MSI's Starforce 822 GeForce3 ViVo!


MSI's Starforce 822 GeForce3 ViVo! - Page 4

MSI's GeForce 3 Powered Starforce 822 ViVo
Not Just a GF3...It May Be "The" GeForce 3!

By, Marco Chiappetta
November 8, 2001

Now we have more Quake 3 testing, but this time we enabled anti-aliasing.  There is no reason to sacrifice image quality, with the performance levels this generation of video cards are capable of.

Quake 3 Arena
More at 32 Bit Color with AA

Even with 4X anti-aliasing enabled, with every graphic option turned up to their maximum, the MSI Starforce 822 and Visiontek GF3 performed excellently, with 60+ frames per second scores.  Personally I prefer using the Quincunx AA method...image quality is about the same, with slightly better performance.

VulpineGL OpenGL
More Goodness...

VulpineGL Mark is comprised of highly detailed indoor and outdoor environments.  We enabled the "GeForce 3" setting and ran through this benchmark in full screen mode.

VULPINE GLMARK:

We don't see a clear performance advantage for either card (which is to be expected), but they both handled VulpineGL Mark very well.  Let us move onto another OpenGL test...

Dronez OpenGL
32 Bit Color with Shaders

Next we have the Dronez benchmark.  Dronez is a "Next-Gen" OpenGL game that makes use of the advanced features available in the GeForce 3.  There is a ton of overdraw and the textures are of very high quality...

DRONEZ:

There was obviously not much of a performance difference between these two GeForce 3s.  Both cards performed very well, and had excellent image quality.  Even with a game as graphically rich as Dronez, playability is maintained all the way up to 1600x1200x32.

Our overall experience with the MSI Starforce 822 was superb.  This card comes with a very complete software bundle, excellent cooling, composite video in and out, TV out and is backed by one of the most well respected manufacturers in the business.  Our Starforce 822 was very overclockable, remained stable and performed very well throughout testing.  With the introduction of the GeForce 3 Ti500, prices on the original GeForce 3 have dropped off sharply.  The ViVo version of the MSI Starforce 822 can be found on-line for about $260 US.  This relatively low price, coupled with the performance and complete feature set of the Starforce 822 make it one of this reviewers favorite video cards.  We have no problem recommending the MSI Starforce 822 to anyone looking for a high-end video card.  If it shipped with some games that take advantage of the GeForce 3's features, the Starforce 822 would have received a perfect score, but in it's current state we give it a HotHardware Heat Meter rating of...

Are you talkin' ta me?  Didn't think so!  But get into the HotHardware Conference Room and say something anyway!

 

 

 

Tags:  MSI, GeForce, MS, E3, rf, force, AR

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