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 GeForce FX 5700 Ultra & 5950 Ultra Review

 By: Hilbert Hagedoorn | Edited by  | Published: October 23, 2003
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Conclusion
It's now Monday, three days before the release of this article and I just realized that what I'm about to write here will likely be the same on almost all other sites that have had the opportunity to test and review the new babies from NVIDIA.

Overall - When we look at both card we can say, in general, we really have two excellent product at hand. With DX7 and DX8 the products have a very strong edge over the competition, in fact they are both the best in it's price range. DX9 Shader performance however is an issue that will remain a problem. Will newer detonator drivers boost that performance even higher ? Will DirectX 9.1 make the big difference ? These questions remain unanswered until we factual can test it.

Set these things aside and we are looking at two really interesting products, good to excellent gaming performance, dual monitor candy, excellent movie/media playback and crystal clear 2D and 3D image display. There are three things in this sentence that hardly are mentioned.

Combined with the new detonator driver the new cards are a truly powerful package, the drivers, although easy to instalkl, are slowly getting too complicated to use for the average PC user though. So I suggest that NVIDIA should look into some sort of advanced users mode. Next to the new options we can also see a nice improvement f DX9 shader performance, as stated NVIDIA is not quite there yet, and I think it'll be up-to NV40 and higher to get that issue out of the way unless NVIDIA can pull a rabbit out a hat.

GeForce FX 5950 Ultra - I just used the word baby in the beginning of this conclusion, this word definitely is not right for this product in both a physical and mathematical way. The 5950 is a clone from the NV35, in fact I believe it's exactly the same core, yet based on higher and better yields. It's only a few frames faster compared to the 5900 Ultra so that's not rather impressive. No, more impressive it the new cooling design. This cooling technique I can back and recommend a full 100% It's innovative, silent. But in all fairness that's not why you buy this product right ?

Some other good news good news is that the product will be priced exactly the same as the 5900 Ultra. So it will either replace the 5900 Ultra or the 5900 Ultra will get cheaper. That's positive news. As a reviewer with a passion for the latest and greatest, performance was just not what I expected for a new flagship compared to the previous flagship, the 5900 Ultra.

GeForce FX 5700 Ultra - No, today's biggest surprise has to be the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. With this product NVIDIA has a very competitive edge in the mid-range market. It simply performans brilliant for a product in that price-range. Where the 5600 series in my eye lacked performance the 5700 Ultra makes it up for it. The product has the same feeling and positive energy surrounding it that I felt when I received NVIDIA's GeForce 4 Ti 4200.

So I'll keep it short and simple, the 5700 Ultra is the clear winner of this article. It will offer you excellent gaming performance for an affordable amount of money.

That being said, many thanks to NVIDIA for providing the samples. Should you have any further questions then please visit our forums where discussions will take place.

Hilbert

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