For most motherboards compared to most dedicated cards, there is no real difference. The difference between them would be maybe 5-10KB/s. But when you go up to a bit more expensive cards, with higher end Intel networking chipsets, you can push a lot more connections at a time, which is good for torrents. This is because the networking chip is a much better, much faster model that processes more connections per second. In addition, they often have a ram cache as a buffer which helps performance. There is a company called Bigfoot Networks that makes some gaming network cards. Some people who have them, think they are the most amazing cards ever. Those who dont have them, or dont really know a ton about computers, think the cards are worthless. The cards from this company have a really fast networking chip, usually 400MHz as well as a faster and larger RAM cache. In addition, the drivers allow the card to 100% bypass the Windows networking stack (the part that controls network traffic and prioritizes it all) and does its own internal prioritization that you can control but defaults to games have highest priority. Now for most things, the different in performance is almost unmeasurable. It helps when you have LOTS of torrent connections or when playing heavy traffic MMOs, but doesnt give much gain in other situations. I dont think it has been truly tested in many modern MMOs, but on somewhat older computers the Bigfoot Network cards can actually give a 5fps (on average) boost to World of Warcraft in some of the later raids as well as lower your ping by 10-20ms and smooth out your ping so you dont have big lag spikes. So the main audience of these cards is MMO gamers, specifically WoW. It really does work in situations that are heavily limited by network chip speed. Whether it gives the same boost to performance in a modern MMO such as Rift? I really cant say, but it would be interesting to find out. Of course, 90% of the same gains you can get in WoW can also be had from an upper level Intel dedicated NIC, and those cost much less money. You can find some testimonials by "famous" people who actually have used the Killer NIC cards here if you care about it: http://www.bigfootnetworks.com/testimonials/ and product page: http://www.bigfootnetworks.com/killer-2100/ Personally? I own a Killer Xeno Pro. I cant find it anymore so I dont use it, but I was looking for it and really wanted it as I have a hunch it would help in a huge way with a Minecraft server. (EDIT: just found it) Minecraft sends millions of packets per second that overload most PCs, this would probably be able to handle it perfectly fine. What did I notice while using it? Nothing. I didnt play any MMOs with it, just FPS games back then. And I saw maybe a 2-3ms ping decrease on average, not even enough to be able to truly say the decrease was from the card. But I didnt see a decrease, because the games I was playing were not at all limited by connections. So where it is designed for, you will see a boost. When using it where it wasnt designed for, you wont see anything. Really I dont think the cost of a BFN NIC card is worth it at all. And even spending more for a nicer dedicated Intel card probably isnt worth it either since you arent going to see big jumps in performance. You would be better off spending that money on a nicer graphics card or CPU. EDIT: I pulled the sticker off the processing chip on this card. The processor is made by a company called Freescale Semiconductor. It is a 32-bit processor that runs at 400 MHz and is PowerPC based. This processor itself costs $30.11, which I guess is one of the reasons these NIC's are so expensive. The processor is made on a 90nm process, uses a PPC e300 core, and actually has two gigabit ethernet controller built in, although only 1 is used on the network card. The Wiki page on this processor says it supports up to 800MHz (might be wrong or for a different model of chip), so it would be really cool if someone could make some custom firmware to speed up the controller on this card http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC8314E http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_e300 http://www.futureelectronics.com/en...-processors/Pages/7976053-MPC8314EVRAGDA.aspx If I never end up doing anything with this card I may buy a MPC8378E processor and de-solder the current processing chip on this card and put the MPC8378E on instead. Load it up with the firmware for the different processing chip and see what happens... Both chips look to have the same package type, and the same outputs for interfacing with the chips, so it might actually work.
AMD's launch of Bulldozer CPU architecture is supposed to have been delayed to late July now :'( Socket AM3+ and 990FX chipset are just being released today though. We should see motherboard for the new stuff very soon. These new motherboards are backwards compatible still so you can get a new MB and use an older AM3 processor you already have. The new chipset doesnt really add much of anything, it just supports the new split voltage planes and signaling for the AM3+ processors, as well as supports 6.4GT/s on the hyper-transport (3.2GHz each way). We will have the same 32 PCI-E 2.0 lanes for graphics in dual 16x config or quad 8x configuration. As well as six SATA 6.0 gbps ports and fourteen USB 2.0 ports. Most motherboard will also use the same USB 3.0 chip that everyone has been using, so you will see support for that as well. The new motherbaords and chipset are guaranteed compatible with the 8-core Zambezi processors.
Tom's Hardware just published a nice little article this week aboug it, on my phone or I'd share the link. Should still be on front page.
I just read that Bulldozer got delayed a little more? Don't have site off top of heaf. Still posting from phone.
AMD denied that rumor and still said it was on schedule for Q2 release, that was 2 weeks ago. Last week though a couple places said they heard from motherboard manufacturers that AMD still has to release a new stepping before retail launch and that now the Bulldozer launch will be delayed. Different sources say different things, Anandtech said mid/late July, someone else said late August. Everyone thought the launch date was supposed to be June 7th-9th, since thats what it said on a confidential AMD slide that slipped out from under the non-disclosure agreement. So it depends on how you look at it, June is the last month of the second quarter on the annual year, however the fiscal year has July and August in Q2. So Bulldozer may be on track for a Q2 launch in June, or may be a Q2 launch in July or August. All of that is now speculation with no hard evidence to any launch date other than AMD confirming that the launch is still on schedule for the 2nd quarter. EDIT: Ok so I have confirmed that the official word from AMD is that the high end Bulldozer processors will be released in 60-90 days from right now. But that is supposed to be the time until the processors are actually in the stores being sold. So there may be a "soft" launch a bit sooner, but we will be able to buy these processors within 60-90 days. The official words from AMD itself is that there are not problems with Bulldozer at all like some people have suggested, but that the success being seeing with "Llano" right now that AMD wants to delay the high-end Zambezi processors a bit so that AMD can make more money on the low end Llano chips first. Thus spacing out their income instead of making a ton on the low end, and then cutting short their sale run by releasing something else. That comes straight from Guido Lohmann, a PR manager at AMD. Whether it is true or not I dont know, I just know this is what AMD PR says.