The MSI MS-8809
Power 3D GeForce 256

Monday, May 15, 2000


Introduction

Micro-Star, like many other motherboard manufacturers of date, has jumped into a new ring of influence by presenting us with a graphics card equipped with the GeForce 256 processor. With its inexpensive price tag, the MS-8809 is aimed primarily at the budget market, where a good price/performance ratio is a primary motivator. Being gifted with S-Video out, the MS-8809 stands nearly identical to most other entry-level GeForce 256 cards on the market today.

The MS-8809 arrived on our doorstep equipped with 32MB of memory running at 166MHz, and a GPU clocked at 120MHz. The memory used by Micro-Star for their little bundle-of-joy is supplied by EliteMT, and is rated at 5.5ns.

   

The features

Little - other than its S-Video out - separates the MS-8809 from other cards based around the GeForce 256 GPU, due mostly to the fact that the MS-8809 stays very close to the reference design set by Nvidia. The EliteMT memory that comes with the card is rated to work at 5.5ns, and should normally obtain speeds of 181.8MHz through a careful bout of Overclocking.

Next: The features (continued...)

Technical Specifications

MS-8809
nVidia(TM)Ge-Force
  • General Features
    Optimized for Direct3D acceleration with complete support for DirectX 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0
    Unparalled 256-bit Single Chip GPU(Graphics Processing Unit)
    Video acceleration for DirectShowTM, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and Indeo(R)
    350MHz Palette-DAC
    128-bit Memory Interface.
    NTSC and PAL digital output port supporting external digital TV encoders.
    AGP 4x/2x interface with full sideband support.
    Support Ge-Force 32MB Frame Buffer.
    High Quality HDTV/Digital Flat Panel supported.
    Integrated Transform. Cliping, and lighting.
  • Award-Winning 3D/2D performance
    4 Pipeline 3D Graphics Engine.
    2D Graphics Acceleration.
    Fast 32-bit VGA/SVGA support.
    High performance implementation of Direct3D and OpenGL standards.
  • High quality video playback
    Full-Screen, full-frame DVD playback.
    Video acceleration for DirectShow, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and Indeo.
    Video DMA for Efficient VIP Host operations.
  • Full Software Support
    WindowsR 95 and 98 Display Drivers
    WindowsR 2000, WindowsR NT 4.0 Display Drivers
    OpenGL ICD for WindowsR 2000, WindowsR NT 4.0, and WindowsR 95 an 98
    Linux
  • Supports super high resolution graphics modes
    640x480            8/16/32 bit colors with 240Hz
    800x600            8/16/32 bit colors with 240Hz
    1024x768          8/16/32 bit colors with 200Hz
    1152x864          8/16/32 bit colors with 150Hz
    1280x1024        8/16/32 bit colors with 120Hz
    1600x1200        8/16/32 bit colors with 85Hz
    1920x1200        8/16/32 bit colors with 75Hz
    2048x1536        8/16 bit colors with 60Hz