Benchmark and Specs
Written: Oct 26 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Cheap but good.
Cons: lower end quality. no heatsink
The Bottom Line: As we saw in the benchmarking process up above, the Visiontek GF2 MX card is by no means faster than the GF2 GTS.
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| DeceptionA's Full Review: VisionTek GeForce 2 MX |
About a year ago now, the nVidia TNT2 M64 graphics card was released for low end budget users; as most of us know this card struggled at high resolutions such as 1024x768 and higher colors, mainly because of the poor 64bit memory bus. Many users were pulled in by the sub $150 AUD price thinking they couldn't go wrong. Budget users have only really had the TNT2 M64 card to choose from, unless they wanted to opt for the more expensive TNT2 Ultra or GeForce 256. Since the advent of the GeForce2 GTS chipset by nVidia, users have seen a wicked price drop in the price of the TNT2 Ultra based cards, many have opted to go with the TNT2 Ultra instead of the GeForce 256 or GeForce2 GTS. That was until nVidia announced the GeForce2 MX chip back in July of this year. Users can now have the performance of a original nVidia GeForce 256 plus some with (some) features of the GeForce2 at much lower price. While the Visiontek GeForce2 MX isn't packed full of features like it's big brother GeForce2 GTS chipset, it certainly, for the price will make any budget user happy. For $108 USD from Universal Computer Distributing you can have your own Visiontek GeForce2 MX. Luckily many OEM manufactures have taken to the low cost, high performance GeForce2 MX chipset and have their own MX cards out, in this review we'll be focusing on Visiontek model in particular...
Specifications
- 0.18 micron manufacturing process
- approximately 4 watts active power consumption
- 175MHz core clock and 166MHz memory clock (overclocked)
- 2 pixels per clock cycle, 4 texels per clock cycle
- 350 Mpixels/s fill rate, 700 Mtexels/s fill rate
- 20 million triangles/sec
- 8-64MB frame buffer
- 128-bit Single Data Rate (SDR) or 64-bit Double Data Rate (DDR) memory
- Integrated Dual-Link TMDS transmitters
- NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR)
- High-Definition Video Processor (HDVP)
- AGP 4X with Fast Writes
- 32-bit color
- 32-bit Z/stencil buffer
- Cube environment mapping
- DirectX and S3 texture compression
- 350MHz RAMDAC
Features
TwinViewTM Architecture
- Doubles your desktop workspace using two space saving displays. You can extend one application across two displays or run separate applications on each screen.
Digital Vibrance ControlTM
- Provides crisp, bright visuals.
Second Generation Integrated Transform and Lighting (T&L) Engines
- Provides a more powerful and balanced PC platform by offloading graphics-intensive workload from the CPU.
Integrated Dual-Link TMDS Transmitters
- Connect two digital displays independently without additional cost.
NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR)
- Brings natural material properties to life with advanced per-pixel shading capabilities.
High-Definition Video Processor (HDVP)
- Turns your PC into a full-quality DVD player and HDTV receiver/player.
AGP 4X/2X, AGP Texturing, and Fast Writes Support
- Takes advantage of new methods of transferring information more efficiently, and allows content developers to use high-quality, 32-bit color textures and high-polygon-count scenes.
Microsoft® DirectX® and OpenGL® Optimizations and Support
- Delivers the best performance and guarantees compatibility with all current and future applications and games.
Unified Driver Architecture
- Guarantees forward and backward compatibility. Simplifies upgrading to a new NVIDIA product, because all NVIDIA products work with the same driver software.
TV-Out and Video Modules
- Gives end users the option of big-screen gaming, digital timeshifting VCR, and video editing applications.
Benchmarking
TEST SYSTEM SETUP
Processor - Pentium III 700MHz
RAM - 128mb Mushkin PC150
Motherboard - MSI BxMaster i440bx
Video Card - Visiontek GF2 MX, ASUS v7700 GF2, Leadtek GF2 & MSI GF256
Operating System - Microsoft Windows ME
Drivers - nVidia 6.18
Software - 3DMark2000, 3DMark2001
Results - 3DMark 2000
4428 3DMarks = *Visiontek GF2 MX*
5770 3DMarks = ASUS v7700 GF2
58693DMarks = Leadtek Winfast GF2
39483DMarks = MSI GF256
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 100.00
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Epinions.com ID:
DeceptionA
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Member: Aaron Mayberry
Location: Linden, MI
Reviews written: 38
Trusted by: 0 members
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