Introduction

Few weeks back, we published a detailed performance review of the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra based on the highly clocked NV34 core variant. The basic GeForce FX 5200 is also utilizing this same core and has all the exact capabilities and features of the Ultra variant except for the lower memory and core clock speeds. The GeForce FX 5200 GPU is as basic as the FX-class graphics cards can get and it is the successor to the aging GeForce4 MX440-8x and MX460 graphics chips. Although the FX 5200 model numbering may indicate a big leap over its predecessors, don’t keep your hopes high as its basic architecture is not much of an ‘improvement’ over the GeForce4 MX. Furthermore, the clock speeds are identical to the old GeForce4 MX 440 based on the NV17 - 250MHz core clock with 400MHz DDR memory.

Specifications aside, let's take a look at a real GeForce FX 5200 graphics card from MSI before we pass our final verdict on this GPU. The GeForce FX 5200 may be an entry-level GPU, but all the extra accessories, games and software offered with the MSI FX5200-TDR128 may change your overall perception of the card. With the elaborate box design and its rear emphasizing the bundled goodies, MSI graphics cards are among the most attractive and outstanding in the retail store.

A gorgeous CGI warrior-babe greets the box front

The rear of the box.

The following are the list of bundled items with the MSI FX5200-TDR128:-

MSI FX5200-TDR128 128MB graphics card

MSI graphics card manual

MSI Media Center Remote Controller

TV-Out breakout box with Remote Transceiver

S-Video extension cable

DVI-I to DB-15 converter

10 CDs that encompasses 18 Utilities and 10 Games

Now that’s a lot of stuff for an entry-level graphics card. The detailed list of utilities and games are listed together with the Technical Specifications of the graphics card below:

MSI FX5200-TDR128 Specifications

Graphics Engine	NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 GPU High Precision 3D Rendering Engine 4 pixels per clock rendering engine Full 128-bit Precision Graphics Pipeline Native support for 128-bit / 64-bit floating point and 32-bit integer rendering modes CineFX Engine Support for DX 9.0 Pixel Shader 2.0+ Support for DX 9.0 Vertex Shader 2.0+ Very long pixel programs up to 1024 instructions Very long vertex programs with up to 256 static instructions and up to 65536 instructions executed before termination Subroutines in shader programs Dynamic flow control Procedural shading Z-correct bump-mapping Hardware-accelerated shadow effects with shadow buffers Two-sided stencil Keyframe animation Programmable matrix palette skinning Custom lens effects: fish eye, wide angle,fresnel effects, water refraction DirectX and S3TC texture compression Integrated NTSC/PAL TV encoder support resolutions up to 1024x768 with built-in Macrovision copy protection Integrated  TMDS transmitters (support of 1600x1200) and external HDTV encoders Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) DVD and HDTV-ready MPEG-2 decoding up to 1920x1080i resolutions High-performance 2D rendering engine Digital Vibrance Control 3.0 (DVC) nView Multi-display Technology Default clock speed: 250/400 MHz (core/DDR memory) 6.4GB/sec Memory Bandwidth AGP 8X including fast writes and sideband addressing Advanced thermal monitoring and thermal management Microsoft DirectX 9.0 optimizations and support OpenGL 1.4 optimizations and support
Graphics Memory	128MB DDR SDRAM of 200MHz clock rate (effective speed of 400MHz DDR)
RAMDAC	Dual 350MHz RAMDACs that support resolutions of 2048x1536@75Hz
Connectors	1x analog RGB connector 1x mini-DIN connector (for TV-output & IR-receiver) 1x DVI-I connector (for Digital Flat Panel displays)
Drivers	Driver support for Microsoft Windows 95/98/98SE/Me/NT 4.0/2000/XP, Linux IA32 / IA64 / AMD64 and FreeBSD NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) Fully compliant professional OpenGL 1.4 API with NVIDIA extensions Complete DirectX support including 9.0 and lower
Software / Games	FarStone VirtualDrive & RestoreIT! InterVideo WinDVD 5.1 Channel & Supreme Foreign Language Learning Machine Trend Micro PC-cillin 2002 ThinSoft Be Twin Media Ring Dialer E-Color 3Deep MSI Utilities (LockBox,  GoodMEM, SecureDoc, 3D Turbo, Live Update) MSI 3D Desktop MSI Media Center Deluxe II Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon The Elder Scrolls III : Morrowind (2 discs) Duke Nukem Manhattan Project 7-in-1 Games Collections : The Sum of All Fears, Beam Breakers, IL-2 Sturmovik, Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, Rally Trophy, Beam Breakers, Zax: The Alien Hunter, Oni
Other Information	AGP 2.0/3.0 slot required 1 PCI-assigned IRQ Required MSI Media Center Remote Controller included MSI T.O.P. Tech II MSI Twin-BIOS