Killer 1535 - anyone replaced Dell's drivers with Killer originals?

To add some context to this question: I happen to have a family of three Dell machines in the house - a new arrival XPS 9360, an old beast Precision M4800 and an "aspiring" Inspirion 5667.

The new XPS 9360 is equipped with the Killer 1535 wifi card while the old models came with Intel cards. I've run tens of speed tests and it's certain for me that the Killer card's performance is constantly 20-25% lower than those of Intel's cards (all cards with the newest drivers available).

Has anyone done similar tests or come across Killer performance issues? There are lots of similar threads on Killer cards, and they are generally not really appreciated, so I wonder if by using the OEM drivers instead of those approved by Dell can offer me some performance improvements.

Thanks, I've already seen that one!

I'm still puzzled though, that a card that's supposed to be a "turbo connector" for gamers, in reality has lower results than just average consumer/business wireless cards...

I'm not a gamer, but just being used to almost effortless Intel wifi cards, the Killer one with its lower performance is nearly a shock.

Another interesting story is either I'm blind or Killer misses the ability to set a wifi channel. I've asked for it on some other forum and I've received basically a single reply: "you can find Killer channel using some software, so just adjust your router to it". This is far from I could expect...

Hi rutkowski,

Thanks for posting.

Here is some information you may find helpful, plus a technician from Killer Networking has provided a reply:  http://dell.to/2vtJmNn

Hello Mikolajek!

I am Anthony with Killer Support. Our normal account doesn't seem to be working - I'm going to poke Dell on that shortly - but I can help you with any issues that you are seeing with your Killer Network Adapter.

If you are using the driver-only package, the effect from going from 12.0.0.312 should be 12.0.0.318  should be negligible, unless you are experiencing issues. This driver update was not a major revision. It was only released to address a small number of issues that were being experienced by a small number of users. If you are getting good results with your current driver, there is no reason to update.

If you are using the Killer Control Center (or any performance suite), however, you will want to keep with the latest version of the Killer Control Center as we are constantly adding program detection rules, so that we can better prioritize traffic.

The Killer 1535 should be just as fast, if not faster than, any other current Wi-Fi adapter. It uses the 802.11ac standard and we have tested it with many hardware configuration and gateway combinations.

What stands the Killer adapter apart is the network prioritization features, which are not only useful for gamers, but anyone that might need to prioritize network traffic in order to make sure any particular application, or applications, receive the lowest latency and highest throughput possible. Even if you completely ignore the Killer Performance Suite, the default settings can make a world of difference, provided you have set the network speed correctly in the "options" window.

In reference to your question about channels - modern Wi-Fi adapters, in a Windows environment, automatically use whatever channel the AP that they are trying to connect to is using. If your router is set to 2.4 Ghz Channel 6, then the adapter will connect to it on Channel 6. There is no need for a channel setting in the operating system as the adapter switches automatically, and setting a channel would only make the device inoperable any time you used a network that wasn't on that specific channel. In fact, most modern routers are using the 5 Ghz band, and automatically change channels to try and get the best signal, so having to set a channel on the client side would be a nightmare.

I hope I answered all of your questions!

If you have any other questions, or any issues, you can feel free to contact us directly using this form - www.killernetworking.com/.../contact

This account appears to be working correctly now. I am Anthony, and I endorse Anthony's message above.

Great! Glad to hear that it seems to be resolved. If you don't mind my asking, what is the model number on that router?

It's the Ubee EVW3226 provided by UPC.

I've just ordered an additional one (TP Link Archer AC3150) that is expected to do a better job!