Entered CNET Catalog: 05/24/2003
SKU: CNETFX5900
Manufacturer: EVGA Corporation
Manufacturer description
The NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, 256MB is a GPU that will unleash stunning 3D worlds and the most life-like character animations ever seen in interactive entertainment. With a monstrous 256MB of video memory and the latest NVIDIA Technology, such as the UltraShadow, CineFX Engine, Intellisample Technology and High-Precision Graphics, the e-GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, 256MB will deliver lightning-fast, ultra-realistic visuals with no jagged edges at almost any resolution. The e-GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, 256MB includes VIVO capabilities for enthusiasts, who want do video capturing and editing.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 05/22/2003
The next great heavyweight bout is underway in the high-end systems for game enthusiasts, and we don't mean a cool, new boxing game. ATI and Nvidia have been waging a fierce battle for the right to say that it--and not the other--has the world's speediest GPU (graphics processing unit), and both have recently landed new punches.
Nvidia's latest contender is the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, the successor to its GeForce FX 5800 Ultra. When the 5800 Ultra finally hit the market, it was months late, contained a very noisy fan, and took up two slots on a system's backplane. And if that wasn't enough, its performance did not live up to expectations. Outcry from the gaming community did not fall on deaf ears, and Nvidia got a successor to the 5800 Ultra out the door as soon as possible. Although it's not as quiet as a church mouse, the 5900 Ultra's fan won't draw comparisons to a Dustbuster vacuum, either. The 5900 Ultra, however, is just as bulky as the 5800 Ultra, and it still takes up two slots.
With a few architectural changes to the GPU, it is no surprise that the 5900 Ultra is noticeably faster than the 5800 Ultra. The 5900 Ultra doubles the 5800 Ultra's memory interface from 128 bits to 256 bits, and the onboard memory jumps from 128MB to 256MB. The 5900 Ultra also adds a few new texture-compression technologies. Nvidia also had a few more months of driver development to further optimize the driver--always a big factor when it comes to boosting performance.
Nvidia sent us a reference-design version of the 5900 Ultra and beta drivers, which we pitted against the latest release from ATI, the Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB. Determining which of the two cards is fastest, however, is not as easy as one might think.
When we originally ran our 3DMark03 (Build 320) tests, the 5900 Ultra ran circles around the 9800 Pro 256MB. During testing, however, it came to light that some possibly unorthodox rendering techniques were being used by the 5900 Ultra's display drivers, which were artificially inflating its scores. The developer of 3DMark03, Futuremark, quickly released an updated version of the benchmark (Build 330), which defeated the known 3DMark03-specific optimizations built into the current Nvidia driver. With the updated version of 3DMark03, the 5900 Ultra's 3DMark03 scores dropped from 14 to 22 percent, depending on the resolution and the feature settings. At both 1,024x768 and 1,600x1,200 with no advanced features enabled, the 9800 Pro 256MB was noticeably faster. However, once antialiasing and anisotropic filtering were enabled, the performance of the two cards was almost identical.
Unfortunately, the discovery of Nvidia's 3DMark03-specific driver optimizations did not stop there. We soon discovered that the display driver that we tested with was performing additional optimizations when anisotropic filtering was enabled, potentially reducing image quality. Simply by renaming the 3DMark03 executable from "3DMark03.exe" to "3DMork03.exe," we were able to disable these optimizations. Our retests resulted in a reduction of the 5900 Ultra's anisotropic filtering performance by another 8 percent and furnished a slight performance advantage to the 9800 Pro 256MB.
In the Flyby-Antalus portion of our Unreal Tournament 2003 tests, the 5900 Ultra was consistently faster than the 9800 Pro 256MB. However, on the less-GPU-intensive Botmatch-Antalus portion of the test, the results were more mixed, with both cards taking the lead, depending on the individual test.
The tables turned somewhat in the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell tests, with the 9800 Pro 256MB besting the 5900 Ultra when we enabled the highest-quality settings--albeit never more than by 8 percent.
The bell has sounded, and we have the always unpopular split decision. In the end though, it's difficult to declare which card is the performance champ. Nvidia has at least caught up with ATI again in terms of superfast 3D graphics performance. However, if we learn of additional driver optimizations that further reduce the 5900 Ultra's performance when disabled, we might have to revisit our decision yet again.
Expect to see GeForce FX 5900 Ultra boards by the middle of June selling for $499 from numerous vendors, including Asus, BFG, Creative Labs, and PNY. There will also be a 128MB version available for $399.
Futuremark's 3DMark03 (Longer bars indicate better performance)
|
||||||||||||||||
|
Unreal Tournament 2003 test: Flyby-Antalus (in fps) (Longer bars indicate better performance)
|
||||||||||||
|
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell test (in fps) (Longer bars indicate better performance)
|
||||||||||||||||
|
Find out more about how we test graphics cards.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43
User Rating: 
8/10
Hasn't let me down yet!!
Pros: great framerates on all next gen games,half life 2 doom 3 etc,easy install,great support.
Cons: pricey when i bought mine. very big card.
User Rating: 
2/10
this is why NVidia's Major stock holder (SGI) is showcasing ATI's product and not thiers...
Pros: well supported by many applications.
Cons: horrible craftmanship, a product of marketing, not innovation.
User Rating: 
10/10
Better than at in all ways
Pros: The fx 5900 is a good deal very good if you know how to shop and pick one up for 350 for the ultra 256mb might be a bit noisy but who cares when you have surround 5.1 soundif you want really fast speeds turn off shadows it like increases the preformance b
Cons:
User Rating: 
9/10
The Solid & Reliable Card we are looking for
Pros: The FX5900 has a reliable and highest build quality, good product support especially through constant driver updates. Its raw processing power and memory bandwidth matches its pricetag, therefore it will have a long forward-looking usefulness for future
Cons: Expensive pricetag. Size may make it tricky to install in some motherboards, so check your motherboard first before purchasing. Its exceptional floating point precision (32bits) may be both a boon and a curse for this card, as it comes at a performance c
User Rating: 
7/10
Get the regular 5900 FX.
Pros: NVidea's card is much better than ATI's with my experience. I had ATI's 9700 Pro, with many problems. My 5900 is very fast, no Problems at all with compatability. If you are concidering an All-in-Wonder ATI product... DONT. Pick NVidea, and buy a 40 do
Cons: The reason why I'm not recommending this product is because of value. Dont buy the Ultra, and dont Buy ATI RADEON EITHER. Stick with a Regular 5900. You shouldn't even worry about buying this 500 dollar card. I got my 5900 (128meg) card from BFG Techno
User Rating: 7/10
Great Product Heres why
Pros: This product has great features, a lot less noise than 5800,awesome graphics compared to 9700 pro and 9800Pro in FPS. This card has better stability than the 9800 pro. More games work better with 5900 ultra when updated, so not the case with 9800 pro. I h
Cons: Takes up two slots, loud but louder by couple of decimals compared to 9800 pro. Expensive, but not when purchased on ebay. There were drivers optimized and when removed the score for 3dmark went down by 10 percent. Not the king when talking adding in pric
User Rating: 9/10
OWNS AS SIMPLE AS THAT
Pros: Extreamly versitile drivers and if you want to turn EVERYTHING on this is the card the ati is only faster with all the AA turned off the GFFX 5900 ultra owns the 9800 pro 256 with ease in high res with AA turn on
Cons: EXPENSIVE but get over it ur a gamming junkie if you smoked crack you would pay full price for that wouldnt you?
User Rating: 8/10
RELIABILITY
Pros: I have a 128mb non ultra FX5900 after giving up with the problems of the ATI 9700 Pro curse. Its better, its more stable and it doesnt take my time trying to tweak it to work rather than playing games.
Cons:
User Rating: 10/10
Better than Radeon 9800 Pro
Pros: Well, My brother has bought the ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 256MB ram and i being an Nvidia supporter bought Geforce FX 5900 Ulra for my pc. We benchmarked using 3DMark03 and saw that 10% increase in performance of Geforce. When at higher resolutions, the lead go
Cons: Hey no cons!! Except the price is quite high.
User Rating: 10/10
Futuremark drops cheat charge
Pros: "Futuremark now states that Nvidia's driver design is an application-specific optimization and not a cheat," said Futuremark in a statement. Ahaha! Now you ATI whiners can shut your traps! NVIDIA beat you hands down. Can you say PWNED?
Cons:
User Rating: 9/10
Nvidia vs. ATI
Pros: Will continue to be a back n' forth battle, these are only beta drivers now, the finals may have real performance gains without image loss as always, but whois a bit faster on that given month doesn't matter, price and value do, wait a bit and get the car
Cons:
User Rating: 9/10
BLOWS the Radeon 9800 PRO 256MB away! Period.
Pros: Works with everything I've thrown at it! I have to RETURN my Radeon 9800 PRO 256MB Card that didn't work with my ViewSonic DFP. ATI is NOT what they claim to be, and their "Tech Support" NEEDS support, and FAST. I'll never be nVidia traitor again, ever
Cons: Wish it were less expensive.
User Rating: 7/10
Why is ther a stuped war between NVidia and ATi
Pros: I am an NVidia FanBoy. But why dose one card have to be better than the other. Boath cards have there highs and lows, and boath companies have tweaked there dirvers to do better in tests. In some reviews Nvidia is shown in benchmarks to be better and in o
Cons:
User Rating: 8/10
Not quite the right price, but just wait.
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 9/10
"Cheating"?
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 7/10
Big and Bulky
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 8/10
Nice card, insane price
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 
6/10
Great card....How much did you say it was?
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 8/10
Better than 9800 Pro in almost every way
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 
5/10
they are now innocent of cheating
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 5/10
Still Doesn't Cut It
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 8/10
??????
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 10/10
nVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 10/10
the best out there
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 9/10
Are you people insane?
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 
3/10
I want a cinema version.
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 7/10
backwards?
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 7/10
Finally...the 5800 is finished!
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 
1/10
Worst video purchase I've made
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 
4/10
Anti-aliasing and AF quality are sub-par
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 8/10
Good Video Card!
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 9/10
Nvidia vs ATi Insight
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 9/10
This is it
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 9/10
128 meg version
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 9/10
The card for the future
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 4/10
Just total crap for the price
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 10/10
The best gfx card there is.
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 9/10
Excellent card, not a cheater either
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 6/10
GOOD overall card
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 6/10
Top of the line cards shouldn't cost more than $400, but...
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 5/10
How much????!!!!!!
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 8/10
NV35 price proves the NV34 value
Pros:
Cons:
User Rating: 10/10
nVIDIA GeForce FX 5900
Pros:
Cons:
