Although most cases can handle most video cards, there are a number of cases or PCs that can't fit full sized AGP cards. In terms of OEM systems, a lot of those shipped are of the "slim PC" variety, and likely saddled with horrible onboard video. If you're lucky, you'll have an AGP slot, but the case will probably not allow such a card to fit. Though the MX440 is hardly something one would call a performance leader, it is better than most onboard solutions.
We've written quite a bit on the GeForce 4 MX here at VL, and more recently, David has reviewed the GF4 MX440-VTD8X, so I'm not going to go to deeply into the features of the MX, as I'm sure most of you are quite aware of them by now. Today, we'll be examining the , which is a mix between the older MSI GF4 MX440, and the newer MSI GF4 MX440-VTD8x.
MSI GF4 MX440-T8X
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One of the obvious changes from the previous GeForce 4 MX cards is the size. There are a number of small form factor PCs, notably those sold by MSI, that don't allow for a full sized card to fit. MSI addresses those concerns with the MX440-T8X by making it half the height of standard video cards. Although the card, by default, ships with a standard bracket, you can order smaller brackets from MSI to make the card fit in smaller cases. The card also features a TV-Out if you wish to hook this up to your television.
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The second change from the MX440-VTD8x is the use of passive cooling, instead of active cooling. The obvious benefit is the card will be noiseless, but the catch is overclocking will be limited by the lack of a fan. Changing the heatsink will be an easy affair though, as a couple of push fins hold the heatsink in place. MSI uses regular thermal paste, rather than an adhesive, and it's fairly easy to clean. This is a good thing, because in my opinion, they went a little to crazy with the thermal paste.
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The GeForce 4 MX series has been getting a bad rap since day one. Despite the "GeForce 4" in its name, unlike the rest of the GeForce 4 family, the GF4 MX lacks the nfiniteFX II Engine. What this means for the user is that all the fancy programmable pixel shaders, or the advanced DirectX 8 features, are not supported in hardware. The MX still has Transform and Lighting capabilities, and limited vertex shader support. I should add that the GPU is a MX440SE, which is a slower clock than the default MX440.
The Samsung memory used for the MX440-T8X is part number . It is the older TSOP packaging, and is rated for 200MHz (400MHz DDR).
Overclocking
Given the lack of active cooling, I wasn't expecting a whole lot of overclocking headroom. In anycase, I installed our good ole CoolBits hack and proceeded to testing. Depending on your driver version, nothing might happen when you install CoolBits. What you'll need to do is go into your registry, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak, and create a new dword value called CoolBits. Give this a value of 3, and you'll be all set.
For the MX440-T8X, the stock settings are 250 Core, and 400 Memory. With the memory I don't expect much headroom, but the GF4MX440 core's stock speed is 275 on other cards, so I'd figure I'd give it a shot. Luckily, 275MHz proved to be no problem.
We were able to max out our CoolBits settings of 315/500. The card ran very stable, and didn't exhibit any image quality issues at this speed. Not bad for something without any active cooling.
Test Setup
Epox 8RDA+ nForce2: Athlon XP 1700+ (11x139: 1529MHz), 2 x 256MB Crucial PC2700 Ram, MSI MX440-T8X, 120GB Western Digital SE 8MB Cache, Windows XP SP1, nForce 2 Unified Driver Package 2.0, Detonator 41.09.
We'll be pitting the MSI MX440-T8X against the MSI MX440VTD8x, as well as against itself, stock speed and overclocked.
The test software will be as follows:
Village Mark
Unreal Tournament 2003
Serious Sam: Second Encounter
Jedi Knight 2
Villagemark
We added the Villagemark benchmark simply to test one feature, Occlusion Culling, or hidden surface removal. This trick is a good idea because, why render something you cannot see? No point in slowing the game down needlessly.
1024x768, No AA
The benchmark was designed with the Kyro II in mind, but most modern video cards have some form of this optimization. The MX440-T8x lags behind its brother by quite a bit, but overclocking it helps power it past the MX440-VTD8x at 1024x768.
1024x768, 4 x AA
Same trends as we saw without antialiasing, but no amount of overclocking is going to help the MX440 get anything over 20fps.
Jedi Knight II
Looks like Q3, uses the same engine as Q3, but the graphics have been overhauled, and huge environments are the end result. This, of course, will strain your system more than Quake 3 did.
1024x768 & 1600x1200, No AA
The game engine is CPU dependant, so we don't see much happening at the lower resolutions. At 16x12, the gap is larger, with the MX440-T8x overclocked taking the lead.
1024x768, 4 x AA
Turning on AA, we see the framerates take a huge hit across the boards. Other than using slower memory than the Titaniums, the slower clock speeds, and the 64MB onboard contributes to the loss in speed.
Serious Sam: Second Encounter
The second installment in the Serious Sam series, the new version has even more eye candy. It isn't terribly video card straining, but does push them harder than the Quake 3 engine.
1024x768 and 1600x1200, No AA
Both the The MX440-T8x and the MX440-VTD8x do alright at 1024x768. The stock speed of the MX440-T8x slows it down of course, but overclocking it helps move it past its faster brother. 1600x1200 proves to be a strain on both cards, but the overclocked MX440 does surpass the 30fps mark.
1024x768, 4 x AA
The MX440 is brutalized when AA is turned on. Despite having "GeForce 4" in its name, don't count on any playable AA framerates.
Unreal Tournament 2003
A fairly good test of video card performance, UT2k3 has some great eye candy, but your video card better be something decent to play the game the way it was meant to be played.
1024x768, No AA
Even without AA on, the MX440 has a hard time staying in the thirty framerate zone. The stock MX440-T8x doesn't even reach that plateau.
1024x768, 4 x AA
At 15fps for the overclocked MX440, you may as well forget about playing with AA on.
Final Words
This is my first look at the MX440 personally, and as a enthusiast, I'll have to admit that the MX440 is probably not the card for you if high resolution gaming is your thing. I play quite a bit of Return to Castle Wolfenstein online, and even with an Athlon 2400+, there is no way I'd dare play the game at even 1024. I have to regularly knock myself down to 800x600, and on a 21" Trinitron, it doesn't make for the nicest picture.
On the otherhand, I do see where the MX440 can make a reasonable choice for some people. If your monitor is 15" (rare these days, unless if you're the owner of a smaller LCD), 800x600 is probably where you're stuck at. Owners of SFF slim PCs saddled with terrible onboard video could stand to benefit from the MSI MX440-T8x, since it's one of the few cards that will fit if you get the required bracket. Since there's no fan, people looking to build a quiet PC will appreciate the passive cooling this card uses.
It'd be a good choice for corporate types, where noise and price is an issue, but the lack of a secondary VGA or DVI output puts a damper on things.
Still, the card is better than most onboard solutions, which is what the MX440-T8x is geared towards, but in that case, MSI should package one half height bracket, along with the standard bracket, rather than having the consumer order one after.
Pros: Quiet (passive cooling), decent OC potential, decent performance at low resolutions. Cheap.
Cons: Not suited for high res gaming, and AA is not suggested. No nView with this model.
Bottom Line: The card is not expensive, ringing in at about , but as an enthusiast, it's not one I can fully recommend. The Ti4200 is only about 60$ more, and if that's too much, the Radeon 8500 or 9000 would be better choices.
