MSI RX800XT-VTD256E

MSI was the last of the top tier manufacturers to switch from being an exclusive NVIDIA board partner to supplying cards based on both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cores, making the switch at the beginning of the year, just before the GeForce 6800 and RADEON X800 were announced. Some speculated that MSI held out for so long because NVIDIA continued to sweeten the pot for MSI, offering them favorable pricing as long as they remained exclusive to NVIDIA GPUs.

Apparently the pot wasn’t sweet enough however; as MSI now has a complete lineup of RADEON graphics cards, and we’ve also heard that they’ve sold quite a few RADEON XPRESS 200 motherboards to OEMs looking for an inexpensive Athlon 64 offering with integrated graphics.

At the top of MSI’s PCI Express-based ATI lineup is the RX800XT-VTD256E, MSI doesn’t offer PCI Express compliant X800 PRO or X800 XT Platinum Edition cards for the North American market, but in other parts of the world you can get your MSI X800 XT card with or without video input, or upgrade to one of their X800 XT PE SKUs. The “V” in VTD256E indicates that our card comes with video input support, which is provided by ATI’s Rage Theater chip (the “E” denotes the card’s PCI Express interface).

MSI RX800XT card

Front of the MSI card

Back of the card

MSI followed ATI’s reference design for their RX800XT-VTD256E card to the letter. Our card shipped with the exact same copper cooler as the ATI board, and features the identical power circuitry. The sole addition we see on the RX800XT-VTD256E is the yellow video connector, which is used for analog video capture, but we’ve been told that newer ATI X800 XT PCI-E boards also ship with this feature included.

Based on all this, we wouldn’t be surprised if the MSI card came off the same line as ATI’s own X800 XT card, as ATI has been known to sell complete cards to its board partners (just as NVIDIA does with its board partners). MSI would then slap their sticker on the card, box it all up, and send it on its way. This helps MSI get their cards to market a little quicker, although it’s a bit disappointing as we don’t get a chance to see their T.O.P. Tech cooling in action on an ATI-based card. In the past we’ve found MSI’s T.O.P. Tech cards to be among the quietest cards in the world.

Like the other manufacturers, MSI uses 2.0ns GDDR3 memory modules from Samsung on their X800 XT card.

Software and accessories

MSI includes a very impressive bundle of software titles with the RX800XT-VTD256E. Included in the card’s massive box are a total of 14 discs, making it easily the most well equipped ATI-based card we’ve seen in recent memory. MSI provides full copies of shooters XIII, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and finally, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. These are all fairly recent titles -- even Uru and XIII were released late last year -- and have all received generally positive reviews.

In addition to those games, MSI also includes demo copies of Deus Ex: Invisible War, Beach Life, Commandos 3: Destination Berlin, Comanche 4, American Conquest, Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising, Black Hawk Down, the original Splinter Cell and IL-s2 Sturmovik, Etherlords 2, Divine Divinity, Heaven and Hell, Yager, and Praetorians. Software utilities are also included with the RX800XT-VTD256E card, MSI includes the full versions of Photoshop Album SE and 3D Album, Virtual Drive 7 and Restore It 3, MSI Media Center Deluxe, WinDVD 5.1, WinDVD Creator Plus, and finally, MSI 3D Desktop. You’ll also find an MSI case badge, component video cable, power adapter, VIVO cable, and DVI adapter in the RX800XT-VTD256E card’s packaging.