Killer NIC is offered as a stand-alone product or is bundled with computers from OEMs like the Dell XPS 630.
[5] Programs that download files often use the USB port to transfer data to external storage, making the Killer NIC useful as a NAS albeit at the generally higher power draw of a desktop PC, compared to a device like a NSLU2.
The successor technology, Game Networking DNA, now supported by Qualcomm Atheros,[7] remains a Microsoft Windows-only solution.
[9] This led to widespread skepticism and speculation that the product was merely attempting a money grab, hoping to cash in on the "bling" aspect of enthusiast computing.
They remarked that the potential performance gain with the Killer NIC was probably higher than upgrading a $300 video card from one generation to the next.
Anandtech noted that the people who would stand to gain the most benefit from the Killer NIC, the low-end users, would also be the ones least likely to pay $280 for a network card.