14 DAY TRIAL // There might not have been much activity on its side recently but Bigfoot Networks seems bent on leaving a significant crater, or at least a trail of flames, in the wake of the Killer 2100. This time, it is not a new CPU, graphics card or memory kit that debuts. Instead, the company decided to cater to a certain other need of the gaming industry, that of network bandwidth.
MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) games, as well as LAN or Internet multiplayer titles, have come a long way over the years. Of course, as they evolved, the basic bandwidth requirements grew along with them. The Killer 2100 is a special PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet network card meant to keep up with this growing demand for more bandwidth.
Powered by a 400MHz network processor (NPU), the Killer has 128MB DDR2 on-board memory and is designed to prioritize game traffic via the Advanced Game Detect function. Of course, other programs that use the Internet connection will not have any problems running in the background, but they will not be in any position to cause lag. Other features of the network controller include Game Networking DNA, which accelerates latency-sensitive game traffic, Visual bandwidth Control, which lets users easily manage the connection, and Windows Stack bypass.
"Killer 2100 is the fastest network card available for online games, period," said Michael Howse, CEO, Bigfoot Networks. "From its completely redesigned user interface and race-inspired outer casing to its high-performance Game Networking DNA software, everything about Killer 2100 screams speed and maximum performance."
"We saw a dramatic performance advantage over standard network interfaces in our Killer 2100 tests - an advantage that's big enough to change the online gaming experience," stated Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. "The Killer 2100 repeatedly delivered superior network latency on mainstream and enthusiast-class gaming PCs, and this difference could easily provide a winning edge to online gamers."
Set to start selling worldwide sometime during the next few weeks, through Golden Arrow, Leadtek, TUL and VisionTek (among others), the Bigfoot Networks Killer 2100 will be priced at $129.