MSI NX6800 128MB Review

MSI's NX6800 video card is based on the 6800 chipset and with it the company is out to prove that you can get more for your money.

Summary

For those looking to upgrade their video card, the NX6800 should be at the top of your list. If money is no object and you would prefer the top-of-the-line 6800 Ultra video card, we recommend you still stay with the MSI brand. MSI has taken a regular video card and presented it in such a way that you feel like you are getting a complete gaming system. The NX6800 is a solid performing card for its price range, but when you add in the amount of software and the quality of the board itself, the NX6800 stands apart from the crowd.

 

If you have a Radeon 9800 PRO or XT then we do not recommend upgrading to the NX6800 or any other 6800 based video card. Your best performance gain will be seen when stepping up to the 6800 Ultra video cards or the ATI X800 line. However, if you have a 5700, Radeon 9600 or slower video card, then you should see a significant increase in your gaming performance when upgrading to the NX6800.

Introduction

 

It has been a few months since Nvidia announced their new 6800 series of graphics cards which includes the 6800, the 6800 GT and 6800 Ultra product lines. Each card offers the gamer a higher degree of performance for today’s graphics-intensive games. The 6800 product line competes directly with ATI’s new X800 series of graphics cards which targets the same gaming market. So in an industry where a reference board is often packaged and re-branded under a different company’s name, there are slim margins for the board manufacturers and often little to distinguish them in the mind of the consumer. MSI’s NX6800 video card is based on the 6800 chipset and with it, the company is out to prove that you can get more for your money. The NX6800 has an MSRP of $399 but can be found through our price comparison page for as low as $320.

 

 

MSI’s NX6800 comes with a large cooling system

Performance

 

Test System Specifications:

Compaq X Series Desktop: AMD Athlon™ 64 FX 53 Processor; MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard; Nforce3 250 Ultra Chipset; 1GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM; 148GB RAID 0 (2 x 74GB) WD Raptor SATA 10,000 RPM; 470 Watt Enermax power supply;

Feature and Design

 

As was mentioned in our introduction, there are three series of graphics cards in the Nvidia 6800 product line. MSI’s NX6800 video card is a regular 6800 based video card which bridges the gap between the GeForce 6800 GT and GeForce 5900/5950 video cards. Nvidia’s 6800 series of cards are based on their new NV40 graphics processing unit and features support for the latest DirectX API, DirectX 9.0c. What this means is that the 6800 series supports Pixel Shader and Vertex Shader 3.0. Because this appears to be the only difference between 9.0c and previous versions of DirectX 9, Microsoft has opted to keep this incremental update as version "c" rather than calling it DirectX 9.1 altogether. ATI’s new X800 series of graphics cards do not support this new version of DirectX. Is this that big of a deal? The answer is yes and no. A few months ago we probably would have said no, but with new updates for games like Far Cry, Battlefield Vietnam, Pain Killer, Serious Sam 2 and more which adds DirectX 9.0c capabilities, hardcore gamers may be looking for their video cards to support the new version.

 

Based on the NV40 architecture, the NX6800 bears a similar resemblance to the 6800 GT and Ultra series of cards, but is "crippled" so as to perform on par with its price. This means the NX6800 has a core clock speed of 325MHz compared to 350MHz for the GT version and 400MHZ for the Ultra version.  The pixel pipelines on the NX6800 are limited to 12 pipelines versus 16 for the two other versions. The graph below will show the differences between the three 6800 cards:

 

 

So while the NX6800 might not be the fastest card in the 6800 product line, MSI has gone to great lengths to make this card a solid value. The packaging that the NX6800 comes in gives you the feeling you are buying something important. The box is larger than normal and the look and overall presentation are top-notch. $400 dollars is a lot of money, especially in an industry that has a six-month product lifecycle. Slapping a reference board into a generic box and selling it for that much money just won’t fly with today’s demanding gamers.

 

MSI has used some colorful acrylic with fancy graphics to make the card look very high-end. On the card itself, MSI has gone with their traditional red PCB and has added a very stylish and high quality copper heat sink and cooling system. Fortunately the design of the NX6800 allows it to be in a single slot. The 6800 Ultra card featuring cooling hardware that is so large that is takes up two PCI slots in your computer