MSI Radeon X1900 XTX

Like ASUS, MSI is best known for their motherboards, but their video card lineup also has a prestigious pedigree. While silent, and near-silent graphics cards are becoming increasingly popular nowadays, it was MSI who practically perfected this back in 2002 with their T.O.P Tech line of GPU coolers. The T.O.P. Tech line was first established with NVIDIA’s GeForce4 GPU. Back then MSI combined a large copper heatsink with a nearly silent fan to produce their G4Ti 4200-VTD8X card. We were blown away by how effective MSI’s cooling unit was, not only were we seeing GPU temps that were lower than any GeForce4 Ti 4200 card we’d tested before, the card also ran practically silent.

MSI’s T.O.P. Tech technology really became useful though during the GeForce FX generation. As you no doubt know by now, with the GeForce FX generation, NVIDIA integrated dual-slot cooler for the first time on their reference boards. The GeForce FX 5800 Ultra in particular was known for being notoriously loud. MSI’s T.O.P. Tech-based GeForce FX boards however were some of the quietest cards on the market. MSI continued to tinker with the formula, even providing fan speed adjustment on some of their high-end GeForce 6 boards, while their Radeon X800 XL board was one of our favorites in our Radeon X800 XL roundup one year ago.

MSI's RX1900XTX card

Back of the MSI card

MSI’s Radeon X1900 XTX board, the RX1900XTX-VT2D512E is physically indistinguishable from the other X1900 XTX cards in this roundup. MSI’s using the same board-level components as the other ATI board partners, right down to the Samsung 1.1ns memory modules. VIVO support and two dual-link DVI connectors are also standard features on the MSI card. Other than the sticker on the card’s fan, the RX1900XTX-VT2D512E is identical to the other card manufacturers.

One area where MSI traditionally likes to differentiate themselves from other board manufacturers is with their game bundle. MSI’s NBOX in particular really upped the ante when it comes to game bundles, shipping with three brand new game titles (including Battlefield 1942, one of the most popular games online at the time) and an 800dpi optical USB mouse.

MSI’s NBOX really shook up the industry; up to that point many board manufacturers shipped their latest high-end cards with outdated games that really couldn’t take advantage of the hardware they came with. Later that year NVIDIA began pushing their board partners to bundle their GeForce FX 5900 XT cards with a copy of Call of Duty and the rest as they say is history: since then more card manufacturers have followed MSI’s lead, refreshing their software bundle with newer, better, games. MSI’s RX1900XTX-VT2D512E is a perfect example of this, as MSI ships their board with a copy of King Kong on DVD, just like ASUS. Technically MSI started shipping their boards with King Kong first, starting with their GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB card.

Software and accessories

Besides providing King Kong on DVD, MSI also bundles their RX1900XTX-VT2D512E board with software from CyberLink, including a copy of PowerCinema, Power2Go, and PowerProducer. Hardware accessories bundled with the card include a component video cable, S-Video cable, composite video cable, VIVO cable, 6-pin PCI-E power adapter, and two DVI adapters.