Over the past year Nvidia has been selling graphics boards priced at every conceivable level despite their ultra low-end graphics falling way behind the curve. For the first time ever, with the unleashing of the GeForce4 line of cards, Nvidia threw out a barrage of cards targeted at all segments of the market. As an update to their popular MX line of cards, Nvidia added the GeForce4 MX 420/440/460. While many feel that Nvidia screwed up the nomenclature for their MX line of cards as they are not truly Geforce4-based cards, they're basically pumped up versions of the GeForce2.

The card that gamers have been the most excited about is the GeForce4 Ti4200. With all the technological benefits of the GeForce4 Ti4400 and Ti4600, the Ti4200 is poised to be an ultra high end card without an ultra high end price tag. So they don't overshadow their Ti4400 and Ti4600 cards Nvidia delayed the released of the Ti4200 cards until early June. Arriving in 64MB and 128MB flavors and a price tag of $179 and $199 respectively the Ti4200 is the more mainstream and wallet friendly of the GeForce4 Ti line.

VisionTek MX440

The GeForce4 MX line of cards has created quite a bit of controversy as of late. Nvidia really screwed things up in naming their new value line of cards GeForce4s, as they most certainly are NOT GeForce4 cards; heck, they are not even Direct X 8.0 compliant. Without Direct X 8.0 compliance the GeForce4 MX line is not equipped with the much toted pixel and vertex shaders, which gives developers the ability to create much more realistic effects, such as the shimmering water in Morrowind, or incredible Nvidia tech demos which most of us have seen.

So what exactly does the GeForce4 MX 440 have to offer that the previous MX cards did not? Nvidia has increased the speed compared to the previous line considerably, and has also injected the GeForce4 MX with their new Accuview Antialiasing engine. Nvidia has also granted these cards the ability to use their new nView dual display system, and the memory bandwidth increasing Lightspeed Memory Architecture II.

The Card

The card VisionTek sent us was the GeForce4 MX440 which plants itself smack dab in the middle of the GeForce4 MX Line. The GeForce4 MX440 runs at a core frequency of 270MHz while the 420 is at 250MHz, and the MX460 at 300MHz. The memory on the MX440 and MX460 is DDR and runs at a frequency of 400MHz (200*2), the MX460 at 500MHz (250*2), while the SDR MX420 brings up the rear at a lowly 166MHz.