Forget about PPUs, here come AIPUs and NPUs!

[Richard]

NPU:
http://www.shacknews.com/docs/press/071306_bigfoot_nic.x

The Killer NIC offers the following benefits to gamers in online games:
UltimatePing™ Technology – maximizes the speed of your gaming PC with the Killer’s Network Processor Unit delivering data to games faster than traditional NICs or LOM, thus reducing your Ping in online games.
MaxFPS™ Technology – offloads network processing from your computer’s CPU to the Killer NIC freeing up the CPU to focus on what is important – THE GAME!!!
Flexible Network Architecture (FNA™) – allows everyone to freely write, download, and run applications that execute on the Killer’s Network Processing Unit. FNapps are user and industry developed applications that free your computer’s CPU to focus on the game.
PingThrottle™ Technology – allows gamers to adjust ping their Ping higher or lower depending on game play.
GameFirst™ Technology – network packets for your games are prioritized and delivered before all other network activity on the system.

Additional Killer NIC technical specifications are as follows:

10/100/1000 PCI Network Card
400 MHz Network Processing Unit
64MB RAM
Full NIC functionality
USB 2.0 Port

And an AIPU:
http://www.aiseek.com/

AIseek provides innovative technologies to power tomorrow’s computer games. AIseek's flagship product, the IntiaTM processor, is the first dedicated processor for artificial intelligence (AI). By accelerating and optimizing behavioral computations, the Intia processor empowers developers to build entirely new game worlds, populated by intelligent life.

All we need now is a keyboard/mouse accelerated part.

 

[Albuquerque]

I'm really curious about the first one... How do you "accelerate" something that isn't within your control? A simple network card upgrade cannot make your broadband connection transmit data faster, unless you want to talk about some form of hardware data compression that would require support at both ends of the pipe.

I'm just having a hard time fathoming how this KillerNIC is somehow going to relieve your CPU of more stress than, say a 3Com unit that does all the TX/RX Checksum offload and etc. I really wonder what application load they're targetting with 64mb of ram and a "400mhz processor"... Last I recall, most of the network stack (layer three and above) is software-regulated in current OSes; I'm not even sure if Vista provides a way to offload more of those tasks to "dedicated" hardware.

At the ground level, it sounds like we just need to go back to the thought process of add-in FPU's But this time, it would be multiple floating point units, vector math units, matrix units etc all rolled into one big fat chip that runs at eleventy brazillion jiggahurtz and needs it's own 65AMP 120VAC powersupply

 

[Bobbler]

Crimany... that NPU seems wholly unnecessary. 400mhz/64mb for a single network card? That's a lot of power/space for such a simple task...

The FNA part of the NIC seems kind of neat, but still...

 

[DemoCoder]

Seems to me they're just putting an embedded linux access point on a card. Big freakin deal. This is a wholly unneccessary scam like those "gaming modems". The CPU utilized for 1mbps gaming is trivial. Ethernet drivers nowadays do little more than wakeup to interrupts and initiate DMA to copy kernel buffers onto the NIC.

 

[_xxx_]

 

[Guden Oden]

Seems to me they're just putting an embedded linux access point on a card. Big freakin deal.

Well, the geek in me is very intrigued. So it's actually a Linux SOC, that thing? Cool.

The CPU utilized for 1mbps gaming is trivial.

Perhaps, yes. The CPU typically utilized with ye average network adapter for 1GBps file transfers however is not, so for someone who wants a capable network card for data serving purposes this might be a good product. Also, every little bit counts you might say. Those who buy Creative X-Fi sound cards might find this thing appealing. After all, I did, and I do, respectively.

Ethernet drivers nowadays do little more than wakeup to interrupts and initiate DMA to copy kernel buffers onto the NIC.

Well, you gotta do CRC checks and create packet headers n shit too I wager, as not all NICs have hardware support for that. Particulary the el cheapo run-of-the-mill stuff you get mounted on mobos these days, just like all those unspectacular (and very cheap) sound solutions that also make it onto mobos.

 

[mczak]

Well, you gotta do CRC checks and create packet headers n shit too I wager, as not all NICs have hardware support for that. Particulary the el cheapo run-of-the-mill stuff you get mounted on mobos these days, just like all those unspectacular (and very cheap) sound solutions that also make it onto mobos.

True, though for instance all boards with nforce5 (570 and up) can already do that no matter how cheap the rest of the board is (nforce4 was supposed to be able to do it to though turns out the checksum calculations seem to be a bit off sometimes...).
I just can't see this make really a difference for the average home user. And servers and the like long used (for instance 3com) nics which can do crc themselves. Though if it really is a fully functional linux system, you could do quite a lot wrt to packet filter/QOS/ etc.

 

[Tim Murray]

If you're worried about Gigabit Ethernet performance, you shouldn't be using a PCI card in the first place.

 

[BRiT]

If you're worried about Gigabit Ethernet performance, you shouldn't be using a PCI card in the first place.

Agreed. If that product sells, then it's just a matter of time before Monster Cables produces a $100 12 foot Gig-E cable.

 

[Guden Oden]

Agreed. If that product sells, then it's just a matter of time before Monster Cables produces a $100 12 foot Gig-E cable.

You mean they don't have one already? Besides, $100 sounds positively CHEAP, considering you'll be getting HexaGrid<TM> EM shielding, patented counter-clockwise winding, DynaSaf-E<TM> data protection and LokVault<TM> vacuumized, platinum-plated connectors...

 

[Humus]

Well, you gotta do CRC checks and create packet headers n shit too I wager, as not all NICs have hardware support for that. Particulary the el cheapo run-of-the-mill stuff you get mounted on mobos these days, just like all those unspectacular (and very cheap) sound solutions that also make it onto mobos.

On the other hand that's hardly a very computationally expensive operation. The link won't be able to transmit data anywhere close to the rate at which a CPU is able to produce packets. Not to mention that most online games don't consume a whole lot of bandwidth, it's the ping that matters.

 

[PARANOiA]

I think the introduction of the PPU made some non-PC literate marketing team somewhere get cartoon dollar-signs over their eyes and start rubbing their hands together.

 

[Sobek]

I remember reading the site for that NPU when it was first announced...what a laugh.

PING THROTTLE - FOR WHEN YOU WANT TO APPEASE THE DIALUP USERS AROUND YOU.

Give me a break, a NIC is a NIC, my realtek 10/100/1000 is just as good.

 

[vazel]

So... general consensus on this seems to be that it's just to cash in on enthusiast gamers it seems. Does that still remain? Why is IGN's review showing a 65% performance gain in F.E.A.R.?

http://gear.ign.com/articles/729/729733p1.html

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTE1MywxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

 

[Skrying]

Would I be evil if I actually said I MUCH rather have a Killer NIC than a PPU? I can actually see very good features in the Killer NIC, it impressed me actually. Its just to expensive, maybe half the price and a bit more support feature wise and I'd almost consider it.

 

[BRiT]

My gawd, neither of those sites know how to do a proper networking test...