NVIDIA GeForce2 MX > Reviews (23)

Geforce 2 MX - An Overview

The MX Range now come in several flavours:

-The Original MX
-The MX200 (Basically an original)
-The MX400
-Any of the above with a TV-Out

The MX 200cards can be found for as little as £25 on eBay and For Sale forums.

Now I bought my first Geforce 2 MX when they first came out, which was a long time ago in computer time. I paid £112 for it, and this was a lot for me back then. I was running an AMD k62-300 system at the time, and when I was upgrading from a combination of a standard PCI graphics card and a Voodoo 2. The results pleased me a lot, I was in awe of the amazing rendering capabilities of the card, and it boosted my system performance no end. Some features I liked a lot where:

-Hardware Transform and Lighting Processing

Transform and Lighting (T&L) was the first step for graphics cards being able to be classed as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). Untill this point graphics card were merely dumb buffers which would do minimal work, and simply display the image the processor was rendering. Now with T&L, the graphics card's processor could actually perform calculations relating to geometry, saving valuable CPU time. This transcribed to better performance, and better graphics, as developers could use this new efficiency to cram in more polygons, and more detailed textures. In a processor limited computer (AMD k62-300) this can make a big difference.

-32MB Memory

Although the memory was only SDR, 32MB is a lot for a graphics card to play with, even after allocating memory to the chosen resolution. I was lucky and got Hyundai memory, which I overclocked by 25% which increased performance too.

-Passive Cooling

Why do so many people see this as a con? Even if the heatsink gets warm or even hot, the GPU is fine (MX cards run very cool). If I can cut out fan noise by having a passive heatsink on my graphics card I will be happy, as my case has plenty of fans and I prefer working in quiet environment, so top marks to the MX for noise level.

Once home I downloaded some of the technology demos from Nvidia and was astounded, not only by the amazing architecture in 'Gothic Chapel' and the real time rippling water in 'Cave', but the fact that my low spec processor was running these at 20+ Frames Per Second (FPS) and usually more, resulting in a smooth image most of the time.
I then tried all the games I had installed, and instantly they were transformed. Firstly I could play in higher resolutions than before thanks to the extra memory, and I could play these games at a decent framerate too! And so for months I had trouble free, fast and detailed gaming.

Until... a freak power surge which stopped my computer displaying an image. But surprisingly the MX emerged unscathed, with the only victim being my AGP port.

And so, another motherboard, another MX. This time for about £40 which was very acceptable. I didn't even try overclocking this one, as with the upgraded processor (1.4Ghz) I didn't need to. Then ensued another long period of very happy gaming.

Cons:

You may find that in newer games and at high resolutions the memory bandwith lets the card down, especially if you enable anti aliasing. At 1024x768 you don't desparately need AA, so it's not a major flaw. For the price, you can't complain.

Summary:

This card is the best value for money by far. For £25 you can get a card which will perform amazingly in 640x480, and quite well in 1024x768 in most games. It has hardware T&L and most are silent which is a blessing in my book. Overall I give this product five stars for it's outstanding value, and performance, still hanging in there after all this time. I would say, if you can get it for about £30, and you run a basic card now, give it a go, you won't be disappointed!

I've had a lot of experience with these cards, so if you have any questions, feel free to post in my guestbook, or mail me at thenameyouknow@hotmail.com

Hope this review has helped you :-)