EVGA's Killer Xeno Pro, Network Stack Offloading Fun
Integrated network chips have eased the cost of networking your computers…so why would you want to buy an addon card for your gaming rig? Well your favorite operating system, namely Windows, usually has the system’s CPU take care of the incoming packets which can degrade performance a bit.
The EVGA Killer Xeno Pro hopes to minimize the impact of network transfers as the NIC is capable of handling the data being streamed in leaving your system’s processor to take care of other things. AnandTech has a look:
Let’s start by saying that this isn’t going to be
a network card for someone hanging on to a 7 Series NVIDIA card or a
Radeon 1k part from ATI in a single core CPU system. When upgrading,
spending the $120 cost of the Killer Xeno Pro on a better graphics card
will net you a great deal more performance. Even putting that money
into the CPU is likely to get you more for your money in general. This
is a card that should be targeted at the online gamer with a good
system who wants to make sure every possible advantage is covered.
An interesting device with plenty of potential but you’ll want an insanely high-end machine to match its price tag.
