Conclusion
As you where able to witness this GeForce 5600 Ultra was capable of handling current games sufficiently. Major upcoming titles however will run into problems with it and you'll likely need to switch down some quality options to be able to play it at an acceptable framerate. Example, I do not see you playing Half-Life 2 well with this product. I might be wrong though, future will tell. When we look at the direct competition (Radeon 9600 Pro) then the ball switches forth and back. Some tests are in favor of the Radeon most for Gainwards FX 5600 Ultra. I'd like to place a side note here though. Recent findings lead me to believe that the Radeon 9600 Pro will be a tad better in upcoming DirectX 9 titles as it seems that Pixel Shader 2.0 performance is in favor for the Radeon. Unfortunately there's only one game available right now to test that reasonably well, which is the latest Tomb Raider title. I refuse to make a final suggestion on this matter based upon one game though. In a few weeks we'll have new DirectX9 software which can test that precisely. AquaMark 3.0 is set to be released in week 3 or 4 of September 2003.

That being said, Gainwards GeForce FX 5600 Model Ultra/760 XP Golden Sample is definitely an interesting product. The inclusion of the FireWire controller is innovative, it has video in and out and the software to support it. Tweaking wise you will not gain much from this product as it already has reached it's maximum potential. Overclocking often differs per card though and perhaps you'll be able to squeeze a bit more out of it.