I choose to "hate on them" because their USP is that they make the board somehow faster in online gaming, yet every independent test shows them to not do that - plus they increase the BOM significantly for no real benefit.
The Killer chips on this board aren't Intel btw.
(There's a bit of personal history involved too - I've had several machines with Killer networking chips and they've all had significant driver problems)
Reputation is hard to fix, and if its just an Intel chip, whats the premium you get from those exactly? Personally I'll always prefer a board with plain Intel NICs, and WiFi on a PC board is meaningless to me anyway (the one you linked is Killer WiFi, not Ethernet)
Yet another x299 motherboard review of yet another yawn-fest RGB and Killer NIC been there and done that also ran gaming product. What's missing here is a non-standard approach and reviews up and down the product stacks of various vendors. This is what happens when you rely exclusively on what companies are willing to send you for free in the mail. They spoon feed journalists a series of gaming-class products with stupid features so we readers rarely see any decent analysis on the wider cost ranges of boards out there because poor people like Joe end up wasting their time messing with boards that only a small number of people purchase. The same thing happens with phones, processors, GPUs, and so forth.
I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but it's frustrating and makes this Peach not overly fond of tech journalism at large. Add that to the years of touting Rivet Networks Killer products without ever justifying it with a benchmark or two that demonstrates there's a reason for the boosting writers have to do and it the whole site feels disappointing even if there's value in other articles. I mean there's not even a networking benchmark at all so we can't even infer added value by comparing a Killer whatever to vanilla Intel using results elsewhere. If the opening shots of the article are going to cite networking connectivity, why isn't that given even a cursory examination in the subsequent pages? What's going on Anandtech?
Networking is extremely hard to get right as a test. It's easy to run it at peak speeds, but networks are rarely used in that instance.
As for the marked benefit of Killer, it comes down to something not overly benchmarkable: online performance with concurrent data streams. If you are gaming, plus downloading, plus streaming, plus watching youtube on another monitor etc, the priority thing does its job. Most solutions are purely software-based - Killer's stuff is actually in hardware: for what isn't whitelisted, the packet analytics can work to decipher what sort of data is coming through, and from where: video, audio, direct downloads, torrents, and such all have detectable ways that the packet data is processed. Different codecs can have different packet profiles, and the Killer stuff is designed to detect them and adjust the return priority as appropriate. A packet will get tagged with a priority and sit in the incoming/outgoing queues, sometimes bypassing the queue altogether. Without deep networking knowledge, and hooks into the Killer hardware requirements, this is super difficult to benchmark. Unless you want a non-repeatable test with an uninterpretable result, or a repeatable test with no real-world value.
I'd love to get some proper Killer testing in, combined with an interview with the CEO and CTO. I can just tell from the comments that it would be a piece that people come just to comment negatively, rather than read, because of the Killer experience in the past. It's a topic I've discussed with the Killer team on numerous occasions.
As for the glut of X299 reviews, we have different reviewers for each chipset/socket: Joe on X299/Z370, Gavin on AM4, Tracy on TR4. Tracy has been waylayed due to lack of hardware, Gavin is new so getting up to speed, and Joe is powering through. Joe is only just moving to Z370 as well, and has a few of those already half-done.
> I'd love to get some proper Killer testing in, combined with an interview with the CEO and CTO.
Why not actually do that? I would come to read it and laugh at the graphs showing killer not excelling at anything in particular.
I guess the reason there's not a killer nic review out there is because it would show how embarrassingly stupid the whole thing is, providing zero advantage at additional cost and actually making things worse by shitty drivers. I don't buy that QoS bullshit, Ian, you're not stupid, if some idiot is shittorenting on ADSL no amount of qos/killer is gonna make a difference when upstream is saturated. Most "gamers" that this is targeted at will either have appropriate broadband connection or be smart enough not to use bandwidth during their gaming sessions. Also with things like NAS etc having torrent/etc clients I just don't see many people using their primary gaming rig for downloading crap (or using shittorrent at all, i know i haven't for years).
I was looking at buying new XPS13 from Dell, saw it had soldered (not socket) killer WiFi, passed it for another brand.
>don't buy that QoS bullshit, Ian, you're not stupid, if some idiot is shittorenting on ADSL no amount of qos
So you've never used (or properly configured?) a device with QoS then I take it because if you had you wouldn't be dribbling inane stuff from your imagination like this.
New mainboards may start to use Doby Atmos playback with 9.1.6 output. New UHD films may soon adapt to it. Buying an amplifier is really expensive for hearing it. Computer with the help of CPU may ease it for us.
Lots of us have a very good understanding of networking so don't discount us as lacking the knowledge necessary to make sense of what Rivet Networks says their hardware is doing with respect to packet analysis and traffic prioritization. Maybe the specific implementation is unique to Killer NICs (I'd even argue that's not the case since they're moving to Intel hardware so if there is packet prioritization happening in hardware, it'll eventually be Intel's implementation with Rivet's interface atop it to allow user configuration). It also seems preconceived (alarmingly so) to assume the readers would just pop in to make negative comments if you go through the trouble of running benchmarks. I'd like to think there's value in what Anandtech publishes which is why most of us, even those with strongly negative opinions about Killer products, are here in the first place reading articles. Some of us don't clearly articulate why we don't like something though. Instead it might come off as general loathing, but I think the feedback you're getting here is rooted in the favorable light Killer is cast in without supporting data that's further combined with negative customer experiences of past Killer NIC products. If you'd like to address that perception and remain as outwardly positive quantified data that isn't marketing material direct from the company would go a long way because claims would have the necessary backing.
I do worry though, that the Killer NIC's benefits can't be realized in benchmarks. If its the case that the key selling points aren't measurable, repeatable, or demonstrable then do they really exist? Are the use cases where a Killer NIC's benefits most likely to be realized commonplace enough to begin with and if they are, what sorts of difficulties make measurement so elusive? It's hard to accept the sales pitch if there's not a trustworthy third party out there that can show they actually exist.
I understand why you'd like to consult with Rivet's personnel in the process of finding a way to measure and demonstrate what their hardware can do, but surely they already went through this trouble to get the numbers for their marketing materials that would put their product performance into bar graphs alongside other common network adapters. They've got to have invented that wheel already if they're claiming those benefits since false claims would expose the company to legal liability. It'd be odd that they're mum about it since their hardware appeals to a crowd of technically-inclined consumers that get very excited over a 2ms improvement in ping times to a game server.
>If you are gaming, plus downloading, plus streaming, plus watching youtube on another monitor etc, > the priority thing does its job.
I have my router doing proper QoS, I can download at full speed and not notice a dip in gaming. IMHO the "bottleneck" in the network needs to perform this task for good results, and thats often the gateway from ethernet to the internet.
Downloading barely affects gaming sessions (game data downloaded from an online match is small), uploading beyond a certain threshold will kill it (climbing ms+).
I like the presence of U.2, but killer networking + RGB LEDS = no way I'm buying that. The RGB LEDs you can probably turn off, which just wastes a little money. But killer networking is really the deal breaker. It's something most people would pay extra to not have. Why do board makers ever accept using this brand?
Even when killer hardware is based on Intel (these aren't), their custom firmware and drivers is just junk.
Look online, most people that have the Killer 1535 just end up getting another wifi card.
What BIOS issues? I did not run into any throughout testing. Perhaps the BIOS used fixed something from previous versions? Do you have a link to said problems?
1 year later, AT still avoids Ryzen mobos with extreme ferocity. And it gets so much worse worse, you focus on X299, a platform almost nobody buys. Go count the mobo reviews in the last year. By my count , you got; 12 reviews for X299 6 reviews for for Z270 2 reviews for for Z370
2 reviews for X370 1 review for TR
Objectivity and serving the reader might not be this site's goal but even if your goal is to sell hardware, how is focusing on products that do not sell, serving your financial interests. The way this makes sense, is if someone is paying you to promote x299 at any cost. Otherwise, what you are doing is insanity.
quote from Ian : As for the glut of X299 reviews, we have different reviewers for each chipset/socket: Joe on X299/Z370, Gavin on AM4, Tracy on TR4. Tracy has been waylayed due to lack of hardware, Gavin is new so getting up to speed, and Joe is powering through. Joe is only just moving to Z370 as well, and has a few of those already half-done.
that could explain things a little as to why there are very few ryzen reviews.......
I have been running this motherboard for almost 6 months. Would agree with some of the comments so far. I have had less than satisfactory results with the wireless, particularly with the bluetooth radio. The 802.11ac connection has been okay.
I also have had issues with the power state management with Linux and Virtualization(Hyper-V/Docker). I have always been able to figure some BIOS settings the worked but frustrating.
Understand that some of my issues may be self inflicted, but have not had similar issues on prior builds. Overall an average board with an average experience.
Frankly I don't get the aggression, particularly from the more tech savvy individuals. Perhaps your pedantic (or not) logic keeps you from recognizing that your posts hold little value until your real name and the company you work for can be identified and verified. I don't know about Killer and their product's worth but I don't know you either, only that you feel that AT is writing something you find unacceptable and the best you can do is disparage. Certainly not a way to stimulate conversation and raise the level of understanding.
I'm just thinking what the comments would have been say 4 years ago had AMD put out a chipset/CPU combo that required a "Review Notice" regarding such dreadful thermals? Intel gets a pass I guess?
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32 Comments
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mkaibear - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
>dual Realtek audio chipsHrm
>Killer based networking,
Pass
> and plenty of RGB LEDs to light up the case
Hard pass
CheapSushi - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
Hating on Killer NICs has become a dumb meme. And guess what? The newer chips are often actual Intel. https://www.anandtech.com/show/12178/its-actually-...mkaibear - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
I choose to "hate on them" because their USP is that they make the board somehow faster in online gaming, yet every independent test shows them to not do that - plus they increase the BOM significantly for no real benefit.The Killer chips on this board aren't Intel btw.
(There's a bit of personal history involved too - I've had several machines with Killer networking chips and they've all had significant driver problems)
nevcairiel - Tuesday, March 6, 2018 - link
Reputation is hard to fix, and if its just an Intel chip, whats the premium you get from those exactly?Personally I'll always prefer a board with plain Intel NICs, and WiFi on a PC board is meaningless to me anyway (the one you linked is Killer WiFi, not Ethernet)
Flunk - Tuesday, March 6, 2018 - link
Still a waste of money on that BoM and you get the annoying Killer app.Something being mentioned in a meme (and all memes are dumb), doesn't make it untrue.
Pork@III - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
RGB LED give you +20 armor :D69369369 - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
RGB LED give me erection :DPeachNCream - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
Yet another x299 motherboard review of yet another yawn-fest RGB and Killer NIC been there and done that also ran gaming product. What's missing here is a non-standard approach and reviews up and down the product stacks of various vendors. This is what happens when you rely exclusively on what companies are willing to send you for free in the mail. They spoon feed journalists a series of gaming-class products with stupid features so we readers rarely see any decent analysis on the wider cost ranges of boards out there because poor people like Joe end up wasting their time messing with boards that only a small number of people purchase. The same thing happens with phones, processors, GPUs, and so forth.I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but it's frustrating and makes this Peach not overly fond of tech journalism at large. Add that to the years of touting Rivet Networks Killer products without ever justifying it with a benchmark or two that demonstrates there's a reason for the boosting writers have to do and it the whole site feels disappointing even if there's value in other articles. I mean there's not even a networking benchmark at all so we can't even infer added value by comparing a Killer whatever to vanilla Intel using results elsewhere. If the opening shots of the article are going to cite networking connectivity, why isn't that given even a cursory examination in the subsequent pages? What's going on Anandtech?
Ian Cutress - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
Networking is extremely hard to get right as a test. It's easy to run it at peak speeds, but networks are rarely used in that instance.As for the marked benefit of Killer, it comes down to something not overly benchmarkable: online performance with concurrent data streams. If you are gaming, plus downloading, plus streaming, plus watching youtube on another monitor etc, the priority thing does its job. Most solutions are purely software-based - Killer's stuff is actually in hardware: for what isn't whitelisted, the packet analytics can work to decipher what sort of data is coming through, and from where: video, audio, direct downloads, torrents, and such all have detectable ways that the packet data is processed. Different codecs can have different packet profiles, and the Killer stuff is designed to detect them and adjust the return priority as appropriate. A packet will get tagged with a priority and sit in the incoming/outgoing queues, sometimes bypassing the queue altogether. Without deep networking knowledge, and hooks into the Killer hardware requirements, this is super difficult to benchmark. Unless you want a non-repeatable test with an uninterpretable result, or a repeatable test with no real-world value.
I'd love to get some proper Killer testing in, combined with an interview with the CEO and CTO. I can just tell from the comments that it would be a piece that people come just to comment negatively, rather than read, because of the Killer experience in the past. It's a topic I've discussed with the Killer team on numerous occasions.
As for the glut of X299 reviews, we have different reviewers for each chipset/socket: Joe on X299/Z370, Gavin on AM4, Tracy on TR4. Tracy has been waylayed due to lack of hardware, Gavin is new so getting up to speed, and Joe is powering through. Joe is only just moving to Z370 as well, and has a few of those already half-done.
timecop1818 - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
> I'd love to get some proper Killer testing in, combined with an interview with the CEO and CTO.Why not actually do that? I would come to read it and laugh at the graphs showing killer not excelling at anything in particular.
I guess the reason there's not a killer nic review out there is because it would show how embarrassingly stupid the whole thing is, providing zero advantage at additional cost and actually making things worse by shitty drivers. I don't buy that QoS bullshit, Ian, you're not stupid, if some idiot is shittorenting on ADSL no amount of qos/killer is gonna make a difference when upstream is saturated. Most "gamers" that this is targeted at will either have appropriate broadband connection or be smart enough not to use bandwidth during their gaming sessions. Also with things like NAS etc having torrent/etc clients I just don't see many people using their primary gaming rig for downloading crap (or using shittorrent at all, i know i haven't for years).
I was looking at buying new XPS13 from Dell, saw it had soldered (not socket) killer WiFi, passed it for another brand.
Diji1 - Wednesday, March 7, 2018 - link
>don't buy that QoS bullshit, Ian, you're not stupid, if some idiot is shittorenting on ADSL no amount of qosSo you've never used (or properly configured?) a device with QoS then I take it because if you had you wouldn't be dribbling inane stuff from your imagination like this.
karakarga - Wednesday, March 7, 2018 - link
New mainboards may start to use Doby Atmos playback with 9.1.6 output. New UHD films may soon adapt to it. Buying an amplifier is really expensive for hearing it. Computer with the help of CPU may ease it for us.PeachNCream - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
Lots of us have a very good understanding of networking so don't discount us as lacking the knowledge necessary to make sense of what Rivet Networks says their hardware is doing with respect to packet analysis and traffic prioritization. Maybe the specific implementation is unique to Killer NICs (I'd even argue that's not the case since they're moving to Intel hardware so if there is packet prioritization happening in hardware, it'll eventually be Intel's implementation with Rivet's interface atop it to allow user configuration). It also seems preconceived (alarmingly so) to assume the readers would just pop in to make negative comments if you go through the trouble of running benchmarks. I'd like to think there's value in what Anandtech publishes which is why most of us, even those with strongly negative opinions about Killer products, are here in the first place reading articles. Some of us don't clearly articulate why we don't like something though. Instead it might come off as general loathing, but I think the feedback you're getting here is rooted in the favorable light Killer is cast in without supporting data that's further combined with negative customer experiences of past Killer NIC products. If you'd like to address that perception and remain as outwardly positive quantified data that isn't marketing material direct from the company would go a long way because claims would have the necessary backing.I do worry though, that the Killer NIC's benefits can't be realized in benchmarks. If its the case that the key selling points aren't measurable, repeatable, or demonstrable then do they really exist? Are the use cases where a Killer NIC's benefits most likely to be realized commonplace enough to begin with and if they are, what sorts of difficulties make measurement so elusive? It's hard to accept the sales pitch if there's not a trustworthy third party out there that can show they actually exist.
I understand why you'd like to consult with Rivet's personnel in the process of finding a way to measure and demonstrate what their hardware can do, but surely they already went through this trouble to get the numbers for their marketing materials that would put their product performance into bar graphs alongside other common network adapters. They've got to have invented that wheel already if they're claiming those benefits since false claims would expose the company to legal liability. It'd be odd that they're mum about it since their hardware appeals to a crowd of technically-inclined consumers that get very excited over a 2ms improvement in ping times to a game server.
nevcairiel - Tuesday, March 6, 2018 - link
>If you are gaming, plus downloading, plus streaming, plus watching youtube on another monitor etc,> the priority thing does its job.
I have my router doing proper QoS, I can download at full speed and not notice a dip in gaming. IMHO the "bottleneck" in the network needs to perform this task for good results, and thats often the gateway from ethernet to the internet.
Lolimaster - Tuesday, March 6, 2018 - link
Downloading barely affects gaming sessions (game data downloaded from an online match is small), uploading beyond a certain threshold will kill it (climbing ms+).andychow - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
I like the presence of U.2, but killer networking + RGB LEDS = no way I'm buying that. The RGB LEDs you can probably turn off, which just wastes a little money. But killer networking is really the deal breaker. It's something most people would pay extra to not have. Why do board makers ever accept using this brand?Even when killer hardware is based on Intel (these aren't), their custom firmware and drivers is just junk.
Look online, most people that have the Killer 1535 just end up getting another wifi card.
Gothmoth - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
no word about the bios issues... anandtech articles are now basically just a feature list with more words.Joe Shields - Wednesday, March 7, 2018 - link
What BIOS issues? I did not run into any throughout testing. Perhaps the BIOS used fixed something from previous versions? Do you have a link to said problems?timecop1818 - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
> What happens when a vendor adds 802.11ac to Killer networking?You lose sales.
Fuck killer and fuck any vendor that uses their shit.
jjj - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
1 year later, AT still avoids Ryzen mobos with extreme ferocity.And it gets so much worse worse, you focus on X299, a platform almost nobody buys.
Go count the mobo reviews in the last year. By my count , you got;
12 reviews for X299
6 reviews for for Z270
2 reviews for for Z370
2 reviews for X370
1 review for TR
Objectivity and serving the reader might not be this site's goal but even if your goal is to sell hardware, how is focusing on products that do not sell, serving your financial interests.
The way this makes sense, is if someone is paying you to promote x299 at any cost. Otherwise, what you are doing is insanity.
Qasar - Monday, March 5, 2018 - link
quote from Ian :As for the glut of X299 reviews, we have different reviewers for each chipset/socket: Joe on X299/Z370, Gavin on AM4, Tracy on TR4. Tracy has been waylayed due to lack of hardware, Gavin is new so getting up to speed, and Joe is powering through. Joe is only just moving to Z370 as well, and has a few of those already half-done.
that could explain things a little as to why there are very few ryzen reviews.......
Lolimaster - Tuesday, March 6, 2018 - link
Anyone knows they're intel shills, also toms (both part of purch) at least toms safe face with more dignity.ralstonater - Tuesday, March 6, 2018 - link
"The 802.11ac module supports Bluetooth 4.1 and speeds up to 867 Gbps."While technology moves at incredible paces I wholly doubt that the wireless AC supports that fast of a connection ;)
Joe Shields - Wednesday, March 7, 2018 - link
Corrected. Thanks!GDogKC - Tuesday, March 6, 2018 - link
I have been running this motherboard for almost 6 months. Would agree with some of the comments so far. I have had less than satisfactory results with the wireless, particularly with the bluetooth radio. The 802.11ac connection has been okay.I also have had issues with the power state management with Linux and Virtualization(Hyper-V/Docker). I have always been able to figure some BIOS settings the worked but frustrating.
Understand that some of my issues may be self inflicted, but have not had similar issues on prior builds. Overall an average board with an average experience.
StrangerGuy - Tuesday, March 6, 2018 - link
X299 aka who cares? For the price of one cheapest X299 board you can review four B350M boards that are infinitely more relevant.vicbee - Wednesday, March 7, 2018 - link
Frankly I don't get the aggression, particularly from the more tech savvy individuals. Perhaps your pedantic (or not) logic keeps you from recognizing that your posts hold little value until your real name and the company you work for can be identified and verified. I don't know about Killer and their product's worth but I don't know you either, only that you feel that AT is writing something you find unacceptable and the best you can do is disparage. Certainly not a way to stimulate conversation and raise the level of understanding.jabber - Monday, March 12, 2018 - link
I'm just thinking what the comments would have been say 4 years ago had AMD put out a chipset/CPU combo that required a "Review Notice" regarding such dreadful thermals? Intel gets a pass I guess?