Have you ever found yourself in an in-game situation where you just can't beat your opponent? Maybe new hardware is the solution, or maybe their just better than you. Whatever the case, read this article!

Have you ever found yourself in an in-game situation where you just can't beat your opponent? Whether it's an exciting game of Team Fortress 2 or a grueling PvP battle in World of Warcraft; let's face it, you're usually going to find someone better than you are. There are only a couple of factors that make the difference between a victory and a defeat. Obviously skill takes precedence over anything else, but what about hardware?  There's a reason why companies like Dell and Hewlett-Packard started producing top-of-the-line computers made specifically for gamers. There is a market for them and they improve your performance.

So often I read threads at Tom's Hardware asking for advice about what components to put in a new gaming rig. Typically the answers involve Video Cards, CPUs and RAM, but in the last year, I've seen a new trend catching on that, that at first glance, brought the old 'smoke and mirrors' saying to mind. Of course I'm talking about Bigfoot Networks "Killer" line of Network Interface Cards (NICs). The newest addition to the line, the Killer Xeno series, hit retail shelves a few months ago. Now that we've had the opportunity to get our hands on one and give it a try, our opinions are neutral in nature.

Allow me to explain why we're not praising it or leaving a bouquet of dead roses on its doorstep.

First of all the Killer Xeno offers two notable upgrades that its predecessors didn't have: hardware accelerated voice chat and an upgrade in the software. My biggest problem with the first generation Killer cards was that the software was a bigger pain in the ass than it was worth. To that point, it seemed to constantly crash, and it could be coincidence, but, from the moment it was installed until the moment I junked it, I experienced new frustrating problems with an already aggravating Windows Vista. However, the upgraded software that comes with the Killer Xeno works great, is easy to configure and actually functions well as a QoS (quality of service) client.

One evening while re-downloading one of my favorite games, I decided to spend some time grinding quests in Zul'Drak. During my conquest of Northrend, I was constantly switching between my on-board NIC and the Xeno. I noticed a considerable difference between the two while playing. The performance increase was significant (around 8-13 percent better) with the Xeno, in both frame rate and ping. While this was largely due to the software, even after turning off the resource prioritization, and restoring the default settings, there was still a small performance increase. This all plays into the greatest compliments that we have for the Killer Xeno.

In a discussion with Harlan Beverly, Co-Founder & CTO of Bigfoot networks, we asked him why the Xeno performed so much better than a regular NIC when we were downloading or streaming anything while playing World of Warcraft. He replied, "Killer Xeno has an exclusive feature called Hardware Bandwidth Control that is aware of applications on your gaming box, giving unprecedented control over the bandwidth in and out of your system.  Even in automatic mode, controlling your bandwidth does a lot for reducing latencies when you have other things going on in the background (which I, as a World of Warcraft fanatic, often do)."

Another benefit that we noticed is that heavily populated areas, like Dalaran, loaded much quicker and consequently ran much smoother with the Killer Xeno. This same benefit was abundantly evident in Wintergrasp, which can often be problematic. Unfortunately, through all of our testing, we couldn't help but notice higher latency during gameplay in low resource areas. This latency increase was as consistent as the decrease we saw during our stress tests. I've yet to get a clear answer from anyone at Bigfoot Networks that explains what could cause said performance decreases.

This brings us to the second upgrade that I spoke of earlier: hardware accelerated voice chat. Because this is a feature that has never been touched on before with performance hardware, we asked Harlan Beverly to explain how it works. "Hardware Accelerated Voice Chat is a brand new concept to gaming, and is exclusive to Killer Xeno.  Right now only Mumble and Teamspeak are supported, but more and more voice chat programs are signing up.  Once gamers begin using it regularly, they will discover that offloading voice chat not only improves online game performance (lower latencies, lower CPU utilization, higher FPS), but also makes the Voice Chat experience better.  The amount of garbled words and long delays in the voice chat itself are reduced.  In short, Hardware Accelerated Voice Chat sounds better and reduces strain on your gaming system at the same time." said Beverly. While our testing of this feature was much less thorough, from best we could tell, we didn't notice any improvement in latency or frame rate, though we did discover that the number of garbled words and static was greatly reduced, just as Harlan said.

Overall the Killer Xeno from Bigfoot Networks isn't a bad investment if you're building a be-all-end-all machine. You'll definitely notice a performance increase while in-game if you enjoy streaming video, downloading music, etc. Additionally if you use Teamspeak or Mumble, you'll enjoy improved quality and a potential performance increase. However, the decrease in overall performance during normal play doesn't exactly make the $130 price tag scream "buy me now". In the end, it's your system and more importantly, your hard earned money. For now, it's still in my primary computer and I'm personally looking forward to a surprise or two down the road.

Andrew "Tamat" Beegle
Editor-in-Chief
ZAM.com