Inno3D GeForce2 MX400
Jul 16th, 2001 | By Archive
Inno3D GeForce2 MX400
Date
: 07/16/01 – 11:50:30 AM
Author
:
Category
: Video Cards
Page 1 : Index
Manufacturer: InnoVISION
Price: around $90
Big thanks to InnoVISION for supplying us with their GF2 MX400 card!
Introduction
It have been some hectic weeks around here. We had some cooler reviews and quite a load of motherboard reviews for you the past couple of weeks, but now O thinks it’s time to look at a videocard that has managed to draw our attention, the GeForce2 MX400 made by Inno3D. For those who haven’t heard of Inno3D yet … Inno3D or in full ‘InnoVISION Multimedia’ is an internationally recognized manufacturer of PC-Multimedia products. (copied/pasted this sentence from the Inno3D website) Inno3D has produced some very fast & competing in the past, just think about their famous Tornado TNT(2) range. You will find out how good/bad InnoVISION handled the GeForce2 MX400 chipset by reading this review all the way to the end!
Although videocards based on the GeForce2 MX chipsets are sold as budget cards, I don’t think we should conclude that these cards cannot compete with higher end cards like GeForce2 GTS, Pro or Ultra up to a certain level. Trust me, you’ll see what I mean later on ;).
Which tests will we throw at this videocard? Well, we will give you quite a few benchmark results from the most popular and useful benchmark suites available to mankind these days. I’m talking about benches like Quake 3 Arena (demo001 and a torture demo), the almighty 3DMark2001 and VulpineGL.
What you should know and you probably already know, is that a GeForce2 MX video card can exist in 3 different flavors these days. We have the normal ‘older’ GF2 MX cards based on the, how can you guess, GeForce2 MX GPU from nVidia. But not so long ago nVidia decided to release two new versions of this GPU, the MX200 and MX400. If you’re eager to know what the difference is between these three GeForce2 MX GPUs, I strongly advise you to read on to the third page of this review. This is where I will explain the difference between the three nVidia brothers.
However, before we take a look at what this lovely videocard is worth in the benchmarks, I suggest we first see what this card is made off … On to the specs!!
Page 2 : Specifications
Specifications
3D Features
- Integrated Second-Generation Transform and Lighting
- Two independent pixel pipelines
- 4 texels per clock
- 700-Mtexels fill rate
- 20 Mtriangles/sec setup
- Hardware Anti-aliasing
- 32-bit Colors, with 32-bit Z/stencil buffer
- High Quality Texture Filtering, including Anisotropic
- Advanced per-pixel, perspective-correct texturing and shading
- Per-Pixel dot product 3 bump mapping
- Per-pixel lighting and shading
- Cube environment mapping
- Projector textures
- Multi-texture and multi-pass
- BRDF Support : Bi-Directional Reflectance Distribution Functions
- Textures modulation
- Light maps
- Reflection maps
- Procedural textures
- DX7 texture compression (DXTC, S3TC)
- Fog and Depth Cueing
- Radial or linear
- Per-vertex or per-pixel
2D Features
- High-performance 256-bit 2D acceleration
- Optimized for multiple color depths including 32, 24, 16, 15 and 8-bits per pixel
- True-color hardware cursor
- Multi-buffering (double, triple, quad buffering) smooth animation and video playback
Video Features
- High Definition Video Processor (HDVP) for full-screen, full-frame video playback of all HDTV and DVD and resolutions
- DVD and HDTV ready motion compensation for MPEG-2 decoding up to 1920x1080i ATSC format
- Independent hardware color controls for video overlay
- Hardware color space conversion (YUV 4:2:2 and 4:2:0)
- 5-tap horizontal by 3-tap vertical filtering
- 8:1 upscaling and downscaling
- Per-pixel color keying
- Multiple video windows with hardware color space conversion and filtering
- DVD sub-picture alpha blended composting
- Video acceleration for DirectShow, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and Indeo
Available MX200/400 models from Inno3D
GeForce2 MX400:
- AGP or PCI bus
- 64MB / 32MB SDR RAM (128 bit bus Interface)
- optional TwinView (Dual VGA)
- optional TV output
GeForce2 MX200:
- AGP bus
- 64MB / 32MB SDR RAM (64 bit bus Interface)
- optional TwinView (1 VGA + TV)
- optional TV output
Specs In Detail
As you might have already guessed by reading the name of this videocard, the card is based upon the fastest GeForce2 MX series GPU available, the MX400. But what does this 400 number mean? What’s the difference between the MX400 and the MX200? And last but not least, where did the original GeForce2 MX go? Well, I’ll try to give you an answer to these question in a very simple way. In fact there’s not much of a difference actually … hang on … you’ll see what I mean!
Do you remember the original GeForce2 MX specs? It featured a 175MHz core clock and a 128bit SDR or 64bit DDR memory data bus with the memory clocked at 166MHz. This resulted in a ‘poor’ memory bandwith of 2.7Gb/s and fill rates of 350 Mpixels/sec and 700 Mtexels/sec. I hope this short reminder has refreshed your memory. Now let’s compare the new MX flavors (MX200 and MX400) against these specs …
Let’s start with the MX200, the slowest and cheapest of the two new additions to the MX family. The MX200 has the exact same 175MHz core clock, 166MHz memory clock and fill rates as the original GF2 MX. The difference has to be found in the slower 64bit SDR memory data bus and the even more limited 1.35Gb/s memory bandwith. That’s half the memory bandwith of the original GeForce2 MX (and the MX400 as we will see in a few secs). So far we’ve seen no improvement of the new MXs over the original one … but then there’s the MX400 …
Yep, that’s right folks, the MX400, on which the Inno3D Tornado GF2 MX400 is based, has some improvements over the original MX. Here they are … First of all, the core clock has been increased from 175MHz to 200MHz. Secondly, the fill rates have been increased fromm 350 Mpixels/sec and 700 Mtexels/sec to 400 Mpixels/sec and 800 Mtexels/sec. Alright I agree, these changes are nothing to write home about, BUT you got to admit that they should increase overall performance of a videocard at least a little, don’t they? Don’t forget that the memory data bus and the memory bandwith remains unchanged compared to the original MX!
The Inno3D GF2 MX400 video card we’re discussing right now, comes with 32MB SDRAM running a 128bit memory bus. As you can verify on the picture, Inno3D chose to install 5ns EliteMT memory chips on this MX400 card. Word goes that these EliteMT memory chips don’t overclock as well as Hyundai for example. Is this true? We’ll find out in the overclocking part of this review!
What’s really nice about this card is the active cooling on top of the MX400 GPU. This should insure core stability because the temperature will be kept as low as possible. But will this active cooling enable us to cranck up the MX400 core clock to unseen heights? We will provide you with an answer to this question soon …
The GeForce2 MX400 supports nVidia’s Twinview architecture and TV-out features, but our sample didn’t come with either one of this two features onboard so I wasn’t capable of testing them :( InnoVISION has version of the GeForce2 MX400 card with this features if you really want them!
Enough blabbering about the specs, lets take a look at what’s inside the box.
Page 3 : In The Box
In The Box
What should you expect to find in the box when you buy the InnoVISION GF2 MX400 videocard and you open it up? Here’s a little list :
- Inno3D GeForce2 MX400 card (obviously!)
- Inno3D Mousepad
- User Manual
- MegaPack Bundle (Software/Drivers)
The videocard is packed in a box together with the manual and all the other stuff InnoVISION gives you as a bonus. I mean stuff like the mousepad and the MegaPack Bundle. The card could be packed better if you ask me. How? Well, some manufacturers already use these solid plasic housings instead of just cardboard boxes to pack their hardware and protect it against transportation and other extreme situations.
The layout of the card itself is pretty good as far the layout of a videocard can be good or bad. There are no free spaces on the PCB except for the space where optional features like the TV-out and goodies like that should come. The lack of open space on the PCB, which is a good thing, results in a pretty small videocard that will easily fit the smallest and messiest computer cases.
Don’t forget that this GeForce2 MX400 has active cooling on top of the core. Around the core, heatsink and fan, we can see the 4 EliteMT 5ns memory chips (8MB each).
Now about that MegaPack Bundle! This software bundle contains some interesting applications and games like :
- InterVideo WinDVD 2000 : WinDVD 2000 is a software DVD player which allows you to play your favorite DVD on your PC. Although WinDVD performs great and gave me no problems during DVD playback, I really prefer to use PowerDVD to play my DVDs on my PC. But that’s only a matter of opinion, isn’t it?
- Madonion 3DMark2000 Pro : 3DMark2000 is an older version of this popular benchmarking software. You can download the latest version of this suite via our download section!
- Adobe PhotoDeluxe Home Edition : This is a nice program to organize your favorite p0rnstar pictures and create your own fake nudes of Britney Spears! ;)
- Rage Rally and Midnight GT : Two cool but rather old racing games. Nice addition to the bundle though!
Page 4 : Overclocking
Overclocking
Now here’s my favorite part of a review, the overclocking! We applied the Coolbits registery patch to enable the overclocking tab in the nVidia detonator menu.
It’s always fun to see a piece of hardware bleed during our torturing adventure. After some really annoying crashes during our gaming and benchmarking, we managed to run the InnoVISION GeForce2 MX400 stable with a 220MHz core clock and 195MHz memory clock.
I’d also like to note that the active cooling on the GPU didn’t allow use to do some wild core overclocking here. Even without the fan turned on, the card was stable up to these speeds. BUT it’s always a good thing to be as cool as possible! :) Some will say the 195MHz memory speed is very bad considering the 5ns memory chips that are used on this card, and I can understand why! 5ns memory chips should be able to pass the 200MHz barrier with ease, but the memory on our card just wouldn’t for some odd reason. Even after aiming an additional case fan onto it, 195MHz was the best we could get from the memory chips.
Let’s check out what these few extra MHz can do to your framerate!
Page 5 : 3DMark2001
Benchmarking
Test system :
- AMD Athlon 1.4GHz
- Thermaltake Mini Copper Orb cooler
- EPoX 8K7A+ Mainboard
- 256MB Crucial PC2100 DDR RAM
- InnoVISION GeForce2 MX400
- nVidia Detonator driver 12.90 – Vertical Sync DISABLED
- Western Digital 45GB UDMA100 7200rpm hard drive
3DMark2001
Looking at these benchmark results, we can conclude only one thing and that is that this Inno3D MX400 performs just as we had expected. When the Geforce2 MX400 is overclocked, we can clearly see a significant increase in 3DMark performance, especially when running resolutions higher than 800×600.
32bit 3DMark benchmarking pretty much leads to the same conclusion we had after our 16bit 3DMark benchmarks. The MX400 actually performs pretty good compared to the much more expensive GeForce2 PRO and GeForce 3 videocards in our test. Remember that we’re dealing with a GF2 MX400 budget card here so don’t expect this card to outperform the GeForce2 PRO and certainly not the GeForce3 now guys.
Page 6 : Quake3 Arena
Quake 3 Arena v1.17 DEMO 001
Benchmarking with Quake 3 Arena has always been very popular. These demo001 results in both normal and high quality should give you a good image of the framerates you can expect during actual gameplay. This Inno3D MX400 should enable you to play Quake 3 Arena all the way up to a resolution of 1280×1024 and still have an acceptable framerate. Notice that the overclocked MX400 isn’t capable of performing any better than when it’s running at stock speed! It’s even slower than the stock MX400! Why is that? Well, to be honest … beats me!
Quake 3 Arena v1.17 TORTURE DEMO
Now here’s a new Quake 3 Arena benchmark we decided to add to our benchmark section, the torture demo. As the name implies, this demo should really stress any card to the max. That’s why framerates are lower on this benchmark than on the demo001 one. Not only on the Inno3D MX400, but also on the other cards in the test. Overclocking the card did help us achieve more frames per second on every resolution this time, but no real blasting performance gain over the Inno3D MX400 running at stock speed. I agree, you will get a couple FPS’s more but that’s it. I guess we should be happy that the overclocked MX400 is at least faster than the stock MX400 this time huh.
Page 7 : VulpineGL
Vulpine GL
We ran these VulpineGL benchmarks with the ‘Default OpenGL’ setting and not the ‘GF3 Optimized’ setting because this just isn’t a GeForce3-only review. Hey, it’s the Inno3D GF2 MX400 review, remember? This way we can compare GF2 MX400 results with these of a GeForce3. Although the Inno3D MX400 can’t keep up with the other cards in the test, it sure proves to be a sweet budget performer in this test, especially when we overclocked it a bit.
Page 8 : Conclusion
Good
- GeForce2 MX400 GPU
- Performs like a budget card should perform
- THE card for the occasional gamer
- Active cooling
- MegaPack Bundle
- Cheap
Bad
- No TV-out on our sample
- Not suited for high resolution gaming
- Should overclock better
Conclusion
Of all the GeForce2 MX cards we have ever managed to test, this InnoVISION Tornado GeForce2 MX400 surely was one of the fastest. It’s a solid performer with active cooling and based on the low budget GF2 MX400 GPU from nVidia. This makes the card a must for every occasional gamer who wants to upgrade his TNT2 or Voodoo Banshee. Too bad the MX400 lacks the ability to perform well at high resolution, but hey, what did you expect for a miserable $90? And don’t you think this 32MB card is much worse than a 64MB version, because you really don’t notice any difference in benchmarks and games! And hey … with its 5ns memory chips, this card ain’t a bad overclocker at all, although it should be able to run higher speeds. In short, the Tornado GF2 MX400 is a sweet videocard for a low budget gaming system.