Q1 2004 Vendor Graphics Card Roundup

MSI Cards

NVIDIA GPUs are what get strapped to MSI cards, and we have seen a lot of very nice-looking solutions from this camp. MSI has very good all-round offerings this time, and we hope that they will keep it up for the next round.

MSI GeForce FX 5950 Ultra

This GeForce FX 5950 solution is very intriguing. It fits in one slot (but please don't block the fan), and has a fan on the front as well as one on the back. For having two fans, we were very surprised that this card wasn't louder than it was. We were able to post some very good numbers with this card as well.

MSI GeForce FX 5600 (Japan only)

This is a passively cooled 5600 card for those who need silence from their cooling solution. MSI has mentioned that it's possible for passive cooling solution to end up on more cards than just this 5600 in Japan. If demand out there gets large enough, it is good to know that MSI is working on the issue.

MSI GeForce FX 5700 Ultra

This is a very good 5700 Ultra, posting consistently high scores while remaining very quiet. The memory and core clock speed were high as well. Overall, this is a very impressive 5700 Ultra card.

MSI GeForce FX 5700

For completeness, we wanted to include some 5700 non-ultra solutions. These cards didn't use DDR-II and were clocked much lower than their bigger brothers. We are able to get a better image of the bigger picture by including these cards.