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Moving on to the extras, MSI goes overboard with the packaged software, including full versions of Ghost Recon, Morrowind, Manhattan Project, and WinDVD software. This is not what makes the FX5200-TDR128 interesting though; it's the multimedia features that make the package stand out.
The MSI Media Center remote offers additional functionality to your PC, though not so much to the FX5200 itself. With the remote, you can turn on various applications, such as DVD, TV (though you'll need a TV-Tuner), browse your picture collection, and listen to music.
For the remote to work, you'll need to install the included TV-Out cable with the remote IR. This TV-Out connection also serves as a Video-In adapter, and everything is gold plated which should result in cleaner sound and images.
Encompassing this whole Media Center experience is the MSI Media Center software itself. It works much like ATi's MMC, and acts like a portal to all of the remote's functionality.
Test Setup
Abit NF7-M nForce 2: Athlon XP 2500+, 2 x 256MB Corsair PC3200 TWINX Ram, MSI FX5200-TDR128, 120GB Western Digital SE 8MB Cache, Windows XP SP1, Detonator v43.45.
Test Software will be as follows:
3D Mark 2003
Code Creatures
Unreal Tournament 2003
Jedi Knight 2
SpecViewPerf7
Unless noted otherwise, all benchmarks were run at the "Application" mode in the video driver properties, which basically says it's the application that decides the image quality. In addition to this option, in the driver control panel, you also have "Balanced" and "Aggressive". Aggressive drops image quality by turning off trilinear filtering, which increases performance.
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