PCSTATS     
[X]   Directory of
Guides & Reviews

Beginners Guides
Motherboards by Brand
Weekly Newsletter
Archived Newsletters

MSI MX400 Pro-VT32S Video Card Review
MSI MX400 Pro-VT32S Video Card Review - PCSTATS
MSI has added S-Video VIVO (Video In, Video Out) and 5 ns SDRAM. Last but not least, who could forget the pretty red PCB too!
 84% Rating:   
Filed under: Video Cards Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: MSI Sep 25 2001   C. Sun  
Home > Reviews > Video Cards > MSI MX400 Pro-VT32S

GF2 MX Card Details

As we all know, every single card in the GeForce2 lineup is memory bandwidth limited, so it's a nice touch. Below is a chart which differentiates between the standard GF2 MX lineup.

GeForce 2 MX
GeForce 2 MX200
GeForce 2 MX400
.18m
.18m
.18m
175 MHz Core
175 MHz Core
200 MHz Core
166 MHz Mem
166 MHz Mem
166 MHz Mem
128bit SDR/64bit DDR
64bit SDR
128bit SDR/64bit DDR
32MB/64MB
32MB/64MB
32MB/64MB
2.7 GB/s bandwidth
1.35 GB/s bandwidth
2.7 GB/s bandwidth
350 MPixel/s
350 MPixel/s
400 MPixel/s
700 MTexel/s
700 MTexel/s
800 MTexel/s

Unfortunately the drivers supplied with the care are that of the older nVidia Det. 7.xx line, however, there might be a method to this madness. It's been long known that the Det. 7.xx drivers are the fastest DirectX7 drivers available, so since this card was designed to take advantage of today's games and not tomorrow's everything should work out quite well.

I'm not one to really use all the extra features present on the MSI MX400 Pro-VT32S, but it was nice to know they were there if required.

Video In, Video Out was courtesy of the Phillips 7108E chip. This isn't the best video chipset, but it's very economical and does the job. I did try watching DVD's on my 30" Toshiba TV, and I found the quality acceptable. It wasn't really quite up to par with my standalone DVD player, but it was ok.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take pictures of the quality because my pop is mad at me and wouldn't let me use his digital camera, [Colin tries to 'overclock' literally everything - Ed] so you're going to have to take my word for it!

One thing in particular which I found very interesting was that neither nVidia's Coolbit's registry hack or NVMax could figure out the clock speed of the card, I had to use MSI's own 3D!Turbo utility.

As for overclocking, it was rather overclocker friendly - something which MSI is generally know for building into their products. The core did 10% more which is okay, but the memory could be pushed all the way up to 229 MHz up from 183 MHz. Of course, our sample did have 5 ns SDRAM which helped. When you look at the benchmarks, you'll see that overclocking the MX400 really leads to substantial performance gains.

< Previous Page © 2023 PCSTATS.com Next Page >

 

Contents of Article: MSI MX400 Pro-VT32S
 Pg 1.  MSI MX400 Pro-VT32S Video Card Review
 Pg 2.  — GF2 MX Card Details
 Pg 3.  Specs and Test System Configuration
 Pg 4.  3DMark 2001 Benchmarks
 Pg 5.  MDK2 Benchmarks
 Pg 6.  Quake III Benchmarks
 Pg 7.  DroneZ Benchmarks
 Pg 8.  Serious Sam's Fill Rate Benchmarks
 Pg 9.  Conclusions

 
Hardware Sections 


 
PCSTATS Network Features Information About Us Contact
FrostyTech
PCSTATS Newsletter
Tech Glossary
Technology WebSite Listings
News Archives
(Review RSS Feed)
Site Map
PCstats Wallpaper
About Us
Privacy Policy
Advertise on PCSTATS

How's Our Driving?
© Copyright 1999-2023 www.pcstats.com All rights reserved. Privacy policy and Terms of Use.