Killer Xeno Pro: Do You Really Need A Gaming Network Card?
Table of contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The Killer Xeno Pro Gaming Network Card
- 3. Installation
- 4. Hardware-Accelerated Voice Chat
Gaming on a personal computer is very different from gaming on a console in that a hardcore PC gamer has to spend more money for a premium experience. All of a computer's core components need to be upgraded to deliver high frame rates. The CPU and the graphics card are key, but memory, the motherboard, hard drives, optical drives, and even the monitor are also necessary for buttery-smooth and attractive game play.
I think most of us are tired of spending money unnecessarily, so when a company comes along and says that we're forgetting something and that there's another piece of the PC gaming puzzle that deserves our hard-earned cash, then that company will be expected to prove its claim. If it does, then it has  opened up a whole new market, and gamers will come flooding in to offer up their scratch in exchange for making their gaming rig a little closer to perfection.
Today, we take a long, hard look at a product that is trying to make just that kind of niche for itself: Bigfoot Networks’ Killer Xeno Pro. The stakes are high, because if Bigfoot Networks can't prove that its product is indispensable for hardcore gamers, then it will likely only interest those who have a lot of money to spend on bragging rights.
There's a lot at stake for Bigfoot Networks. Let's start with an overview of the card, its bundle, and its features.
I think you may find that the utorrent test was "working" in the third test at the bottom of page 3 - Installation. Where it is "still charging along at about 100 KB/s total download speed". You should have chosen a smaller distro to test. The Killer Xeno Pro card maybe simply limiting each connected seed in the swarm down to 16Kbit/s. But you have 49 and 47 active seeds (respectively) for each Ubuntu torrent!! So 49x2kB/s=98kB/s maximum or 47x2kB/s=94kB/s maximum - so it could be working!!
You guys obviously have played around with iptables (optionally builtin to any newer Linux kernel) at all and it shows!! iptables has always had a bit of a problem with torrent bandwidth control. It is hard to aggregate each peer to peer link into one coherent "p-2-p" bundle as the TCP ports being used for the connections will be "practically" random!!
As for the Killer network cards - they are just a big joke. Do those guys not appreciate that the Linux kernel has inherent latencies of it's own - plus the PowerPC chip is only clocked at 400Mhz.
Doomed to fail IMHO...
Bob
I think most people who are using the on-board NIC that comes with a motherboard would benefit from something like the Intel EXPI9301CT PCI-E add in card, my upload and download speeds are much higher and more consistant. By far one of the best peices of computer equipment I ever purchased at any price, and all for 30 dollars.
Looks like it's just another piece of voodoo hardware, like $40 ceramic stands for power leads in audio systems. But hey, some people believe in flying spaghetti monster and if it makes them feel better - let them live.