Nvidia FX5950 Ultra Review - PAGE 3Howard Ha - Thursday, October 23rd, 2003
Fan noise
When we were briefed about the FX5950 in September, one thing that caught our eye was that Nvidia intended to include "silent" cooling solutions on their reference boards. Now sure enough, everyone's had their fun with the "dustbuster" moniker for the FX5800's super loud cooler. When pictures of the NV38 leaked out on the internet and we showed people the expected design of the FX5950, the first thing we'd be asked was "Is that going to be another dustbuster?!?"
Thankfully, the FX5950's fan design only LOOKS loud - it's actually whisper quiet, even under load. In fact, the cooler is rated at 34dB, and we found it to be quieter than both the 9800PRO and 9600PRO fans. One reason for the reduced noise appears to be a more modest airflow through the filter. The blower style impeller and the enclosed fan design has allowed Nvidia to both reduce the RPMs and increase cooling efficiency with a lower airflow.
Specs Comparison
A basic comparison of some of the specs is listed below. While the FX5950 is to be clocked at 475Mhz (950Mhz) the reference sample is equipped with memory rated at 500Mhz.
| Comparison of Next Generation Video Cards |
|
9800PRO 256MB (R350) |
9800XT
(R360) |
FX5900 Ultra (NV35) |
FX5950 Ultra (NV38) |
|
GPU |
0.15micron |
0.15micron |
0.13Micron |
0.13Micron |
|
GPU clock |
380Mhz |
412Mhz |
450Mhz |
475Mhz |
|
Memory Clock |
340Mhz (680Mhz DDR) |
365Mhz (730Mhz Mhz DDR) |
450Mhz (900Mhz DDR) |
475Mhz (950Mhz DDR) |
|
Memory Bus |
256-bit memory bus |
256-bit memory bus DDR/DDR2 |
256-bit DDR |
256-bit DDR |
|
Memory |
256MB |
256MB |
256MB |
256MB |
|
Memory Bandwidth |
? |
? |
27.2 GB/s |
30GB/sec |
|
Max FSAA |
6x |
6x |
4x |
4x |
|
MSRP at Launch |
$499
(Q1 2003) |
$499
(Sept 2003) |
$499
(May 2003) |
$499
(October 2003) |
|
Street Price (as of Oct 2003) | $360-460 | $489-539 | $379-450 | Not listed yet. |
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