Legit Mods and Ends Reviews
Bigfoot Networks Killer 2100 Gaming Network Card Review
| Manufacturer: | Bigfoot Networks |
| Product: | Killer 2100 PCIe NIC (VisionTek 900317) |
| Date: | Thu, Dec 09, 2010 - 12:00 AM |
| Written By: | Austin Hamann - |
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Final Thoughts & Conclusions
As the product chart shows, the Killer 2100 was indeed very consistent and very fast as far as latency within the computer, but its improvement is still very small (chart shows an average 6ms, but modern systems are much closer) when considering your ping will actually be in the 60-120ms range or higher depending on the game (i.e. Left 4 Dead 2 with hardly any North American servers). So that's where the "Up to 10X Faster" comes from on the retail box.
The Killer 2100 gaming network card from Bigfoot Networks brings some nice features to table with a full-on monitoring suite, onboard RAM and dedicated network processor (DNP) among other things; not to mention the card just looks awesome. Installation and driver setup was very quick and easy enough for any DIY user to do. We also like that you can turn off the red LED if you don't want to have red lights inside your PC!
When it comes to online gaming performance the Bigfoot Killer 2100 didn't hurt system performance and in a couple of the games we tested with it slightly improved our ping times. We noticed less than a 5% improvement in latency across the board for online gaming and to some you might feel this doesn't justify the $85 shipped cost of the Killer 2100, but others might see this as an advantage. When it comes to Local Area Network (LAN) gaming we noticed that the Killer 2100 really helped performance and cut the average latency in Battlefield Bad Company 2 down by roughly 80%. This means that for $85 you can run the Killer 2100 in your system and know that it might give you that slight edge over your friends or opponents and to passionate gamers you can't put a cost on that. As we mentioned before the Killer 2100 runs $85 and comes backed by a 2-year limited warranty, so in the event that something goes wrong you can get the card replaced.
Since the Killer 2100 makes such a mild performance increase for online gaming we'd suggest making sure your video card and processor are up to snuff before you drop $85 on the Killer 2100 as we see this gaming NIC as the last piece to a gaming system build. we feel this was because the only time you would see a significant real advantage in latency with the Killer 2100 is on LAN only. However, most tournaments and competition finals are held at LAN events, so that may just be a good option to give you the advantage that you need.
Legit Bottom Line: The Killer 2100 gaming network card from Bigfoot Networks has a lot of features, but at $85 shipped it is not a logical choice for the casual online gamers. Gamers who are competitive or frequent LANs, however, would be well suited to pick up the Killer 2100 due to give you the edge over your competition.
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Page 1 - The Bigfoot Networks Killer 2100
Page 2 - Killer 2100 Retail Box & Bundle Page 3 - A Closer Look at the Killer 2100 Page 4 - Killer 2100 Theoretical Test Results Page 5 - Killer 2100 Real World Testing Page 6 - Final Thoughts & Conclusions |
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