:. Introduction .:

The Visiontek Geforce 4 440mx graphics card is a decent card when just focusing on the cost. It has dual VGA outputs so you can have a dual monitor set up and it come with 64 MB DDR memory. Although this card came out recently, the older Geforce 3 Ti 500 would probably be a better investment because it is faster than the GF 4 440mx. Also the price of the GF3 Ti 500 is just a bit more and if you can afford the GF 4 440mx then it would be wise to pay a little extra to get better performance.

:. Specifications .:

System Requirements:

• Windows 95 OSR 2+
• Pentium II 266MHz or AMD K6-2
• 64MB RAM
• CD-ROM
• 250W Power Supply
• AGP 2.0 Compliant Socket

:. What's inside the box .:

• Geforce 4 MX 440 Graphics Card
• Installation Instructions
• Installation CD w/drivers
• Demo CD
• Cyberlink PowerDVD 4.0 XP CD

:. Visiontek Geforce 4 440MX .:

This card has decent features for the price it is sold at and that is why I wanted to take a look at it. When I opened the box I discovered that the card has no fan on it and the heat sink is of really bad quality. The card actually has a design flaw because of this.

When I put the card in and installed some of the software, I tried it out on Grand Theft Auto 3 which requires a lot of graphics processing. Well the card did very well and the frame rates were really good even at high resolutions. One thing the card is not good at is keeping its cool.

If you don't have a case fan near an AGP slot, good luck in running any games. The card gets so hot that it locked up my system on numerous occasions. It's not only me either, lots of people complain about this. How can a company sell a product that's designed for gaming and yet the product screws up because it can't handle games! You can mod the card, just like any, and put a fan on the GPU yourself but still, I think the Visiontek should at least provide a consumer with a card that works.

This would cool the card very good:

- Thermaltake BlueOrb

However, this card is more suited towards non-gamers. People who like to edit pictures and video will find this card sufficient enough. Also, because it has dual VGA out, editing and overall functionality can increase significantly.

I installed the card and took my brothers 15" CRT and connected it to the card, along with my 15" LCD. WOW! I finally compared a CRT and LCD side by side. I must say an LCD looks sooooo much better than a CRT image. When the sun brightened my room, the CRT screen was pitch black. The image was totally distorted by the glare and the LCD image was clear as ever. The only thing I can say is that movies look better on a CRT still :-(.

Anyway, getting back to the card, I did some benchmark testing with MadOnion's 3D Mark 2001 SE and WaterMark. Take a look at the next page to see the results.