MSI NX 6800 Ultra

MSI is one of the largest manufacturers of NVIDIA chipset based graphics cards. The latest MSI product we tested was the FX59590U which proved to be too pricy for its performance. This time we received another very expensive card from MSI, the NX 6800 Ultra. However, this card is built using the very successful 6800 Ultra core from NVIDIA, so we expect it to deliver solid performance thus justifying its price.

- Packaging - Bundle

MSI continues the tradition that sees them shipping their cards in huge fancy packages. The gladiatorial theme is once again featured on the box along with the various tags showing off the card's main features.

The most interesting thing about the NX 6800 Ultra, beyond its performance of course, is it's software. We're used to MSI's rich bundles included with their packages but never before in this quantity. Believe it or not, this card ships with a complete 14 CD set. You would expect the games to be of lesser value and not widely known but no, MSI surprisingly bundled "XIII", "Prince of Persia : The sands of time" and "URU : Ages beyond mist". All three are great games and loved by their target audience.

Software Bundle:
- XIII(4CDs)
- Prince of Persia : The sands of time(2CDs)
- URU : Ages beyond mist
- InterVideo WinDVD / Supreme foreign Language Learning Machine
- MSI 3D Desktop
- VirtualDrive / RestoreIT!
- Photoshop Album SE / 3D-Album
- MSI Media Center Deluxe II
- MSI Games Collection (14 game demos)
- MSI Multimedia (drivers & utilities)

A DVI-to-VGA adaptor and two molex power connectors conclude the set of accessories.

02 - A closer look

The MSI NX 6800Ultra uses the Nvidia 6800 Ultra core running at 400MHz. Of course, the number of pixel pipelines is 16, the highest available on the market right now.

As you can see above, there are 8 memory chips spread around the core. The memory chosen by MSI is the Samsung K4J55323QF-GC16, which is of course GDDR3 with a delay of only 1.6ns.

One of the Samsung K4J55323QF-GC16 memory parts.

The memory chips form a total of 256MB of memory that the card can take advantage of at the maximum speed through it's 256-bit interface. The memory clock is set to run at 600MHz making the effective speed 1.2GHz.

At the back side of the card there's nothing really interesting to see as all the card's parts have been moved to the front side to get better cooling.

Removing the fans and heat-sinks didn't take too long and we were soon at the heart of the card, the GPU:

The Geforce 6800U core in all its glory.

The NX 6800U features two DVI outputs and no direct output for VGA connectors. Instead, you'll have to use the bundled adaptor to plug in your VGA monitor.

The 6800U chipset is famous for being power hungry. You can see on the picture above that it requires 2 power connectors on it to work properly, but fortunately MSI provides you with extensions in case you have a limited number of power cables left on your power supply.

Test System - Page 03

3DMark05 - Page 04

With 3DMark05, Futuremark continues the tradition in its benchmarking software by providing a state-of-the-art Microsoft ® DirectX ® 9 3D performance benchmark.
3DMark05 is an all new 3DMark version, making the most out of Microsoft's DirectX 9. The previous version, 3DMark03, provided a nice testbench for this technology. However, 3DMark03 used DirectX 9 specific features in a limited manner, because fully supporting hardware was rare at the time of its launch. In contrast, 3DMark05 requires DirectX 9 hardware with full support for at least Shader Model 2, and takes shader usage to never before seen levels.
Just like its predecessors, 3DMark05's point system is set so that at the moment of release, the high-end VGA cards available on the market can only score around 5000 3DMarks, whereas the worst card that meets the program's requirements, yields a score of 1000.

Game Test 1 - Return to Proxycon

Being the sequel to the "Battle of Proxycon" from 3DMark03, in "Return to Proxycon" we're once again set in space and the battle continues as space pirates invade a cargo ship in order to take control of its valuable cargo.

This test, tries to simulate a futuristic first-person shooter game with all the high details that such a game entails. The dynamic shadows, highly detailed environment and advanced lighting techniques, ensure that under normal circumstances, no recent card can run it with decent frame rates.

The two 6800 cards are almost equal in performance and a lot of fps ahead of the X600XT.

Game Test 2 - Firefly Forest

A forest is filled with magic fireflies at night. The moon is nearly full, illuminating the forest with a bluish faint light. The magic fireflies have flickering, bright green lights that playfully move around the forest.

This scene is a nice example of a smaller scale outdoor scene with rich vegetation. Immediate visibility is only short range, and there is a skybox surrounding the whole scene.

A large number of trees with their branches swinging separately, and dense vegetation being dynamically distributed according to the camera movements, make this test the most demanding of the three.

The fps in this game test are relatively low but since the light source is moving slowly across the different scenes, you can't really tell the difference between 15 or 25 fps. The MSI NX 6800 Ultra is still on top regarding performance with the Gainward 6800GT threateningly close behind. Both cards outperformed the X600XT by a factor of 4 to 1.

Game Test 3 - Canyon Flight

A Jules Verne type airship flies through a canyon guarded by a dangerous sea monster. The airmen defend their ship using heavy cannons, but these seem to have no effect on the huge sea monster. Finally, the crew manages a narrow escape using the airship's "last resort" afterburners.

This scene is fairly complex with large areas of water reflecting the high canyon walls. The water is actually one of the key points of interest in this scene. The water not only does realistic looking reflections and refractions, it has a depth fog, making the sea monster swimming under the airship appear deep down in the water. The air in this scene also uses a volumetric fog, making distant cliffs in the canyon appear far away.

The Gainward card took the lead in this test from the MSI NX 6800Ultra by only 0.4 frames per second. This shows just how little difference there is between the two cards so far.

Final Score

 3DMarks on 3DMark05 are now calculated with the following formula:

(Game Test 1 * Game Test 2 * Game Test 3)^0.33 * 250

This is basically the geometric mean of the total frames in each game multiplied by 250, which means that all game tests are on an equal par.
Let’s see the result for the NX6800Ultra:

You can see that Gainward did a great job in tweaking the 6800GT core. Both cards performed extremely well but MSI's NX6800 Ultra managed to get a slightly higher final score.

This test also uses post-processing effects, such as Depth of Field and Bloom effects which are widely used in today's game cut scene sequences.

06 - Aquamark3 / 3DMark 2001

Since the majority of today's applications and games are compatible with DirectX 9, the need for benchmark applications that use DX 9 has been stepped up. This particular benchmark uses the 3D engine (Krass engine) from the Aquanox game.

Aquamark Triscore

The Aquamark Triscore comprises 3 values: the overall system performance, the performance of the graphics system and the CPU performance. Keep in mind that this is not the total result of the tests, but the result of the whole benchmark process including all 9 chapters.

3DMark 2001

3DMark 2001 is the predecessor to 3DMark03. It's mainly a directx 8.1 benchmark and the score depends a lot on the CPU power of your computer. However, for reference use only, we decided it would be best to just leave it in our benchmark list so you can compare the next generation cards with the possibly outdated one you have at home.

08 - Half life 2

Half life 2 is no doubt the most anticipated pc game of all times. Gamers keeping the excellence of Half Life 1 in their mind as well as the remarkable E3 demo preview, have been anxiously waiting for the much delayed release of HL2.

Regarding the storyline, the player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people he cares about are counting on him.

Characters - Advanced facial animation system delivers the most sophisticated in-game characters ever seen. With 40 distinct facial "muscles," human characters convey the full array of human emotion, and respond to the player with fluidity and intelligence.

Physics - From pebbles to water to 2-ton trucks respond as expected, as they obey the laws of mass, friction, gravity, and buoyancy.

Graphics - Source’s shader-based renderer, like the one used at Pixar to create movies such as Toy Story® and Monster's, Inc.®, creates the most beautiful and realistic environments ever seen in a video game.

AI - Neither friends nor enemies charge blindly into the fray. They can assess threats, navigate tricky terrain, and fashion weapons from whatever is at hand.

To measure performance we used the Video Stress Test(VST) that is available in the CounterStrike:Source beta available through Steam. We set all the details to the highest level and changed the resolutions from 800x600 to 1600x1200.

Half life 2 was supposed to be extremely GPU intensive, but looking at the results, excuse us for being somewhat skeptical. MSI's 122 frames per second at 1600x1200 is more than enough to enjoy this game.

Even enabling 4x Anti-Aliasing and 8x Anisotropic Filtering can't bring this card's performance down at all. As long as your CPU can handle the Source Engine that is working at the backend of Half Life 2, the MSI NX 6800 Ultra can ensure you have the highest framerate possible currently.

09 - Doom 3

A massive demonic invasion has overwhelmed the Union Aerospace Corporations? (UAC) Mars Research Facility leaving only chaos and horror in its wake. As one of the few survivors, you struggle with shock and fear as you fight your way to Hell and back, in an epic clash against pure evil.

Activision made it's miracle again with Doom 3 which is said to be the best-looking game ever, thanks to the brand-new OpenGL graphics engine used to generate its convincingly lifelike, densely atmospheric, and surprisingly expansive environments. If you are a fan of the previous Doom games then you will get many flashbacks with this revision, since you will find reimagined versions of almost every monster from both Doom and Doom II.

To measure performance on the game we used the timedemo demo1 command from the console (Alt+Ctrl+~).
Enabling the high quality setting and executing the timedemo demo1 command twice for each resolution, we witnessed the following:

First without the Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering settings enabled, we had the following results:

The NX6800U performed 1-2 frames per second better than the Gainward GT. The X600XT isn't worth mentioning. As you can see, it couldn't even run the game satisfactorily at the 800x600 resolution.

Unfortunately, the fps didn't stay above 60fps at all resolutions but if the top card from NVIDIA could not succeed at doing this, then there's probably no card around presently capable of such a feat.

11 - Medal of Honour Pacific Assault

Medal of Honor Pacific Assault puts you in the boots of a WWII soldier in the Pacific Theater of Operations. As Marine Private Tommy Conlin, you must survive the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor and then join the Allied crusade to defeat imperial Japan's bloody conquest of the Pacific. From the attack at Pearl Harbor to the pivotal battle against Japanese Forces at Tarawa Island, Medal of Honor Pacific Assault gives PC gamers a sense of the courage it took to endure and overcome the Japanese threat in WWII and fight for VICTORY in the Pacific.

To record performance of this game we used fraps and played around for a minute in the first stage of the demo.

In this game, the MSI NX 6800Ultra shows that overclocking is not enough to reach the MSI NX 6800Ultra's level. Even though the Gainward is designed with a great set of parts, the difference is obvious.

As we couldn't set any AntiAliasing at this point, we will just present the plain results until we get the full game version.

13 - Colin McRae 05

For all you racing fans out there, this test is for you and will represent the Racing game category in our benchmarks.

From the graphics point of view the first thing you'll notice in the game, is the excellent amount of detail on your racing car. High resolution textures on the car and lighting make it quite impressive. All the eye candy, such as the sun reflection in the virtual camera are still the same as the older CM versions but motion blur has been added when your car hits something hard which will happen most often if you're new to the racing simulation world.

To measure performance on the game, we used fraps to get the average fps of the whole 8th stage of UK which is actually the only stage you get to play on the demo.

The 131 fps rate seems to be our CPU limit using our top-notch AMD Athlon FX-55. The card can deliver more than that but the proccessor can't cope with it. The two 6800s seem about equal in power with perhaps a slender lead from MSI's NX6800 Ultra.

Running the game with 8x anisotropic filtering and 4x AntiAliasing, the difference immediately increases but descends as we move on to higher resolutions. Even so, both cards seem to have no trouble running the game under any setting.