The Tech Zone MSI Starforce 816 Review

MSI Starforce 816 Review

Written: 10/25/2000
Written by: Tron®
Price: $139.00 (Low Price)
Supplied by: MSI

Nvidia's newest chipset, aimed squarely at the OEM and corporate desktop, not to mention the value gamer segment, is the Geforce2MX. MSI's Starforce 816 w/TV-Out is a 32meg AGP implementation of the Geforce2MX, and utilizes Nvidia's "Twinview" technology to enable simultaneous TV-Out. Not a bad deal for $139. But how does it perform, and what does the MX mean? Before we take a look, just want to thank Mina Hsu at MSI for providing us with the card!

MSI is a respected manufacturer of mainboards, but they also make video cards. MSI's Starforce 816 is their newest video card based on the Geforce2MX. Does 32megs, AGP4x, and "Twinview" with TV-Out sound good? Thought so.

Supports 32MB SDRAM

General Features
       -- Optimized for Direct3D acceleration with
          complete support for Microsoft(R)
       -- DirectTM X 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0
       -- 256-bit 2D and 3D graphics accelerator
       -- 350MHz RAMDAC
       -- 128-bit Memory Interface
       -- Twin-View Architecture
       -- Integrated Dual 135Mhz LVDS/TMDS
          Transmitter
       -- nVIDIA Shading Rasteriser
       -- 4 Texels per Clock
       -- Integrated second-generation transform and
          lighting engine

       -- 32-bit color with 32-bit Z/stencil
       -- Cube Environment mapping
       -- DirectTM X and S3TC texture compression
       -- 700 Mtexel fill rate
       -- 20Mtriangles/sec setup
       -- 2.8GB/second memory bandwidth
       -- AGP 4x fast writes
       -- Supports up to 4 display interface-CRT, TV and Digital Panel Interface

High quality video playback
       -- DVD and HDTV ready motion compensation for MPEG-2 decoding up to
          1920x1080i ATSC format
       -- Supports for VIP 2.0 interface

Full Software Support
      -- Windows(R) 95 / 98 and Windows(R) ME Display Drivers
      -- Windows(R) 2000 and NT 4.0 Display Drivers
      -- OpenGL ICD support for Windows(R) 95 / 98 / NT4.0 / 2000
      -- Linux

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        bit colors with     60Hz

Next page: What's included in the box?

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