During our time at the Consumer Electronics Show, we got some details on Bigfoot Networks' move to motherboards. Find out how the embedded Killer E2100 networking platform will change your gaming experience.

Like the mysterious man-beast from which the network card company draws its name, Bigfoot Networks has entered 2011 by leaving its footprint all over the gaming hardware marketplace. ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI – three leading motherboard and hardware manufacturers – have unveiled at this year's Consumer Electronics Show that they are creating components specifically for the hardcore PC gamer, and as part of their new motherboard specs they’ve included embedded Killer 2100 chipsets to serve as their onboard network connections.

While gamers have sometimes balked at the idea of buying a standalone network interface card in this era of integrated technology, this new pairing of prominent motherboards with the Killer hardware has made it much easier for gamers to implement the technology into their system. For example, Gigabyte's new line of G-1 Killer gaming motherboards will employ Bigfoot's embedded Killer E2100 networking platform to provide a speed boost and improved performance.

While at CES in Las Vegas, Nev., I was able to sit down with Bigfoot Networks' Vice President of Marketing John Drewry to talk about these new developments. Unlike some of his contemporaries in the PC hardware world, John is a gamer to the core. After we’d discussed World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion, Rift and DC Universe Online to death, we focused on the move to motherboard integration and what went into that process.

"We’ve been working with [the motherboard manufacturers] for the better part of a year to pull this together," Drewry explained. "Being embedded on a motherboard has always been one of our biggest goals; it just makes too much sense not to do it. So we had to make some serious technical changes along the way to make sure we met their standards both in terms of the size of the technology and how it functions. With the Killer Xeno and 2100 technology, we knew we were close and it was just a matter of tweaking the last few items to bring it all together."

For those of us that have used Killer cards in the past and experienced the framerate increases, we know how well the technology can potentially work for users that want to tweak every part of their computer’s performance. But we had to ask Drewry, would there be any differences in terms of functionality between the stand-alone cards and the chipsets on the motherboards?

"Not at all," he said. "We're including all of the software and hardware on the Sniper, Assassin and Gorilla, [some of the motherboard names from the hardware companies] that we’ve become known for with PC gamers. It’ll be the same sort of experience, just without the need to take up an extra PCI-E slot."

Cody "Micajah" Bye, Director of Content