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LOSTCIRCUITS
SHORTCUTS:
Top page
specs
software bundle and features
performance
conclusion
 MSI MS-8809:   
Nickname: Phantom
(Review by MS)

Conclusion

With the MS 8809 arriving quite late on the market, MSI has certainly missed the call for a wide distribution of this GeForce-based AGP card. The software bundle hardly qualifies for a graphics adapter of this caliber, however, in view of the never ending updates of the nVidia reference drivers, lack of driver support can be excused. On the other hand, supplying utilities that don't work is a big no-no in the upgrade market and MSI would have been better off leaving the 3D!-TurboII utility completely out of the picture instead of adding it to the software bundle. For the end user, this can only cause confusion, particularly for the novice who thinks that software included with a given piece of hardware should run with it. The best example of how to handle this situation is ASUS with their V6600 / 6800.


In contrast, the hardware of the MS 8809 is about the finest one could possibly hope for. Sure, the MS 8809 Pantom is not equipped with DDR memory, neither does it feature the GeForce2 GPU. Does that matter? There are a few applications where it actually could make a difference, however, those applications are restricted to special editions and demos written specifically for the GeForce2 (GTS) or else game playing in 32 bit color mode which is the stronghold of DDR video cards. The differences in a real life situation, however are negligible and a large part of that can be attributed to the fact that the Phantom is, by no means, shy of overclocking of either the engine or the memory. Being able of pushing the Phantom to 160 / 200 MHz (core / memory) increases the peak fill rate from 480 M Pixels to 640 M Pixels which offers game play at even high resolutions without running into the fill rate limitation too soon. Further, the frame rates obtained at High Quality settings in Quake 3 Arena Test are more than respectable and, in fact, when overclocked, there is little difference between the SDR-based Phantom and other, DDR based GeForce cards.

Overclocking a video card, of course, only makes sense, if there is enough CPU power to push beyond the limitations of the graphics subsystem. Suffice it to say that the MSI Phantom is one of the most overclockable video cards we ever laid our hands on. Suffice it to further say that overclocking SDR can make up for the performance handicap compared to DDR, since, in most cases the latencies stay the same or are even worse in the case of DDR. All in all, the Phantom is one of the best video cards currently available, that is, if it can be found. Phantoms are hard to catch, now more than ever.

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