Kyro II vs MX400

[proze]

hey peeps.

i'm currently running an mx400, but have the opportunity to buy a kyro II for a helluva cheap price tomorrow. would this be a worthwhile upgrade?

kyro II owners.. what are they like?

thanks,
proze;)

[Paul -The Mad Hatter]

oh yeah, the kyro2 is Much faster than the mx400. never used one myself...

[proze]

bumpity bump bump bump.

[Zuck Gou :)]

No experience but from what I read it kills the mx400

[CrazyDave]

I would jump on that if I were you...

btw... if you don't need the MX400 any more, please mail it to:... j/k go for the Kyro II though!

[Mr.Lansing]

I dunno where i saw this but Kyro II give out a better score in 3DMark2001
especially when u r running it @ low resolution
but i think it'z definetely betta than MX400, well the price says it all!

[-=UR=- Ranger]

Picture quality, 32 Bit, FSAA etc. are great on the Kyro, negative about it, it doesn´t overclock very well and 3D Mark 2001 scores are crap...
But I would buy it again, the Card is very nice!

[hmmm]

but kyro 2 doesnt have hardware T&L and many new games will need hardware T&L to run decently, like Unreal 2 (it will use main cpu for other things like ai)

[funnyperson1]

it doesnt matter, the kyro II will still whoop.....unless im mistaken the new games (unlike 3dmark) will not sabotage the performance...it should still be cool....

[hmmm]

well maybe, i mean most of the things i have heard of kyro 2 are very positive and for example for unreal tournament its very fast....but many new games are made with the Unreal Warfare engine (Unreal 2, Deus Ex 2, Thief 3) and the engine is made with the assumption that 3d card has _hardware_ T&L..so without hardware T&L performance might not be that good in those games...this is what developers of Unreal 2 say...but its still gonna take a long time before those games (or other games that are very dependent on hardware t&l for good performance) are released so it probably doesnt matter anyway

[proze]

well, i bought the card, installed it and benchmarked it. the results were summarily documented, and are here (http://www.icon.co.za/~prozesky/mxvskyro/mxvskyro.htm) for your viewing pleasure.

the ut results for the kyro are too low judging from other online reviews, but i'm still in the process of bios and driver upgrades. maybe that will help.

i've tested the card with the following games, and it runs great:

-operation flashpoint
-quake III arena
-unreal tournament
-nfs5 porsche challenge
-max payne - the lack of t&l didn't seem to hinder this at all, even at 1280*1024*32!!

overall, i'm really happy with the kyro II. it's something you can't explain with numbers, but the image quality of the kyro II in both 2d and 3d seems much better than the mx. much more clarity. things just look better!! i'd really recommend the kyro II to anyone looking for a budget vid card.