14 DAY TRIAL // While this won’t certainly come as a shocker for most of you, Gigabyte and Qualcomm have recently announced that the G1.Assassin 2 motherboard produced by the former features the Killer E2100 NIC designed to deliver better networking performance to hardcore gamers.
The Killer NIC line of networking controllers was originally developed by Bigfoot Networks, but it the meantime the company was acquired by Qualcomm Atheros, hence its new name.
The E2100, which is included in the G1.Assassin 2, is not actually a new product as it was introduced in May of 2010 and was also used in the original version of the Gigabyte motherboard that used the Intel X58 chipset and an LGA 1366 socket.
As far as the hardware specs of the E2100 are concerned, the NIC is based on a 400 MHz PowerPC processor that runs a custom version of Linux designed to deliver lower latency in games and other applications.
Compared to other NICs, the E2100’s software allows users to take full control over the network traffic that goes through the computer, while an Advanced Stream Detection feature can also be used to automatically prioritize traffic according to its importance.
"The people who purchase our motherboards demand the ability to play games, watch movies and stream content in HD how they want and when they want without any interruption," said Tim Handley, deputy director of motherboard marketing at Gigabyte.
"Killer E2100 is a perfect addition to our portfolio of motherboards based on the X79 chipset, as it delivers our customers the best in high-performance networking along with complete control of bandwidth allocation.
“This ensures a top-quality experience and faster-paced game play," concluded the company’s rep.
Gigabyte's G1.Assassin 2 motherboard is based on the Intel X79 chipset for LGA 2011 processors and is available now with a retail price tag of $399 (roughly 296 EUR).