The Card

The GeForce2 MX cards were originally designed for those who wanted to have the general performance characteristics of a GeForce2 card, but didn't have the money to put out for it. The (then) high-speed GeForce2 cards were retailing at about US$300, and a lot of folks just couldn't afford that kind of upgrade. So there was born a new breed of chipset for your 3D gaming desires...the GeForce2 MX. It allowed for you to get the benefits of the GeForce2 technology, but limited the memory to a slower variety, which managed to keep the price of these cards down enough to sell to those who were on a budget. The MX400 chipset is the next evolution of the MX family. It still allows for the card to remain reasonably priced, but makes the overall performance a bit faster than the older chipsets.

As I hinted to in the intro, OCZ has a hard time leaving well enough alone (thank goodness), so they went out and hand-picked some MX400 based cards that were running the 5ns memory. They tossed on a Blue Orb (with a generous coating of a silver TIM), and then clocked it to stock speed settings of 200MHz core and 200MHz memory. For those who have kept up with the newer technologies, you'll recognize the fact that the 200MHz core frequency is the same that is set on today's GeForce3 cards!

This particular card is pretty standard fare as far as features go. It doesn't have the dual monitor support or a TV Tuner, but we're here for gaming, and the small stuff doesn't really matter anyway. What it DOES offer is a factory speed set at well above industry standards, and some well thought-out cooling for those all night fragfests. Features like these will go a long way for those who are looking for the most Bang for the Buck.

Another nice idea was the addition of a 3-pin to 4-pin converter for the fan. Though the cabling of the fan was easily long enough to reach one of my spare fan headers on the motherboard, not everyone has these spare connectors. This will allow you to just hook up to a standard Molex connector from the PSU if you don't have one, or if the reach is too long for some reason. And you WILL have to hook the fan up to your system in some way other than directly to the video card. Since the MX chipsets weren't designed to run this fast (or hot), there is no connection on the card itself.