NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra (NV35) @ Xbit labs

***Zardon*** · May 12, 2003, 01:33 PM

Well there are a slew of reviews regarding the new Nvidia card, but most of the sites at time of writing appear to be down: such as hardocp, anandtech and tomshardware, so rather than giving people broken links, ill post the massive 27 page article that is up on XBITLABS at the minute, hopefully their server will remain up !

XBITLABS click here to read

Well, it is evident that NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra is not only a wonderful replacement for GeForce FX 5800 Ultra, but also the today’s most powerful gaming accelerator. The launch of NV35 helped NVIDIA to win back the title of the gaming 3D graphics leader, because the fastest solution from ATI - RADEON 9800 Pro – appeared slower than NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra in most tests.

The shift to 256bit memory bus and return to DDR SDRAM provided NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra with a number of important advantages over the unlucky predecessor. First, its high memory working frequency equal to 850MHz (425MHz DDR), GeForce FX 5900 Ultra can boast the today’s fastest memory bus with the peak bandwidth 70% higher than the bandwidth of GeForce FX 5800 Ultra memory bus: 25940MB/sec against 15258MB/sec. Together with the improved caching algorithms and enhanced frame buffer and Z-buffer compression, this fast memory bus doubles the performance of GeForce FX 5900 Ultra when FSAA is enabled compared with GeForce FX 5800 Ultra

MSX · May 12, 2003, 03:08 PM

Well, not wanting to badger their server much I browsed the article. It kind of sounds like they stole ATi's memory and bus ideas and slapped a slightly improved NV30 type chip in it. It’s a good tactic, but nothing extraordinary or revolutionary at all. In fact I fully expected it.

From the article it does the same thing all nvidia cards have done since the GTS. Scream on simple DX7 type games at lower resolutions, but when you start introducing higher DX and AF and AA it goes down hill.

Yes it is faster... And it is impressive how their AA performance has increased so much... However its AF is still lacking in speed. Some of the ATI shots are wrong. On page 11 at the bottom they display 2 different shots of bad 9800p AF. The only problem is the bottom one has nothing wrong with it and is not visually different from the 5900U.

Ok, so it’s a typo. I would guess above the graph... However, their overlooking the fact that the 9800 pro does not need to be run in performance mode. For the loss of a tiny few FPS you can run the card on quality 16x... Compared to the massive performance drop by the 5900 that occurs.

I wouldn’t doubt that nvidia has achieved king of the hill again by a narrow margin. Though I feel this article may be a little bias... and some tests were used inappropriately... Once again I'll see how it does when it actually hits store shelves.

nForcer · May 12, 2003, 03:12 PM

Yup - looks like no matter how hard they try - ATI can't top nVidia for long.

May 12, 2003, 01:33 PM	#1
*Zardon* enchanted Join Date: May 2002 Location: Driverheaven Posts: 32,283 Rep Power: 3150	NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra (NV35) @ Xbit labs Well there are a slew of reviews regarding the new Nvidia card, but most of the sites at time of writing appear to be down: such as hardocp, anandtech and tomshardware, so rather than giving people broken links, ill post the massive 27 page article that is up on XBITLABS at the minute, hopefully their server will remain up ! XBITLABS click here to read Well, it is evident that NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra is not only a wonderful replacement for GeForce FX 5800 Ultra, but also the today’s most powerful gaming accelerator. The launch of NV35 helped NVIDIA to win back the title of the gaming 3D graphics leader, because the fastest solution from ATI - RADEON 9800 Pro – appeared slower than NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra in most tests. The shift to 256bit memory bus and return to DDR SDRAM provided NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra with a number of important advantages over the unlucky predecessor. First, its high memory working frequency equal to 850MHz (425MHz DDR), GeForce FX 5900 Ultra can boast the today’s fastest memory bus with the peak bandwidth 70% higher than the bandwidth of GeForce FX 5800 Ultra memory bus: 25940MB/sec against 15258MB/sec. Together with the improved caching algorithms and enhanced frame buffer and Z-buffer compression, this fast memory bus doubles the performance of GeForce FX 5900 Ultra when FSAA is enabled compared with GeForce FX 5800 Ultra

May 12, 2003, 03:08 PM	#2
MSX Burning the frozen... Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 1,202 Rep Power: 0	Well, not wanting to badger their server much I browsed the article. It kind of sounds like they stole ATi's memory and bus ideas and slapped a slightly improved NV30 type chip in it. It’s a good tactic, but nothing extraordinary or revolutionary at all. In fact I fully expected it. From the article it does the same thing all nvidia cards have done since the GTS. Scream on simple DX7 type games at lower resolutions, but when you start introducing higher DX and AF and AA it goes down hill. Yes it is faster... And it is impressive how their AA performance has increased so much... However its AF is still lacking in speed. Some of the ATI shots are wrong. On page 11 at the bottom they display 2 different shots of bad 9800p AF. The only problem is the bottom one has nothing wrong with it and is not visually different from the 5900U. Ok, so it’s a typo. I would guess above the graph... However, their overlooking the fact that the 9800 pro does not need to be run in performance mode. For the loss of a tiny few FPS you can run the card on quality 16x... Compared to the massive performance drop by the 5900 that occurs. I wouldn’t doubt that nvidia has achieved king of the hill again by a narrow margin. Though I feel this article may be a little bias... and some tests were used inappropriately... Once again I'll see how it does when it actually hits store shelves.

May 12, 2003, 03:12 PM	#3
nForcer Twice the fun! Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1,404 Rep Power: 0	Yup - looks like no matter how hard they try - ATI can't top nVidia for long.