latency, therefore optimising the gaming connection you experience when online. Subsequently it would make sense that with this technology you could experience smoother game play while the machine is multitasking in the background.
Installing the card is a straightforward enough process, you insert a CD and install the driver – interestingly before driver installation Windows 7 reports the product as a PowerPC based product.
When the driver installs it goes through a somewhat long drawn out procedure.
Everyone of those little blocks above takes 5 seconds to fill, it is best going to get a cup of tea and a biscuit while this completes, just be careful not to fall over the power cable on the way out, or you can more than likely kiss goodbye to your new gaming card purchase.
It then checks the speed of your connection, it didn't get our upload speed correct however, but you can easily adjust the settings.
With testing in mind we configured our testbed PC outlined on the previous page and set up a server PC with two further cards in it, another Killer 2100 and an onboard Intel gigabit solution. The server PC was a 980X based system with 6GB of Corsair DDR3 and an Intel 160GB in it, running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.
High quality Cat 5E and Cat 6 cables are used throughout the home network.
Wow this really makes a difference, glad to see its not just ‘scientifically’ proven though. real world testing seems good also. Worth looking into, but its quite a lot of money. I guess its basically a ‘mini PC on a card’.
Its hard to dismiss technical testing like this at the end of the day, although I agree with Zardon, I thought these were gimmicks designed to sell to gamers who had more money than sense. Clearly not. Good education in this article, the reason I love kitguru.
There have been some really educational articles on kitguru this year already, but I agree this one really opened my eyes to another area I had no idea existed.
Very good reading this morning, thanks Z. Interesting to see the latency improvements in such a technical way. Most articles just show subjective testing and I always feel the companies are paying the reviewers to write it. This all makes sense. PowerPC processor on a network card? thats impressive!
I can only assume that the relatively high asking price puts most people off, because it all makes such sense that these DO work. even the earlier versions did work. network activity can not only put a high load on a CPU, but the cards are just generalised when it comes to component configuration. These cards really do offer a much more focused platform for gamers.
I gotta hand it to zardon, these articles are always so good to read. even technical stuff can be understood. Great stuff.
Very entertaining read, even though networking tends to bore me to sleep. Not sure id pay £100 for a card like this as I dont game online much, but I would think that people who play a lot of FPS titles online and need maximum response time would love one.
Very very expensive for what you get, but in reality if you spend all your spare time gaming then I would say this is a good buy as Zardon says. for the rest of us? Not so sure. well balanced review, I like the conclusion
Havent had time this morning to read it in depth, but I read the conclusion and will read the rest later. 8.5/10 for a £100 network card? it better be a good product!
I have the older card, the K1 and it works very well, I always notice when I use ordinary cards as when im gaming online in BC2 I get lags. I never get lags with a bigfoot. very good product, but yeah a bit costly, I think if they could drop the price by 30% they would sell a lot more.
Far too much to spend on a network card. well for me anyway, I play the odd title online but I never really notice much lag. the CPU use drop is interesting, that might help some people who are struggling to maintain performance on their system?
I wonder if professional gaming clans use these? advantage maybe?
I doubt pro gamers use these, they normally game locally in events when the local networks are well optimised.
Maybe im wrong. Not sure im sold on this still. the lags are better no doubt about it, but I wonder how it translates to a majority of games online.
Well I wasn’t expecting something this positive. surprised me, in a nice way.
I would like to try one out before forking out the money as I do play online often and can suffer from ping issues.
ive read mixed reports on these products, but the testing has never really been detailed in any way.
Rather inspired to do the variety of testing you did, in the context of a local network and with online tools available. It certainly seems to cut the mustard with your test results.
Very compelling results. I think I will take a risk and order one online now. I have some issues with WOW lately and I think this would help, going on the test results.
I had the K1, and I thought it was good, but it got damaged when I moved house a year ago. I shall order one of these myself as I like a good gaming network card, my onboard broadcom sucks.
It is expensive, however the processor on the card is actually quite costly to produce, even though its not a high powered main CPU by todays standards. Its a reasonably priced product and the software aspect alone makes it worth it.
My brother plays in a clan and he has one of these already. he says it really helps to cut out lag when he games across continents online.
the TCP performance is staggering, that alone is worth the money IMO.
£100 for a network card? thats more than the Sapphier HD5670 Ultimate Edition you reviewed here a while ago.
It seems very very overpriced.
It is serious money, but I think its probably worth it if people want the best network connection they can get to the outside world.
I bought one of these last week, its working very well. Helped my COD MW2 online performance.
No denying the performance giong on the test results, but the price? Thats way over the odds for what I would pay. they should do a lite version or a cheaper one. I could get a decent CPU for a little more.
Great review, loved the detailed analysis sections. Only problem I have is why is it so expensive?
Those complaining about the price need to understand that the software suite development alone is comprehensive and costly to produce. Not sure they could make a lite version, as the new 2100 is basically already a lite version of the older cards made for performance.
Personally I found the review rather complex and I didnt understand some parts of it. it seems fast, but how does it actually help my gaming? by just reducing latency via packets? £100 for that?
The card has a processor onboard (powerpc) with DDR2 memory, its basically not only been designed to optimise packets back and forward but its taking the load from the main CPU in the system. its basically a little computer on a card. While networking seems a rather weird choice to offload to another CPU, it can cause interupts to the main CPU which can even sometimes cause hitching. probably not on a 4.8ghz Core i7 mind you, but those gaming on a lower end CPU would benefit more.
Yeah, its for all intents and purposes a stripped down mini computer on a card, its not just a network card which is often just a little chip to manage throughput. this card is doing so much more, and there is even a software interface and updates available to flash it. I wouldnt recommend you use this outside Windows 7 however, its getting primary focus from bigfoot on Windows 7. not XP.
I think ill invest in one of these, my BT broadband is giving me massive issues when I go online. it might not cure it completely but im sure it would help. thanks for the detailed review, most useful.
Zardon, if I buy this and it sucks, im hunting you down 🙂
Hey. I’m the community manager for Bigfoot Networks, the people who designed the card. Just wanted to toss out to the fellow who was curious whether or not pro-gamers use the card: Yep, they do. We actually sponsor several major eSports teams, too, including Fnatic, SK-Gaming, Evil Geniuses, Team-Dignitas, and more.
Also, really cool to see a review go so in-depth. 🙂 And thanks to all of the commentors for the feedback!
I play a lot of COD4 and MW2 and this thing helps significantly in those close calls where you and your opponent shoot at the same time. I am playing better, getting more kills and winning more. For $120, this beats a lot of other things you can get for your rig. Buy it – try it – love it – don’t deny it.
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Network Card Review | KitGuru – Part 6. I actually do have 2 questions for you if it’s allright.
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a really good article… but what can I say…
I put things off a lot and never manage to get nearly anything done.