killer-nic posts

Three years ago a Austin, Texas based company called Bigfoot Networks released their Killer NIC PC network card. With features like an on-board processor that helped to improve latency in even fast broadband connections the product got solid reviews. Still the original price of the card at $249.99 might have kept many from giving the Killer NIC a shot. (Bigfoot released a lower priced version of the card a year later, priced at $149.99).

Last month, Bigfoot Networks announced the next generation of their Killer network card family. The Killer Xeno not only has improvements over the original but it also will launch with a lower price point compared to the launch of the first Killer NIC card ($129.99 for the Pro version and $179.99 for the Ultra version). But is the network card still worth getting? Big Download got more info from Bigfoot Network's founder Harlan Beverly ahead of the product's release later this month.

A couple of years ago Bigfoot Networks launched their first gaming LAN network card, the Killer NIC. The card was designed to give PC gamers a smoother and better online gameplay experience even with fast broadband connections. While the device was much more expensive than the normal NIC product reviews of the Killer card were very favorable.

Today Bigfoot Networks announced their plans to release their second generation gaming PC network card family, the Killer Xeno. Using a PCIe interface the new card has more memory, an improved network chip and hardware acceleration for improved voice chat in games.

There will be two versions of the Killer Xeno card. The the Pro version will have 128MB of memory and sell for $129.99. It will go on sale in April via third party card maker EVGA. It will also be made available as an option on Alienware PCs. The Ultra version, with 256 MB of memory, will go on sale in May for $179.99.

Paying even $100 for a stand alone PC network card seems pretty excessive but the folks at Bigfoot Networks have been selling their Killer NIC cards as stand alone products for over $200 since 2006. These cards have on-board technology that can actually reduce Internet latency and improve frame rates for games while playing them online.

Now Dell has decided to give their customers an easy way to get a Killer NIC card by offering one as an option on their gaming-themed XPS PCs. The company started offering the "budget" K1 version of the card on their XPS 730 and 630 PCs for a mere $149. Dell's blog site has a quick Q&A with Bigfoot Networks' Sean McCann who gives the lowdown on the benefits of including such an expensive part in the PC.