Killer NICs may just kill your performance

[utahraptor]

I just read this damning article about high end motherboards that use the Killer NIC setups including those that claim to combine WIFI and Wired ports for combined throughput: http://www.pcgamer.com/motherboards-with-killer-network-adapters-arent-worth-your-money/

Summary:

• They don't actually combine the bandwidth for faster transfers. They route file transfers to the slower WiFi pipe and attempt to keep game traffic on the faster wired port.
• The drivers are a hot mess.
• The Killer NICs are simply inferior to competing Intel solutions and use more CPU cycles for a given transfer and use more power to do it.
• Intel NICs are more efficient at smaller packet sizes as well.

This makes me question my desire for a board from the Gigabyte G1 Gaming series for Z170.

 

[DigDog]

Killer has the best PR in the world if they still manage to sell their chips to anyone, let alone Gigabyte.

MSI went as far as to provide a hacked bloatware-free driver for the KillerNIC they have mounted on many of their motherboards. (its on their forums)

 

[MongGrel]

Killer has the best PR in the world if they still manage to sell their chips to anyone, let alone Gigabyte.

MSI went as far as to provide a hacked bloatware-free driver for the KillerNIC they have mounted on many of their motherboards. (its on their forums)

+1

 

[dave_the_nerd]

They failed the first rule. K.I.S.S.

 

[Tsavo]

Killer has the best PR in the world if they still manage to sell their chips to anyone, let alone Gigabyte.

MSI went as far as to provide a hacked bloatware-free driver for the KillerNIC they have mounted on many of their motherboards. (its on their forums)

I use the MSI driver on my Z97G5 board, and it's good. The Killer NIC has exactly the same performance as my Intel units.

 

[Tsavo]

I use the MSI driver on my Z97G5 board, and it's good. The Killer NIC has exactly the same performance as my Intel units.

Talk about bad timing.

The damned thing quit working properly.

 

[DigDog]

XD

 

[KingFatty]

Yeah I got annoyed by my killer nic (built into my MSI Z97 gaming 5 motherboard) because I had to manually install the drivers back when I first installed Win7 or Win 8 or one of those OSes when I first got the motherboard.