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When the GeForce FX 5800 first debuted, it received heavy criticism from gaming enthusiasts for not meeting their expectations, performance wise. No sooner had it been previewed by various sites than NVIDIA decided to discontinue the product, antcipating lukewarm acceptance by consumers and not wanting to back a product that was seen as subpar by the enthusiast community. The FX 5800 needless to say is gone from the marketplace but its key technologies continue to manifest itself in other NVIDIA creations like the FX 5600, 5200 and the new GeForce FX 5900.
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The FX5800, based on the NV30 chip with 125 million transistors and DDR2 only looked impressive on paper. In real-world tests, the FX5800 performed badly despite the technological superiority over ATI’s 9700 Pro (R300). A probable reason for its failure was problems with memory optimizations.
The FX5600 based on the NV31 chip uses the same key technologies from the already launched FX5800. However, the FX5600 will run DDR memory with a slower clock instead of DDR2 memory. The card is further throttled by a slower core speed as well as fewer pixel pipelines.
Today NVIDIA introduces the FX 5900, formerly known as the NV35 and rumoured to have been initially coined the FX 6000 series due to its technological advances and the confidence NVIDIA had of its ability to finally deliver the performance gamers had been expecting to see from the failed FX 5800.
The competition from ATI comes in the form of the Radeon 9800 Pro. At the time of the testing, ATI was unable to ship us a board to test against the FX5900. Despite that, the Radeon 9800 Pro has a proven track record in real-world benchmarks and has taken the Speed Crown from the Radeon 9700 Pro. Beating this chip is NVIDIA’s goal with the release of the FX5900 and to take back the Speed Crown.
Since the uneventful release of its predecessor, NVIDIA has made several changes
to the architecture of the FX 5900 series to help it attain its goals. The table
below outlines these key changes in bold.
| Next Generation Video Cards Specs/Features comparison | |||
| ATI RADEON 9800 PRO | NVIDIA GeFORCE FX 5800 (NV30) | NVIDIA GeFORCE FX 5900 (NV35) | |
| Chip Tecnonology | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Process | 0.15 Micron | 0.13 Micron | 0.13 Micron |
| Transistors | 110 Million | 125 Million | 130 Million |
| Memory Bus | 256-bit DDR | 128-bit DDR2 | 256-bit DDR |
| Memory Bandwidth | 21.8 GB/s | 16 GB/s | ~~27.2 GB/s |
| AGP Bus | 1x/2x/4x/8x | 1x/2x/4x/8x | 1x/2x/4x/8x |
| Memory | 128/256MB | 128/256MB | 128/256MB |
| GPU Clock | 380 MHz | ~~500 MHz | ~~450 MHz |
| Memory Clock | 340 MHz (680 DDR) | ~~500 MHz (1 GHz DDR2) | ~~425 MHz (850 DDR) |
| Textures per Texture Unit | 8 | 16 | 16 |
| Vertex Shader Version | 2.0 | 2.0+ | 2.0+ |
| Pixel Shader Version | 2.0 | 2.0+ | 2.0+ |
| DirectX Generation | 9.0 | 9.0+ | 9.0+ |
| FSAA Mode | MultiSampling | IntelliSample (mulitsampling) | IntelliSample HCT (multisampling) |
| Memory Optimizations | Hyper Z III+ | Z, texture and Colour Compression; crossbar memory architecture | Z, texture Colour Compression; UltraShadow; crossbar memory architecture |
| Display Outputs | 3 (2 plus TV-out) | 3 (2 plus TV-out) | 3 (2 plus TV-out) |
| Chip Internal RAMDACS | 2 x 400 MHz | 2 x 400 MHz | 2 x 400 MHz |
| Computational Precision | 96-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Special | TV Encoder On-Chip; FullStream;F-Buffer | TV Encoder On-Chip, DVC, VMR, CineFX,NView, NVKeystone, NVRotate | TV Encoder On-Chip, DVC, VMR, CineFX 2.0, NView,NVKeystone, NVRotate, |
| MSRP (Retail Price) | $399 USD | $300 USD | $499 USD for Ultra
(256MB) $399 USD for 128MB version |
You will note that the FX 5900 actually has reduced core and memory clock speeds compared to its predecessor. At first these lower clock speeds might concern you, perhaps signalling a failure on NVIDIA's part to get their chip clocked at the speeds the desired, but rest assured that the performance of the FX 5900 does not disappoint.
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Assuming the 5900 and the 9800 are close in performance, I think many people would prefer the form-factor of the 9800. In fact, depending upon the final dimensions, many systems may not even accomodate the 5900 without some compromise or sacrafice.
I would rewrite the conclusion and make the proclamation of victory a little more conditional. Otherwise it sounds like the article was written by an nVidia fanboy, and in doing so loses some credibility.
Check out HardOCP's Doom3 benchmarks for a real eye opener though, at one point the 5900 is 50% faster than the 9800PRO in those numbers. I think that drivers may be one cause for such a huge discrepancy, but certainly the 5900 looks very good right now in those tests. I wish WE could get Doom3 benchmarks... that would REALLY show what the cards are made of.
As for the form factor, I suspect the final boards will still be somewhere in the neighbourhood of the 4600 card in length... which is to say damned big for its class of performance - but in my experience the 4600 is not a problem to install for someone building their own system... maybe proprietary systems like a Dell or desktop model would pose some problems, but I hardly think that this is a deal breaker for someone seriously motivated - that motivation might well depend on how well the 5900, 9800PRO and ATI's Q3/Q4 R3XX cards perform in the final release of Doom 3 since the Doom 3 engine will likely spawn a whole generation of games in 2004 and onwards.
This message was edited by Redemption on May 12 2003.
D.R.
NVIDIA ADMITS CHEATING
Its all over the net how nvidia optimized its drivers to make the 3dmark benchmarks higher.
The fact is that the 5900 ultra is neck and neck with the 9800 pro.
But ATI will soon pull away as the r360 core will be released this summer and is said to be a leap up from the 5900 ultra.
Then qtr 4 ATI is releasing the r400 aka 9900 pro.
Navidia has lowered them selves to an all time low trying to rip off the consumers by cheating to make there card look better than it is.
who will pay 100.00 more fore a 5900 ultra that is eqaul to performance of a 9800 pro that is 100.00 cheaper.
also whats with the latest detonators and all these artifacts.
this site is a bs site also as it states the quality between the radeon and fx ultra are eaqual when in fact every other site that has reviewed the fx 5900 ultra has stated that there are a lot of atifacts at 800 x 600 and less resolution.
when the radeon is clear across the board.
also look at nvidia crappy tv out that is worse quality than a broken vcr.
I have bought 4 generations of geforce cards ,my last a ti 4600, but i can tell you my next card will be the 9800 pro.
how can we ever trust nvidia when they cheat to look good.
more here:
http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread.php?s=bc9fbad7443ba26f1d49fca174c468e2&postid=45821#post45821
PS. Artifacts show up in any card... we've see them in both Nvidia and ATI cards.
The FX5900 Ultra costs more because of the extra 100MB of video card ram. Also, it has a higher GPU clock, as well as a faster memory speed. Who would care about the size of the card? It must obviously mean that your case is either horribly cramped, or you need to lay off the MATX motherboards. I have a TI4600 at the moment, and it fits in my case fine. It doesn't interfere with my memory modules, or any other cables. And there isn't such a big disappointment about the extra power needed to the board of the card. The 9700 also needs additional power.
What really confuses me is the fact that people are feuding about the cards. It's good to have competition. More competition drives the companies harder to make better products, and lowers the prices. AMD has been keeping up with Intel for quite some time now, and CPU prices keep going down, and the speeds keep going up. Competition is good, but when people start getting obsessed to the point that they start picking favorites in cards. You don't have to side with a company, just the best graphics card. Right now, that belongs to the FX5900. I have been switching back and forth between the companies and their cards for many years now. Everytime a new card was released from another company, I would sell my old one, and buy the latest. I am still keeping my TI4600 for the time, because of the upcoming release of the FX5900. However, if I did have to pick favorites, I would pick nVidia, I have trusted them for many a years, and I know that they will continue to make powerful cards.
The only thing is the 9800 PRO is not working harder at Aniso Filtering........it's working harder at Antialiasing. I'm sure it's just a slip of the keyboard.
The FX5900 is working it's tail off at Aniso Filtering and it's doing it well with speed to spare!!
Keep up the good writing!!
Looking forward to NV40 this Christmas!!
I have a question then...
Who can see all of these great graphics when your monitor sucks? Instead of spending too much money on the latest video card, why don't you upgrade that dusty old computer monitor and play your games at high resolution so when you get the newest video card, it will look fantastic. Can your current monitor handle games at 1600x1200 or better at 100hz+? I bet your video card can already. This is one thing to consider before getting any new card.
And just because your res cant go high doesnt mean it wont look good. My games look fine at 1024x768 and if i want them better ill just put on AA
I'm not saying that you suck if you don't upgrade, I'm just saying that you should not only look inside your machine to make your games better, but look at what you play them with. (If anyone is curious as to what my monitor is, here is a link: P95f+, I got it cheap)
Anyway, is anyone planning on buying the 5900? I know that it is a very big step from the G4Ti's performance level. Nvidia has finally realized that 256 bit memory is a lot better than 128. I almost bought an ATI because Nvidia was having problems with the 5800 ultra overheating and people complaining about the loud fan noise and the benchmarks weren't that great sometimes. The new card also has the quieter fan and is almost like the G4Ti, but with more heatsinks.
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