Nvidia GeForce2 MX
Manufactured by: Nvidia
Price: N/A
Reviewed by:
Date : Feburary 10th 2001

GeForce2 GTS, GeForce2 MX essentials

Ok let's get the nuts & bolts figured out before going any further.

The GeForce2 GTS could push out four pixels per clock and is able to process two textures per pixel pipeline for 8 texels per clock. The GeForce 2 MX only has a dual-pixel pipeline, but retains the GeForce2 GTS's ability to process two textures per clock.

This makes you think the MX should have half the pixel fill rate of the GeForce2 GTS, right? Wrong. The difference comes with each chip's different clock speed. The GeForce2 GTS has a 200MHz clock, which results in an 800 Mpixels/s fill rate (4 pixels per clock x 200MHz) and a 1.6 Gtexels/s fill rate (8 texels per clock x 200MHz).

Whereas the GeForce2 MX supports a 175MHz clock for fill rates of 350 Mpixels/s (2 pixels per clock x 175MHz) and 700 Mtexels/s (4 texels per clock x 175MHz).

The most appealing feature of the MX chip is the low wattage it requires. The chip uses only a meager 4 watts of power, allowing it to produce less overall heat and makes for less motherboard incompatibilities. Contrasting to practically every card on the market, the GeForce2 MX cards don't require active fan cooling, and some MX boards may even be shipped without heat sinks. Even the reference card we received lacks a heat sink. The lack of high-power requirements and its low heat emissions has made the chip very attractive for the mobile markets, although such features are desired on basic PC's as well.

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-- Change this menu to your selection -- Introduction Technology GeForce2 GTS, GeForce2 MX essentials The Board Twin View The Memory Quake III Arena Performance- Celeron 600 Benchmarks Cont'd Quake III Arena Performance- Pentium III 700 Benchmarks Cont'd MDK 2 Performance- Celeron 600 MDK 2 Performance- Pentium III 700 Conclusion