Bigfoot's Wireless NIC
Around the end of Q1 2011, Bigfoot was launching a new product into the Laptop market. Higher end gaming laptops could now come equipped with a much improved wireless card known as the Killer Wireless-N. It came in two flavors. The 1102 and the 1103 with the final digit reflecting the number of antenna's the card had. For most gamers this was not the type of card you would go to a store and buy and install. Opening your laptop and messing with the internals voids many companies laptop warranties. But, it was an option you could get on your laptop at the time of purchase from a growing number of laptop manufacturers.

The Syndicate was engaged to review the cards and speak to the question: Did they tangibly change the end users gaming experience in a positive way? Mutliple laptops were reconfigured to use both the 2 and 3 antenna cards including Dell's, ASUS and Alienware (M11x, M15x and M17x versions) machines. In every case, the card improved the end user experience and gaming performance across FPS and MMO titles as well as streaming videos, speed tests and surfing the web. Some of the tester feedback included:

My experience with the Killer 1103 card has been nothing short of amazing. My laptop is now hitting the advertised mbps down that I am paying for from my ISP. As far as gaming with the card goes. There was a very noticeable drop in latency and increase in frame rates while playing World of Warcraft, even in the more congested zones, and the lag was almost nonexistent. Call of Duty: Black Ops also performed better, my ping was lowered and i didn't feel any lag when trying to fire my weapon, or running across the map. Also my signal strength was greatly improved, my router is only about 20 feet from my laptop, but through walls it wasn't always at full bars, now it’s always at 98%

(and)

On the 5GHz band, the Killer card is a huge improvement over the stock NIC. It plays much more smoothly with far fewer hiccups and lag pockets. On both bands, the Killer card is much more stable than the stock NIC. My wireless connection did not drop a single time during use over the past 2 weeks with the Killer NIC. I would lose connection at least daily with the stock NIC. Overall, I'd recommend this card, especially on Wi-Fi networks with a 5GHz band connection.

You can find out more information on each of the cards here: