Friday, December 01, 2000

Introduction The Chaintech Desperado RIA2 is a mid-range graphics card based on the Nvidia GeForce MX chipset. It comes equipped with 32MB of SDR memory, and a low price-tag that makes it a reasonably performing solution at a low-price. The photo to the immediate side of these words, provides a nice view of the card itself. You can also find the technical specifications of the RIA2 at the bottom of this page.

Particularities of the GeForce 2 MX

The GeForce MX chipset used by the RIA2, is itself based on the Nvidia GeForce 2 GTS chipset, and is manufactured using the same 0.18 micron process. What sets the two apart, of course, is that the GeForce 2 MX comes equipped with two functional pipelines for rendering textures, whereas the GTS comes with a full complement of 4.

Another fundamental difference that separates the MX from the GTS is the difference in clock frequencies of their respective graphics cores. The GTS typically comes with its core clocked to 200MHz. The MX core, on the other hand, has had its core speed reduced to 175MHz.

The GeForce 2 MX's 700 megatexel/second fill-rate also puts it in a performance forum located mid-way between the slightly older GeForce 256 - with its 480 megatexel/second fill-rate, and the GeForce 2 GTS - which can pump out 1600 megatexels in the same time frame.

The MX is also limited by its use of SDR memory, whereas GTS cards come equipped with DDR memory that puts the MX's memory bus to shame. In effect the GeForce 2 MX comes with essentially the same memory bandwidth as the GeForce 256 SDR - 166MHz.

It also has to be mentioned that the MX's T&L engine incurs a slight performance hit as a result of the GPU's more modest 175MHz clock-speed. As a result, while the GTS is capable of handling upto 25 million triangles every second, the GeForce 2 MX maxs out at 20 million.

On the other hand, the GeForce 2 MX does benefit from a few other bits of technology, Namely Digital Vibrance Control - which provides an extra degree of clarity, and luminosity to images - and Twinview, which allows two separate monitors to be connected to the same card. The latter, of course, is only useful if the card itself comes with two monitor-out ports, which is not the case with the Desperado RIA2.

Next: The drivers

Technical specifications