Many geeks and gamers may remember the launch of the Killer Xeno Pro, EVGA’s ambitious network card for gamers. The Killer Xeno Pro is the brainchild of combined efforts between EVGA and Bigfoot Networks, and is based heavily on Bigfoot’s older line of Killer NICs.
The product sparked a huge debate in the enthusiast community about whether or not it offered any advantage to the user when compared to a traditional network card–years later, the debate still rages. Squabbling aside, the Killer Xeno Pro suffered from a severe false start: The card’s drivers were unstable, and although beta revisions were frequently posted, crash and blue-screen issues with the Killer Xeno were all too common.
On December 4, Bigfoot released a new Killer Xeno driver (version 5.0.3.0-19), so we figured, “What the hell? We’ll give our Xeno one more shot.”
We installed our card into a gaming box and looked to our watches to begin the BSOD countdown, but the card didn’t choke. We’re now one week out on running our rig with the Xeno, and the system remains free of crashes. There are still some minor bugs when we try to use Windows file sharing, but nothing so critical as to cause a system crash. In most respects, it seems that Bigfoot has finally concocted a stable driver.
If you purchased a Killer Xeno Pro back in the day and then discovered you had to use your onboard NIC to play games anyway, now may be the time to put the Killer Xeno back into your computer. Go find the box in the attic, blow the dust and cobwebs off, and get at least something out of your hundred bucks.
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