Mainstream Runners: 5 Allround Graphic Cards with nVIDIA's GeForce2 MX

Gainward Cardexpert GeForce2 MX TwinView

The card from Gainward Cardexpert is shipped with a short manual. Of course there is also a driver CD inside the box, containing drivers and utilities as well as Power DVD 2.55. As you can see on the picture, this chip is kept cool by a little fan.

As the GeForce2 MX does not require much cooling, Gainward decided to use a small fan with moderate rotation speed. That has a positive influence on the noise level of this cooling device.

A hardware analysis can be done very quickly: There is nothing, which would make this model technically superior to the others. 32 MB SDRAM memory and a TV output are ready for games, movies and presentations. You can attach a second monitor or analog flat panel using the second D-SUB15 output.

I was glad to see that the provided performance does exactly match our expectations. It is as fast or slow as the others. Again, the software has not been modified, so that using any NVIDIA reference drivers will be equivalent. Matrox shows that there is certainly room for improvement.

Gainward's software consists of a little utility called Expertool. Here you can configure your desktop according to your personal requirements and also activate an overclocking mode. I was surprised to see that the installation program already asks you if you want to use the default or the enhanced settings (which means overclocking).