Creative Labs Geforce2 MX DDR

[Krinos]

Hi all,

Just a quick question about the Creative Labs Geforce 2 MX card, this card is listed as having DDR memory. Does anyone know if it uses a 128bit or 64 bit bus? 'cos if it uses the 128 bit bus, then the memory bottleneck would be somewhat relieved, and it would preform a lot closer to the GTS at high resolutions, but if it's just DDR RAM + 64 bit bus (eg. Matrox G450) then it won't have any effect other than to sucker people into buyin it because of the 'DDR' prominently displayed all over the box.

Anyone got the facts?

 

[novice]

I just bought a Creative Annihilator 2 MX, and while it is a 64 bit memory bus, it still works well. I haven't tried overclocking it yet, but I have read that the memory can be overclocked to 360 MHz quite easily which makes it competetive with the 128 bit cards. It was easily as fast as my old voodoo 3 3000, and the quality of the display in games was no match for the new Geforce 2 MX. I am well pleased with mine, especially since I got it at Bestbuy for $103 (20% off coupon, now expired, sorry). I have also just ordered an A-Open geforce 2 MX from mwave.com ($109 plus shipping) for another machine I am building. It will be interesting to compare the two side by side.
Chuck

 

[Krinos]

Damn, what a waste. I was hoping for 128bit, but oh well. Here in Australia we can't do have as many coupon tricks as you guys, and the Creative MX retails about the same as the other 'brand name' MXs, many of which come with TV out.

Does the card have a heatsink/fan? Also, what speed are the memory chips rated at?

Thanks for the info by the way...

 

[novice]

I am not sure what speed the ram chips are, but I would suspect they are probably 6ns. The default memory speed is 143 MHz, so maybe they are 7 but from what others have said regarding it's overclockability, I would think they are 6. And no it does't come with TV out or a fan or even a heatsink. I am planning to add both before I attempt any tinkering with the memory and or clock speed. The A-open version is the same basic setup. I can say the Creative runs quite stable at default settings without any additional cooling. I guess I do have a slot fan mounted right below mine, which may help some. I bought my Creative because I got a good deal on it and I could actually return it without a hassle if I had any problems with it. IF you are more interested in maximum Geforce 2 MX performance, the card to get is probably the Guillemot Prophet 2 MX. The retail version clocks its 5.5ns ram at 183 MHz at default, and ships with a heatsink installed. It is also $150USD at retail and the oem versions supposedly ship with 7ns ram instead of the 5.5.
That is about all I know from "up here". Glad I live in the USA, where components are cheap, but we still don't know who our President is supposed to be!
Chuck