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MSI GF4mx440

This review was kindly made possible by :

June 25-2002

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Chipset Features
256-bit 3D and 2D graphics accelerator
Integrated second-generation Transform
   and Lighting engines
34 million triangles per second setup engine
   with Z-cull and Z-clear
1.1 billion texels per second and 540 million
   pixel per second fill rate
NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer with 24 of 26 DX8
   pixel shading functions and full set of
   OpenGL 1.3 pixel combiner operations
32-bit color with 32-bit z/stencil
Cube environment mapping
DirectX® and S3TC® texture compression
Digital Vibrance Control
Enhanced TwinView dual-display architecture
   supporting any combination of notebook LCD,
   desktop VGA monitor, DVI display or TV set
Dual CRTC/Simultaneous Dual Display
   (same or different surfaces)
Integrated dual LVDS Transmitter
   supporting LCD panels up to 2048x1536
Integrated 350 MHz Palette-DAC
   for analog VGA monitors up to 2048x1536

Integrated NTSC/PAL TV encoder
   supporting resolutions up to 1024x768
Integrated TMDS transmitter for Digital Visual
   Interface support with scaling and filtering
   for flat panels up to 1600x1200

DVD- and HDTV-ready MPEG-2 decoding
   up to 1920x1080i ATSC format
MPEG-2 hardware decode, including Inverse
   Discrete Cosine Transform and Motion
   Compensatio

Compatibility
Supports VIP1.1 interface
Supports Microsoft® DirectX® 8.0, 7.0, 6.0,
   and 5.0 (IDCT)

Fully compliant support for OpenGL 1.2
   for all Windows operating systems and Linux®

Up to 6.4 GB/second memory bandwidth
Supports 128-bit DDR, 64-bit DDR,
   and 32-bit DDR SDRAM

Support Memory
   64MB DDR SDRAM

Supports super high resolution graphics
   modes


   640x480      8/16/32   bit colors with   150Hz
   800x600      8/16/32   bit colors with   150Hz
   1024x768    8/16/32   bit colors with   120Hz
   1152x864    8/16/32   bit colors with   120Hz
   1280x1024  8/16/32   bit colors with   100Hz
   1600x1200  8/16/32   bit colors with     85Hz
   1920x1200  8/16/32   bit colors with     75Hz
   2048x1536  8/16/32   bit colors with     60Hz

 

First Look:

The card is certainly striking to look at with the Red pcb board and Gold cooler , installing the card was no problem , but , and its a big but , this card seems to have some conflicts with the Epox 8K3A MB , and if you already have this combo  , then here is the driver combination that worked best for me , Nvidia 28.32 drivers , VIA 4in1 4.38 drivers and Direct X 8 .

Benchmarking :   EPOX 8K3A / XP1600 = 10.5 X 166 / MAXTOR ATA133 7200RPM / SAMSUNG PC2700 256MB / C-MEDIA SOUND / NVIDIA 28.32 DRIVERS / VIA 4.38 / DIRECT X 8 / WIN98SE 

Using 3Dmark2001 to benchmark this card , at default best performance settings , the card returned a 3Dmark2001 score of  5694 3Dmarks . Next I tried 2x Antialiasing to see what sort of performance hit this card would take , returning a 3Dmark2001 score of   2281 3Dmarks , which is over a 50% performance loss , if you decide to use this feature .

Overclocking :

Now we get to find out just how much extra performance can be squeezed out of this card , with the Core at 270mhz and the Ram at 400mhz for factory settings , Im going to start at :

Core 300mhz  Mem 440mhz = 6445 3Dmarks

Core 310mhz   Mem 460mhz = 6578 3Dmarks

Core 320mhz   Mem 480mhz = 6722 3Dmarks

Well those overclocking results are not to bad at all , overclocking the card has given us over 1000 3Dmarks in return , from 5694 to 6722 3Dmarks , a very good result in deed .

Conclusion :

This card comes boxed with more goodies than you can shake a stick at , the unfortunate thing is that Epox 8K3A owners should avoid this card , updating from the Via 4in1 4.38 drivers to the latest 4.40 drivers , I was unable to get the MSI GF4mx440 card to run properly at all , putting back my GF2ti / no problems what so ever . Also when trying out Direct X 8.1 the benchmarks at stock settings dropped to 4966 3Dmarks ( done prior to installing Via 4.40 drivers ) a serious loss in performance I must say , in fact my GF2ti out benchmarked this card with Direct X 8.1 installed giving 5055 3Dmarks and with the new Via 4.40 drivers installed the GF2ti score increased to 5200 3Dmarks  . Well shit happens , and in all fairness this card ran just fine on a Jetway 1402 P4 Motherboard I was testing , with a 1.7GHZ P4 cpu the benchmarks were around 5077 3Dmarks , and ran as stable as could be . Every now and then you will find components that dont work to well together , this is such a time , and its no ones fault , and I have given the configuration of drivers I used that gave no problems for me , so If your not a 8K3A owner and you are looking for a GF4mx440 , then the MSI card deserves your attention  .