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.
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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