Final thoughts and initial rating
NVIDIA's MCP7A is a much-need shot-in-the-arm for its chipset business, especially with respect to Intel's volume-selling S775 processors. Essentially, NVIDIA wraps a discrete GeForce 8400 GS graphics card on to the chipset core and adds in some extra hardware assistance, VP3, for helping offload decode of high-definition content.
The feature-list is up-to-date and whilst 3D performance from a GeForce 9300-equipped MSI board is comfortably better than an Intel G45's X4500HD, it's no real substitute for, say, a £30 discrete card that can be plonked in the x16 PCIe slot of any modern board. A mitigating factor, we suppose, could be the extra oomph afforded by an Hybrid SLI setup, where discrete and IGP are teamed up for extra performance.
After evaluating basic performance we'll be pitting the MSI board up against some AMD competition in the form of its 780G and 790GX also-IGP-equipped chipsets, to see who has the best desktop IGP in the business, so stay tuned for that.
Delayed throughout 2008 but now shipping via a gaggle of partners, MCP7A will appeal to those who want a relatively low-cost Intel-based system that's primed towards multimedia usage. GeForce 9300 boards will cost around £65 and the faster-clocked GeForce 9400 in the region of £75 or so. You could, of course, buy an el-cheapo board and add in a bargain-basement discrete card yourself, serving the same purpose.
However, as decent as MCP7A looks on the desktop its real worth is in mobile (laptop) form, where a decent IGP can serve as an enabler of basic gaming and cutting-edge multimedia playback. As it so happens, Apple has announced that it will take the laptop variant, MCP79 (GeForce 9400M), and use it in MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops, beginning next month. MCP79 will be especially useful in thin-and-light notebooks that have limited room for discrete graphics cards.
Coming back to the MSI P7NGM Digital, tentatively priced at ~£75, we reckon it's a decent board with a sensible layout and feature-set. The hot-running chipset is a concern, inducing finger-burning temperatures, so we'd urge MSI to revisit the cooling issue.
Bottom line: MCP7A represents class-leading IGP performance on an Intel S775 platform, sure, but its main raison d'etre appears to be in mobile form, arriving sooner than you think.
The good
Comfortably better than Intel G45 (X4500HD) for 3D work.
Useful as a base for an Intel-oriented HTPC setup.
CUDA and PhysX make a little more sense now.
The not so good
Single-chip ASIC runs really hot.
Concerns around NVIDIA GPUs' longevity remain, especially after a catalogue of recent failures.
Late to market; should have been made available in May 2008.
HEXUS Rating
HEXUS scores products out of a possible 10. A score for an average-rated product, therefore, is a meaningful ‘5’, and not ‘9/10’, which is common practice for a great many other publications.
We consider any product score above '5' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.
NVIDIA GeForce 9300/9400 (MCP7A)
MSI P7NGM Digital
HEXUS Where2Buy
The MSI P7NGM Digital is currently available on pre-order for £85.19 at Novatech.co.uk. We expect pricing to drop by around £10 when availability is more widespread.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS.net, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any NVIDIA or MSI representatives choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
