GeForceFX 5900XT PC - 8X AGP XFX $199.99 Click Here Sean Gibson - email

Introduction

You're a die hard gamer, you're seeing the release of some games that require some incredible graphics cards - games like Far Cry, Unreal 2, and the upcoming game Half-Life 2. You're not made of money and start to think - why can't I afford to be playing these games on the nVidia card of choice? For many gamers the questioning then leads to a sad form of gamer-depression for which there can be no cure.

Fortunately XFX - the company that has been releasing quality nVidia cards for years now - has just the solution for the gamer who has $200 to spend and wants absolute maximum video performance value from their card ... the GeForceFX 5900XT 8X AGP card featuring 128MB of on board RAM.

Specifications & Features

Specifications

• CineFX Engine
  Powers cinematic effects beyond imagination. With advanced vertex and pixel shader capabilities, stunning and complex special effects are possible. In addition, increased horsepower delivers faster and smoother gameplay. The 2nd-generation CineFX 2.0 engine powers more advanced pixel shaders.
• Intellisample Technology
  The industry’s fastest and highest quality antialiasing delivers ultra-realistic visuals, with no jagged edges, at lightning-fast speeds. The 2nd-generation Intellisample HCT, extends performance and quality gains to higher resolutions and antialiasing levels.
• High-Precision Graphics
  By combining the incredible dynamic range of today's state-of-the-art 3D motion pictures with 128-bit studio-precision color, the GeForce FX GPUs bring you the industry’s best image quality for the most demanding applications.
• UltraShadow Technology
  Advanced technology designed to enhance the performance of bleeding-edge games that use complex shadows.
• nView Multi-display Technology
  The nView hardware and software technology combination delivers maximum flexibility for multi-display options, and provides unprecedented end-user control of the desktop experience. NVIDIA GPUs are enabled to support multi-displays, but graphics cards vary. Please varify multi-display support in the graphics card before purchasing.
• AGP 8X
  Provides double the bandwidth of AGP 4X—2.1GB/sec. vs. 1.1GB/sec. AGP 8X enables more complex models and detailed textures, creating richer and more lifelike environments. Uninterrupted data flow allows for smoother video streaming and faster, more seamless gameplay.
• Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Optimizations and Support
  Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all DirectX 9 applications.
• OpenGL® 1.4 Optimizations and Support
  Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all OpenGL applications.

This card is a little less "beefy" than the 5900 card, but it's price point is well below the 5900 (which has a core speed of 400MHz), as well as the mainstream 5900 Ultra cards which run $200 or more higher than the XFX GeForceFX 5900XT card does. Think value!

Benchmarking

We used the same system we tested the card against other GeForceFX cards as well as their ATI counterparts ...

Test System Specifications:
- AMD 2500+XP Processor
- GigaByte GA-7NNXP nForce2 Motherboard
- 512 MB PC2700 Dual Channel DDR RAM
- Windows XP Home
- DirectX 9.0b

We used the following for games using the popular FRAPS Utility which allows you to grab the framerate for ANY game you play, record the framerate as you play, and export it to a text file. Using this, we captured the frame rates using three different video cards with these three very popular titles (all were set in 1280x1024 mode):

- NHL 2004 : Most gamers don't realize that the graphics engine used by the NHL series from EA Sports is amongst the most advanced in the industry

- Grand Theft Auto III : A very popular title that allows you to easily remove any and all frame rate limits

- Unreal Tournament 2004 : The very popular FPS game.

We also ran through the very controversial 3DMark 2004 program which benchmarks video cards ... obviously with recent issues regarding the testing favoring certain manufacturers over others must be taken into consideration, but all things being equal we can still at the very least look at the results.

Grand Theft Auto III
We definitely fell this is one of the better games to test out with the framerate benchmarking utility, because it fully supports turning off the framerate and vsynch limits, as some games won't allow more than 75.

The XFX GeForceFX 5900XT definitely hangs in there with cards that are well more expensive, and outperforms the 5700 Ultra card.

Unreal tournament 2004
Here's a very popular First Person Shooter that shows a great real world example of how the card performs.

NHL 2004 (1600x1200 resolution)
This game also topped out at 75 for all the cards at 1280x1024, so we pumped up the juice and saw the difference in performance we were looking for.

3D Mark 2004
A lot of websites use this as a benchmark, as we have in the past. Many readers like to see the results ...

Certainly the 5900XT does very well against the competition in the 3DMark03 (340 build).

Conclusions

The bundle the XFX GeForceFX 5900XT card comes with is an S-Video card, a VGA-to-DVI adapter (so you can have dual DVI out), as well as a great bundle of games including Ghost Recon, MotoGP, Comanche 4, Racing Simulation Three. There is also a disc of bundled games as well as the XFX installation CD with the latest nVidia drivers.

The card itself is nicely made and for the price - $199 a most retailers on-line, definitely gives gamers a fantastic bang for their buck. Think about the price of the run-of-the-mill GeForceFX 5900Ultra card which is around $400, then think about this card, which had some close specs to the cards we compared to in this review - more specifically the performances in the Futurmark 3DMark03, Unreal Tournament 2004, and Grand Theft Auto III.

The performance of the XFX GeForceFX 5900XT performed much better than expected ... it's hard to imagine that you would get a better performing card for under $200 from any nVidia chipset manufacturer. The bundle included also provides a good deal of entertainment - MotoGP and Ghost Recon are very popular titles.

The best thing about this card is the value and price point. The value stems from the fact you are paying $200 for a great performing DX9 compliant card, and is bundled well. The card is highly useful for gamers first and foremost, but people wishing for a good solid card for other purposes (whatever they might be) would do well by investing in this well priced but high performing card.

The card should last you for a while, typically this is more out of personal necessity than anything when trying to determine the longevity factor for any video card. Overall, the XFX GeForceFX 5900XT is a surprisingly valuable card for gamers who will enjoy the low price tag and impressive performance.

9 / 10 OVERALL SCORE 94% 9 / 10 10 / 10 10 / 10 9 / 10 9.4 / 10