NIC or quad core?

C

|CoR|Braveheart

New Member
Hey guys, i was wandering what you people think about the Killer Network Interface Card (NIC) is it worth it? does it do any thing? do you have one? oh and if it does suck i was also wandering if getting a Intel 2.4 core 2 quad CPU would change my ping any lower than it is now. thanks for the help guys.
 
The nic isn't really worth it. Money is better spent elsewhere. Usually the ping is the result of your ISP and you can't effect that with your computers hardware.
 
Yeah,
Killer NICs, or 'gaming' routers, work by looking for 'important' packets coming from your PC. What they consider important is predefined based on what group of ports or protocols most games use to communicate with a gaming server. This is nothing more than Quality of Service (QoS). They problem with it, is that it stops as soon at the hand off to the ISP. So, with a Killer NIC, gaming packets will be the first to leave your PC. However once they hit your cable or DSL modem, that prioritization ends. Being that your internet connection is somewhere between 1/100th to 1/1000th of what your current NIC can handle, well...there you go.

I liked the Killer NICs....'till I saw they cost about the same as a really nice graphics card. Way too much for a NIC.

Now, if you where a big time LAN gamer. And constantly took your rig to competitions and what not. Then yes, the NIC would definitely be something to look into. But being as you're just at home....I'd look into ISPs. That's more of where your bottle neck is.


One thing you might want to look into is something like Zonealarm, or another firewall program that check incoming as well as outgoing traffic. Set it to the highest level, and set it to ask you. That way you'll have a pretty good idea as to what on your PC is trying to access the internet with out you knowing. Then you can either block that traffic, or uninstall/turn off that software (*don't turn off your antivirus though). That should increase you connectivity.
 
Cloud G said:
Yeah,
Killer NICs, or 'gaming' routers, work by looking for 'important' packets coming from your PC. What they consider important is predefined based on what group of ports or protocols most games use to communicate with a gaming server. This is nothing more than Quality of Service (QoS). They problem with it, is that it stops as soon at the hand off to the ISP. So, with a Killer NIC, gaming packets will be the first to leave your PC. However once they hit your cable or DSL modem, that prioritization ends. Being that your internet connection is somewhere between 1/100th to 1/1000th of what your current NIC can handle, well...there you go.

I liked the Killer NICs....'till I saw they cost about the same as a really nice graphics card. Way too much for a NIC.

Now, if you where a big time LAN gamer. And constantly took your rig to competitions and what not. Then yes, the NIC would definitely be something to look into. But being as you're just at home....I'd look into ISPs. That's more of where your bottle neck is.


One thing you might want to look into is something like Zonealarm, or another firewall program that check incoming as well as outgoing traffic. Set it to the highest level, and set it to ask you. That way you'll have a pretty good idea as to what on your PC is trying to access the internet with out you knowing. Then you can either block that traffic, or uninstall/turn off that software (*don't turn off your antivirus though). That should increase you connectivity.
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Ok, thanks for the tips. well why i was looking at NIC's was my parents aren't going to get a new IPS right now>_<
 
I'm curious about that, I use a D-Link gaming router.

My old SMC is, out-of-date, though, it was $30. I brought my Gaming router for almost $200 (Couple years ago).

When God's Frozen Chosen (GFC) had their CS 1.6 server, my ping was very bad because on 1 reason, their server is from the east, I'm from the west.

I averaged 150 ping (Min-Max; 120-180), which is quite high, even though I had that high ping, I had no chokes, loss and slowdowns.

So, any reason why being on the western side experience no chokes, loss and slowdowns from a eastern server?

Here is another viewable example; I own Diablo 2 and occasionally play it. How in the world do I get over 400 FPS rate?

And I'm play this from USEast.

 
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|CoR|Braveheart said:
Hey guys, i was wandering what you people think about the Killer Network Interface Card (NIC) is it worth it? does it do any thing? do you have one? oh and if it does suck i was also wandering if getting a Intel 2.4 core 2 quad CPU would change my ping any lower than it is now. thanks for the help guys.
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the killer nic has only shown tangible benefits in rpg's like wow and guildwars..but not enough to justify the cost. If you HAVE to have an upgrade go with a fast QC.
 
I would certainly agree, spend your money on the quad core and/or graphics, I myself am starting to price out my own midrange build and I have decided to go with the Q6600 proc.

I use Trend Micro internet suite, I built a firewall profile that blocks everything except the games I am currently playing and whatever extras I need at that time [vent/TS]... this prevents the miscellaneous program updaters from running or MS from digging around on my system while I play. ( j/k, they don't do that do they?!?!) *feeds the paranoia*

anyway, it has improved my ping from around the 130-150 range down closer 100 for the most part.

I also started turning other computers in the house off while I am playing... which is usually later at night so once else minds.
 
Corpfox said:
I'm curious about that, I use a D-Link gaming router.

My old SMC is, out-of-date, though, it was $30. I brought my Gaming router for almost $200 (Couple years ago).

When God's Frozen Chosen (GFC) had their CS 1.6 server, my ping was very bad because on 1 reason, their server is from the east, I'm from the west.

I averaged 150 ping (Min-Max; 120-180), which is quite high, even though I had that high ping, I had no chokes, loss and slowdowns.

So, any reason why being on the western side experience no chokes, loss and slowdowns from a eastern server?

Here is another viewable example; I own Diablo 2 and occasionally play it. How in the world do I get over 400 FPS rate?

And I'm play this from USEast.

Click to expand...
The game is very old and probably uses tiling for graphics, which means the video cards just sits there for the most part and yawns.
 
honestly i get bout 30-70ping but thats because i play seattle based servers or other local places because their the closest. i have 4.2mb connection and even while running my own ts/CS server and mac mini, and mythbuntu still get good speed because only the cs/ts server take up usage when people are actually on it.
 
pbshaver said:
I would certainly agree, spend your money on the quad core and/or graphics, I myself am starting to price out my own midrange build and I have decided to go with the Q6600 proc.

I use Trend Micro internet suite, I built a firewall profile that blocks everything except the games I am currently playing and whatever extras I need at that time [vent/TS]... this prevents the miscellaneous program updaters from running or MS from digging around on my system while I play. ( j/k, they don't do that do they?!?!) *feeds the paranoia*

anyway, it has improved my ping from around the 130-150 range down closer 100 for the most part.

I also started turning other computers in the house off while I am playing... which is usually later at night so once else minds.
Click to expand...

That was pretty helpful, thanks man.
 
The Nic card will make almost no difference, most nic cards are either 10/100 or 10/100/1000 and your ISP probably doesn't even go over 10Mbps, all this packet filtering and such is more on the software end and there is probably a non hardware solution if you really want it.

A quad core can help especially as more games start supporting it (HL episode 2, Crysis, COD4) but if your not playing a game that takes advantage it is mostly useless unless your run a ton of background applications.

I would recommend the Quad Core if you really want to spend the extra money. As far as getting 400 FPS in Diablo 2, I've go into Half life 2 and turned off Vsync (sets your fps the same as your monitor refresh rate) and I can hit 350 FPS with my quadcore setup. Most of these older games really are not that demanding.
 
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The killer nic is actually a full blown linux router with QOS with a patch-in via the drivers in windows. Just shows how wonderful the windows networking layer is when you have to hitchhike on another OS.
 
vibrokatana said:
The killer nic is actually a full blown linux router with QOS with a patch-in via the drivers in windows. Just shows how wonderful the windows networking layer is when you have to hitchhike on another OS.
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Yep, oh and i just noticed that i would be spending more money on both a core 2 duo and a NIC then i would be spending on just a quad core.:)
 
I get a ping of 5 when playing on Chicago TeamFortress 2 servers.

No, I'm not kidding.

The restrictions on the college network here stink, but the ping to nearby servers rocks.
 
Tek7 said:
I get a ping of 5 when playing on Chicago TeamFortress 2 servers.

No, I'm not kidding.

The restrictions on the college network here stink, but the ping to nearby servers rocks.
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Wow, that is so cool. but i am wandering; do you get that kind of (or similar) internet in your dorm?
 
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