Thanks to its PCI-Express interface, the RX800XL-VT2D256E does not require an additional power connector, deriving all its power from the PCIe x16 slot.

MSI has made a point out of increasing the 'wow' value of their high-end videocards, and the RX800XL-VT2D256E continues this trend. The card ships in a rather large box, and comes with a generous hardware and software bundle.

Three full-versions games are included: Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, XIII and URU: Ages Beyond Myst. Some utilities and DVD creation tools courtesy of Cyberlink are also tossed in.

Overclocking Results:

stock overclocked gpu (core) speed: 398MHz 421MHz Memory Speed: 492MHz 534MHz If you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers: Overclocking the CPU and Memory Overclocking the Videocard

Included hardware comprises a lime-green S-Video cable and a bright red breakout box with s-video and component outputs as well as composite and S-video inputs.

A single(!) DVI-to-analog converter is included. MSI does not include component cables, but as quality ones would drive up the price of the card considerably, we can understand why.

With its slightly loud heatsink, we were hoping for good overclocking results from the RX800XL-VT2D256E, at least where the core was concerned. We generally know what to expect from the Samsung GDDR3 memory.

The MSI RX800XL-VT2D256E card proved to be only a fair overclocker. we managed to boost core speeds to 421MHz from the stock 398MHz, while the memory was slightly more cooperative, going to 534MHz from 492MHz, more or less what we expected, but a bit disappointing all the same.

PCStats Test System Specs:

processor: amd athlon64 4000+ clock speed: 12 x 200 mhz = 2.4 ghz motherboards: gigabyte ga-k8nxp-sli (nf4-sli) gigabyte ga-k8nsnxp-939 (nf3 ultra) videocards: msi rx800xt-vtd256e gigabyte gv-rx80l256v powercolor x700 pro ati radeon x800 xl msi nx6800gt-t2d256e albatron trinity geforce 6600gt agp msi nx6600gt-td128 albatron trinity pc6600 asus extreme n6600top/td/128m/a gigabyte gv-3d1 (single mode) gigabyte gv-3d1 (sli mode) msi nx6600gt-td128e (single mode) msi nx6600gt-td128e (sli mode) powercolor bravo x700 msi rx800xl-vt2d256e memory: 2x 512mb mushkin pc3200 l2 v2 hard drive: 74gb wd raptor 10k rpm sata hdd cdrom: aopen 52x combo powersupply: seasonic super tornado 400w software setup windowsxp build 2600 nforce catalyst 4.12 detonator 66.93 benchmarks 3dmark2001se 3dmark05 codecreatures aquamark gun metal 2 x2 the threat ut2003 doom3 aa test, af and aa+af test 3dmark2001se ut2003

the agp and pci-e systems use a different motherboard but results are shown for reference.