SUMMARY: Today nVidia announced the latest addition to their budget graphics chipset line, the GeForce4 MX440-8X with full AGP 8x support and other improvements to help speed boast the GPU. Asher "Acid" Moses checks out Prolink's GeForce4 MX440-8X graphics card and tells us what type of performance the extra bandwidth given by the AGP8x bus provides for gamers.
The first difference between the GeForce4 MX4408X chipset and the original MX440 is quite obvious when looking at each of their names - AGP 8X support. AGP 8X can theoretically provide double the bandwidth of AGP 4X and as games are now requiring more and more data to be transferred down the AGP bus, this could prove to be very useful as games advance.
Secondly the MX4408X runs at a core/memory clock speed of 280/520MHz, compared to the original MX440 that runs at 275MHz/400MHz. While the core clock has only been raised by 5MHz, the extra 120MHZ on the memory clock should significantly improve the card's performance.
Finally, almost all previous MX440-based cards featured a mere 64MB of memory, while the MX4408X features a whopping 128MB. That said, in many current games the extra video memory is an overkill. However, as games continue to advance, this is certainly starting to change.
So basically, the MX4408X chipset can be considered as a regular MX440 with increased clock speed and video memory, as well as AGP 8X support. Unfortunately, the chipset is still crippled by its lack of full DirectX 8.1 support. We'll see how this affects its performance a little later on in the review.
- AGP 8X Compatibility
There have been many reports that some current AGP8X motherboards do not allow stable operation with AGP 8X graphics cards. As you can see from the below image, we had no trouble running the MX440-8X at AGP 8X on our SiS648-based Abit SR7-8X motherboard which we reviewed recently.
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