Rivet Launches Blazing Fast, Intel-Based Killer Wireless-AC 1550 Chip, New Xbox Router

Rivet Networks has built a business as a premiere provider of networking tech, but it’s never used Intel’s Wi-Fi and networking solutions before. As of this week, that’s changing. Rivet has been working with Intel to build new solutions, with Intel hardware inside and Rivet Network’s own networking expertise baked into the device’s driver and software layer.

The new AC 1550 is capable of delivering up to 1.73Gbps of bandwidth, offers full compatibility with 802.11ac Wave 2, and features Killer Network’s Advanced Stream Detect (a feature that scans your Internet connectivity and prioritizes games or other low-latency applications) and Killer Double Shot Pro. Double Shot Pro allows the user to simultaneously use the wired and wireless connections to improve overall performance.

Rivet has built a list of the top 1,000 applications and network traffic configurations and can prioritize traffic on six different settings of importance. The list of 1,000 applications is scanned on a daily basis and reconfigured to continue recognizing traffic accordingly. According to Rivet, companies sometimes make changes to their network code that breaks Killer’s automatic detection, but these breaks are picked up and fixed in a matter of hours. Users also have the option to add their own applications to the list if they aren’t there to start with.

Separately from the new AC 1550, Rivet is launching a new router in partnership with Linksys. The WRT32XB is specifically designed to prioritize gaming traffic for Xbox One and PCs and supports 802.11ac, has four Ethernet ports, a USB port, and four dual-band antennas. It should offer benefits to Killer customers and regular users alike, since the Xbox One doesn’t use Killer Ethernet, but there may be additional benefits to using a Killer Networks Wi-Fi solution in conjunction with the router. The router itself is a 3×3 configuration with 5GHz and 2.4GHz radios and is scheduled for launch this coming spring.

Overall, Rivet has done well carving out a niche for themselves, particularly given the difficulty of establishing oneself as a meaningful add-on in today’s environment. Advances in motherboard design have eaten most of the peripherals that we used to rely on, apart from discrete GPUs. Sound cards are still available, but few people buy them and the underlying technology advances at a crawl. Hopefully we’ll be able to take a look at Killer Network’s AC 1550 and WRT32XB to see if the improvements are really as strong as the company claims.