I don't doubt the new Killer NIC's have decent prioritizing software just as Asus' GameFirst, and the many other software-based solutions, but this is still just done in software/drivers like the Realtek audio chips with X-Fi software on top. What this basically does is traffic shaping, and In my experience this kind of prioritizing doesn't do anything unless your network is completely saturated (like running torrents or downloads while gaming). A lot of routers can be configured to prioritize certain 'gaming' ports too, but to me this mostly seems like a gimmick. It should be a no-brainer to avoid downloads while gaming online (or at least limit their speed). The old Killer NIC's were essentially a mini embedded Linux system which bypassed the Windows TCPIP stack, so theoretically they had a real advantage. I just find it hard to believe they miniaturized an entire embedded system down into such a small and (relatively) low-cost chip (judging from the budget-oriented boards sporting these. If they were so costly, they would only be on the high end $400 boards.) I still can't find any real technical details on these new Quallcom/Atheros Killer NIC's so I can't be certain, but due to the sheer amount of marketing fluff, lack of technical specs and low cost, I suspect I may be right.

Either way, I would still definitely put Atheros chips a step above Realtek LAN speaking strictly hardware here.

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