Product Listing

MSI NX6600 Ares (GeForce 6600 DDR2 256MB, PCIe)

By Vincent Chang - 17 Mar 2006

D.O.T II

D.O.T II

MSI has updated its Dynamic Overclocking Tool (D.O.T) to a second and newer version. This consisted of the CoreCell 3D utility from MSI, which is a number of proprietary tools bundled into a common interface that allows convenient access to various settings dear to enthusiasts. Voltage, temperature, fan and clock speeds are the customizable variables that can be adjusted with relative ease through the utility. For those who are clueless about the optimal settings for their systems, MSI has also provided five new preset profiles, based on some typical usage patterns.

These new presets have been dubbed D.O.T Express for short. It is a logical extension of MSI's original D.O.T scheme, which was a relatively simple affair for overclocking where a few preset overclocked frequencies were applied, with each higher ranked (they were named after army ranks like corporal and sergeant) setting corresponding to higher clock speeds. The main advantage of the original D.O.T was that the use of the application was covered under the warranty so end-users could overclock their graphics cards within a safety net without undue worry.

Here's a snap of the CoreCell 3D Center operating using the "Regular" D.O.T Express profile.

The new D.O.T Express widens the scope of this scheme to include profiles catered to those who do not overclock but instead require the graphics card to work at a minimal level such that the noise level is lowered. Hence, the new profiles include a silent setting, where the graphics card fan actually stops spinning. The naming convention has also become more descriptive of the setting, with Extreme to indicate the highest amount of overclocking and Quiet to indicate a slow fan speed. Of course, most of the new profiles are mainly suitable for scenarios like leaving the system on overnight to download files and other such related non-intensive tasks. The more extreme settings for D.O.T Express include overclocking the clock speeds of the core and memory, and even voltage overclocking, which is quite unusual coming from a vendor approved application. The advantage of this is that you can be sure that the magnitude of voltage overclock is likely to be appropriate given the clock speeds, since MSI would have tested them thoroughly.

Over here, we've activated the "Extreme" profile and if you notice carefully, you'll see that the core and memory clocks have been ramped up by 10%. To supplement the overclock, the core and memory voltage too have increased. The downside is that the fan operates at full speed.

Activating the "Silent" profile greatly reduces stock clock speeds, voltages and even halts the operation of the fan altogether for total serenity (not that the default operation is any noisy in the first place). Still, it's a great profile to have for running light automated tasks for extended periods.

MSI Vivid
Another of the new applications included with the MSI NX6600 Ares is its Vivid utility, which basically is a set of display and color profiles that aim to simplify matters for end-users. Whether they are into gaming or photography, there are profiles to fit the respective uses and when enabled, the image is subtly altered to fit what MSI deems as the most suitable color and lighting/gamma options. There are probably some uses for this though the image differences may not be that obvious to the casual user.

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