Geforce fx 5700le specs: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Specs

GeForce FX 5700 [in 1 benchmark]


NVIDIA
GeForce FX 5700

Buy

  • Interface AGP 8x
  • Core clock speed 425 MHz
  • Max video memory 128 MB
  • Memory type DDR
  • Memory clock speed 500 MHz
  • Maximum resolution

Summary

NVIDIA started GeForce FX 5700 sales 23 October 2003. This is Rankine architecture desktop card based on 130 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 128 MB of DDR memory clocked at 0.5 GHz are supplied, and together with 256 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 16 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is single-slot card attached via AGP 8x interface. No additional power connector is required, and power consumption is at 25 Watt.

We have no data on GeForce FX 5700 benchmark results.

General info


Of GeForce FX 5700’s architecture, market segment and release date.

Place in performance rating not rated
Architecture Rankine (2003−2005)
GPU code name NV36
Market segment Desktop
Release date 23 October 2003 (18 years ago)
Current price $212 of 49999 (A100 SXM4)

Technical specs


GeForce FX 5700’s general performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce FX 5700’s performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Core clock speed 425 MHz of 2610 (Radeon RX 6500 XT)
Number of transistors 82 million of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile)
Manufacturing process technology 130 nm of 4 (GeForce RTX 4080 Ti)
Thermal design power (TDP) 25 Watt of 900 (Tesla S2050)
Texture fill rate 1. 700 of 939.8 (h200 SXM5)

Compatibility, dimensions and requirements


Information on GeForce FX 5700’s compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it’s interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Interface AGP 8x
Width 1-slot
Supplementary power connectors None

Memory


Parameters of memory installed on GeForce FX 5700: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors don’t have dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type DDR
Maximum RAM amount 128 MB of 128 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory bus width 256 Bit of 8192 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory clock speed 500 MHz of 21000 (GeForce RTX 3090 Ti)
Memory bandwidth 16 GB/s of 14400 (Radeon R7 M260)

Video outputs and ports


Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce FX 5700. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference video cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model.

Display Connectors 1x DVI, 1x VGA, 1x S-Video

API support


APIs supported by GeForce FX 5700, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectX 9.0a
OpenGL 1.5 (2.1) of 4.6 (GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile)
OpenCL N/A
Vulkan N/A

Benchmark performance


Non-gaming benchmark performance of GeForce FX 5700. Note that overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range.


  • Passmark
Passmark

This is probably the most ubiquitous benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

Benchmark coverage: 26%


FX 5700
40


Similar GPUs

Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

Recommended processors

These processors are most commonly used with GeForce FX 5700 according to our statistics.


Pentium
N4200

6.3%


Pentium 4
2.66

3.1%


Core i7
2630QM

3. 1%


Core i3
1005G1

3.1%


Core i5
2400

3.1%


FX
6300

3.1%


Pentium Silver
N5030

3.1%


Pentium 4
P4 3.0

3.1%


Pentium 4
1.5

3.1%


Celeron D
346

3.1%

User rating


Here you can see the user rating of the graphics card, as well as rate it yourself.


Questions and comments


Here you can ask a question about GeForce FX 5700, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.


Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

GeForce FX 5700 LE — Technical City


NVIDIA
GeForce FX 5700 LE

Buy

  • Interface AGP 8x
  • Core clock speed 250 MHz
  • Max video memory 128 MB
  • Memory type DDR
  • Memory clock speed 400 MHz
  • Maximum resolution

Summary

NVIDIA started GeForce FX 5700 LE sales 1 March 2004. This is Rankine architecture desktop card based on 130 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 128 MB of DDR memory clocked at 0.4 GHz are supplied, and together with 64 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 3. 2 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is single-slot card attached via AGP 8x interface.

We have no data on GeForce FX 5700 LE benchmark results.

General info


Of GeForce FX 5700 LE’s architecture, market segment and release date.

Place in performance rating not rated
Architecture Rankine (2003−2005)
GPU code name NV36
Market segment Desktop
Release date 1 March 2004 (18 years ago)
Current price $160 of 49999 (A100 SXM4)

Technical specs


GeForce FX 5700 LE’s general performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce FX 5700 LE’s performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Core clock speed 250 MHz of 2610 (Radeon RX 6500 XT)
Number of transistors 82 million of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile)
Manufacturing process technology 130 nm of 4 (GeForce RTX 4080 Ti)
Texture fill rate 1.000 of 939.8 (h200 SXM5)

Compatibility, dimensions and requirements


Information on GeForce FX 5700 LE’s compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it’s interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Interface AGP 8x
Width 1-slot

Memory


Parameters of memory installed on GeForce FX 5700 LE: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors don’t have dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type DDR
Maximum RAM amount 128 MB of 128 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory bus width 64 Bit of 8192 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory clock speed 400 MHz of 21000 (GeForce RTX 3090 Ti)
Memory bandwidth 3.2 GB/s of 14400 (Radeon R7 M260)

Video outputs and ports


Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce FX 5700 LE. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference video cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model.

Display Connectors 1x DVI, 1x VGA, 1x S-Video

API support


APIs supported by GeForce FX 5700 LE, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectX 9.0a
OpenGL 1.5 (2.1) of 4.6 (GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile)
OpenCL N/A
Vulkan N/A

Benchmark performance


Non-gaming benchmark performance of GeForce FX 5700 LE. Note that overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range.


We have no data on GeForce FX 5700 LE benchmark results.


Similar GPUs

Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

Recommended processors

These processors are most commonly used with GeForce FX 5700 LE according to our statistics.


Celeron D
325

25%


Atom x5
Z8350

25%


Core i3
2100

25%


Pentium
G4400

25%

User rating


Here you can see the user rating of the graphics card, as well as rate it yourself.


Questions and comments


Here you can ask a question about GeForce FX 5700 LE, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.


Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Untitled

Desktop PCs
Winner of the Computer Gaming World Ultimate Gaming Machine Award. For the ultimate gaming machine get the Voodoo F Class PC, featuring the combined power of the NVIDIA nForce3 MCP and GeForce FX 5950 Ultra GPU. According to Will O’Neal, technical editor for Computer Gaming World, the one-two punch of AMDs Athlon 64-FX processor (the fastest desktop processor available at press time) and NVIDIAs 256MB GeForce FX 5950 makes this the fastest machine we saw.
Winner of the Computer Gaming World Editor’s Choice Award. For extreme gaming get the Alienware Aurora, featuring the combined power of the NVIDIA nForce3 MCP, the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra GPU, and an AMD Athlon 64 FX CPU.
Want to be one of the few to own this limited edition Gamers Deluxe System for the Holidays? Hurry because these babies will only be around for a short time while supplies last. This system is loaded with GeForce FX 5950 Ultra graphics with 256MB DDR memory, an Intel P4 3.2GHz processor and 1GB of DDR memory, to name just a few components. Gaze at the this specially designed case and you know your new Compaq X09 Gaming Tower will be one of the big hits this holiday season. NVIDIA is also offering a FREE EA game with the system purchase.
Get the fast, light, and affordable FragBox from Falcon Northwest, powered by the GeForce FX 5600. Packed with 6 channel sound, USB 2.0 and FireWire ports, and NVIDIA’s cinematic quality graphics, at just 14 pounds the FragBox is easy to move around: perfect for the gamer on the go.
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Add-In Cards

Designed for high-performance gaming

Power and realism, the two elements every gamer craves. As the rush of Verto kicks in, it becomes clear that all preconceived notions of the ultimate 3D graphics experience have just been eclipsed. VERTO GeForce FX 5700 Ultra utilizes the most advanced memory technology, including DDR2 for unparalleled performance. Nothing can stand in your way once youve mastered the magic of Verto; the industries most compatible and reliable gaming platform is finally within your grasp
Power and realism, the two elements every gamer craves. Stunning cinematic graphics and lifelike characters at blazing speeds and ultra-high resolutions are now a reality. Verto® 5950 Ultra utilizes the most advanced DDR memory technology for unparalleled performance providing the industry’s most compatible and reliable gaming platform.
For the ultimate cinematic graphics experience, equip yourself with an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, featuring a 256-bit graphics core and 256MB DDR memory. Powered by pure adrenaline, the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra delivers graphics power, gaming perfomrance, and unparalleled features for the most extreme gamers. BFG Technologies’ Asylum graphics card features a 475MHz core clock with 30.4GB per second memory bandwidth. Play your games the way they’re meant to be played with the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra.
Powered by the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra GPU for cutting-edge cinematic effects, the MSI NBOX includes the nBox gaming mouse, MSI Twin Flow cooling system, and today’s hottest games: Battlefield 1942, Unreal II: Awakening, Command & Conquer Generals. Winner of the Firing Squad Bull’s Eye Award, this package delivers everything you need for the ultimate install-and-play gaming experience.
Recognized as a PC World Best Buy (Nov. 2003). Take your gaming experience to new levels and turn it all on with the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra-powered BFG Asylum. Providing 256MB DDR memory and the cinematic graphics power of the NVIDIA CineFX 2.0 engine, the BFG Asylum delivers insane 3D graphics and cinematic gameplay
Games & Applications
Set in a monstrous world spanning 10 continents, PlanetSide pits teams of hundreds of players against one another, in graphically diverse environments complete with climates and lush weather effects. You’ll be amazed by the way that the game-«with NVIDIA’s Cg compiler integrated into the graphics engine-«can handle a massive fray with dozens or hundreds of combatants involved. Remember to play it «the way it’s meant to be played» on NVIDIA hardware.
Unravel a whirling conspiracy plot where your identity, the President’s assassination, and the future of America are shrouded in mystery. Ubisoft’s action conspiracy thriller XIII feels like a gritty graphic novel come to life. It offers a lot of unique features that make it stand out from the traditional first-person shooter genre. Remember to play it «the way it’s meant to be played» on NVIDIA hardware.
Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided is a deep role-playing game, with extensive variety for its participants in their standing in the world. Also, the fact that it’s one of the growing number of «massively multiplayer online role-playing games» (MMORPG) means there’s the potential for hundreds—or even thousands—of players inhabiting the same world simultaneously. Remember to play it «the way it’s meant to be played» on NVIDIA hardware.
NVIDIA Gear
Did you know that «Pixies Dig NVIDIA»? Well, they do! Tell the world about it in this navy blue 100% cotton Hanes Beefy T shirt. Spread the word in this tee, featuring NVIDIA’s own sexy Pixie, Dawn, in green silhouette on the back, and the NVIDIA «eye» logo on the front. Available in sizes S-4XL.
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Find more NVIDIA-branded gear and gifts at the NVIDIA Gear Store.
Accessories
Why do you need a Klipsch Promedia® GMX D-5.1 multimedia speaker system? Because if you’re playing Xbox without it, you’re missing half of the experience. The GMX D-5.1 is much more than just another video game accessory-it’s more like a hidden weapon or savory cheat that helps you clear the level and beat your pitiful roommate for the umpteenth time.

NVIDIA’s GeForce FX 5700 Ultra GPU

FOR NEARLY a year, ATI’s mid-range Radeons have owned the performance crown for mid-range graphics. ATI’s dominance started with the Radeon 9500 Pro, continued with the Radeon 9600 Pro, and was most recently refreshed with the 9600 XT. NVIDIA took a stab at the mid-range with its GeForce FX 5600s, but not even a faster respin of the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra had enough punch to take on the Radeon 9600 line, especially in DirectX 9 applications.

Before the Radeon 9500 Pro came along, NVIDIA’s GeForce4 Ti 4200 was the most widely recommended graphics card for budget-conscious enthusiasts. NVIDIA knows what it takes to be a mid-range market leader. With memories of the GeForce4 Ti 4200’s glory no doubt in mind, NVIDIA is ready to put up a fight for the mid-range performance crown with the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. The 5700 Ultra is powered by a new NV36 graphics chip and promises more shader power, higher clock speeds, and greater memory bandwidth than its predecessor. On paper, NVIDIA’s third shot at this generation’s mid-range graphics crown looks pretty good, but does it have the charm to capture the hearts and minds of budget-conscious gamers and PC enthusiasts? Will this be NVIDIA’s third strike with the budget-conscious crowd? Read on as we unleash the FX 5700 Ultra on ATI’s Radeon 9600 cards to find out.

Introducing NV36
The GeForce FX 5700 line is based on NVIDIA’s new NV36 graphics chip, which is essentially a mid-range version of the high-end NV35 chip found in NVIDIA’s GeForce FX 5900 and 5900 Ultra. The NV36-powered GeForce FX 5700 Ultra will replace the mid-range FX 5600 Ultra at a suggested retail price of $199, and is expected on retail shelves starting this Sunday.

NV36 doesn’t represent a major redesign of NVIDIA’s current GeForce FX architecture, but the chip does have a number interesting characteristics that are worth highlighting.

  • 4×1-pipe design – Like NV31, NV36 has four pixel pipelines with a single texture unit per pipe. The chip behaves like a four-pipe design regardless of the kind of rendering being done, which makes it a little bit easier to understand than something like NV30, which can act like eight-pipe chip under certain circumstances.
  • 128-bit memory bus – NV36’s memory bus is 128 bits wide, just like NV31’s. However, NV36 supports DDR2 and GDDR3 memory types in addition to standard DDR SDRAM. Initially, GeForce FX 5700 Ultra cards will ship with DDR2 memory chips running at 450MHz, but board manufacturers may eventually exploit the chip’s compatibility with different memory types to produce budget cards with DDR SDRAM or more exotic offerings with GDDR3.
  • ‘mo shader power – The GeForce FX 5600 Ultra’s shader performance never really cut it against ATI’s mid-range Radeons, so NVIDIA has beefed up shaders for NV36. The chip boasts three vertex units that conspire to deliver triple the vertex processing power of NV31. NVIDIA also re-architected its programmable pixel shader for NV36, though no specific pixel shader performance claims are being made.
  • Chip fabrication by IBM – Unlike the rest of NVIDIA’s NV3x graphics chips, NV36 is being manufactured using IBM’s 0.13-micron fabrication process. NV36 is the first product to emerge from NVIDIA’s recently announced partnership with IBM, and NVIDIA is quite happy with how well things have worked out so far. NV36 isn’t built using low-k dielectrics like NV38 or ATI’s RV360 GPUs, but it’s still clocked at a speedy 475MHz on the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra.

    What’s particularly impressive about NV36’s fabrication is the fact that NVIDIA was able to get its very first chip sample from IBM up and running Quake just 50 minutes after the chip entered NVIDIA’s testing lab. A testament to IBM’s mad fabrication skills, the first A01 spin of NV36 silicon is actually being used for retail versions of the chip.

Overall, NV36 doesn’t represent a radical departure from the GeForce FX architecture; the chip should share all the perks that go along with “cinematic computing,” but it will also inherit a number of quirky personality traits that have thus far had a negative impact on performance.

NVIDIA continues to reiterate the fact that its entire GeForce FX line is sensitive to instruction ordering and pixel shader precision. Optimized code paths can help NV36 and the rest of the GeForce FX line realize their full potential, but NVIDIA’s new Detonator 50 driver also has a few tricks up its sleeve to improve performance. You can read all about the Detonator 50 drivers in our GeForce FX 5950 Ultra review.

NV36: NVIDIA’s first GPU fabbed by IBM

The specs
Perhaps to illustrate just how close the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is to store shelves, NVIDIA sent out retail cards instead of standard reference review samples. The eVGA e-GeForce FX 5700 Ultra that showed up on my doorstep came in a full retail box, shrink-wrapped and everything. Let’s have a quick look at the card’s spec sheet.

GPU NVIDIA NV36
Core clock 475MHz
Pixel pipelines 4
Peak pixel fill rate 1900 Mpixels/s
Texture units/pixel pipeline 1
Textures per clock 4
Peak texel fill rate 1900 Mtexels/s
Memory clock 906MHz*
Memory type BGA DDR2 SDRAM
Memory bus width 128-bit
Peak memory bandwidth 14. 5GB/s
Ports VGA, DVI, composite and S-Video outputs
Auxiliary power connector 4-pin Molex

NVIDIA’s reference spec calls for an effective memory clock of 900MHz, but our sample’s memory was running at 906MHz

The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is all about high clock speeds and fancy memory. Quite honestly, I didn’t expect cards with 450MHz DDR2 memory chips to hit $200 price points this soon, but I’m certainly not going to complain. Profit margins on GeForce FX 5700 Ultras may be slimmer than with other cards, but that’s a good thing for consumers looking for the most bang for their buck.

Here’s a few nudies of the e-GeForce FX 5700 Ultra to drool over before we get started with the benchmarks.

The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra looks imposing, and it is

475MHz with a single-slot cooler that doesn’t sound like a Dustbuster.
Imagine that!

BGA DDR2 memory chips bring in the bandwidth

(Insert incessant whining about the lack of dual DVI here)

 

Our testing methods
As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Tests were run three times, and the results were averaged.

Our test system was configured like so:

  System
Processor Athlon XP ‘Thoroughbred’ 2600+ 2.083GHz
Front-side bus 333MHz (166MHz DDR)
Motherboard DFI LANParty NFII Ultra
Chipset NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400
North bridge nForce2 Ultra 400 SPP
South bridge nForce2 MCP-T
Chipset drivers NVIDIA 2. 45
Memory size 512MB (2 DIMMs)
Memory type Corsair XMS3200 PC2700 DDR SDRAM (333MHz)
Graphics card GeForce FX 5600 Ultra 128MB
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 128MB
Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB
Radeon 9600 XT 128MB
Graphics driver Detonator FX 52.16 CATALYST 3.8
Storage Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X 7200RPM ATA/100 hard drive
OS Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS updates Service Pack 1, DirectX 9. 0b

Today we’ll be comparing the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra to the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra (rev 2), and to a couple of Radeon 9600 flavors from ATI. NVIDIA was able to get us a set of WHQL-certified Detonator FX 52.16 drivers for testing, giving us our first peek at Microsoft-approved Detonator 50 drivers. The Detonator FX 52.16 drivers should be available for public download today.

The test system’s Windows desktop was set at 1024×768 in 32-bit color at a 75Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

  • FutureMark 3DMark03 Build 330
  • Codecreatures Benchmark Pro
  • Comanche 4 demo benchmark
  • Quake III Arena v1.31 with trdemo1.dm_67
  • Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory with demo0000.dm_82
  • Serious Sam SE v1.07 with Demo0003
  • Unreal Tournament 2003 with trtest1.dem
  • Splinter Cell v1.2 with TRKalinatekDemo.bin
  • Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness v49 patch
  • Gun Metal benchmark v1. 20
  • ShaderMark 2.0
  • rthdribl 1.2
  • Halo 1.02
  • AquaMark3

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.

 

Fill rate
Theoretical fill rate and memory bandwidth peaks don’t necessarily dictate real-world performance, but they’re a good place to start.

  Core clock (MHz) Pixel pipelines  Peak fill rate (Mpixels/s) Texture units per pixel pipeline Peak fill rate (Mtexels/s) Memory clock (MHz) Memory bus width (bits) Peak memory bandwidth (GB/s)
Radeon 9600 Pro 400 4 1600 1 1600 600 128 9. 6
Radeon 9600 XT 500 4 2000 1 2000 600 128 9.6
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra 400 4 1600 1 1600 800 128 12. 8
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 475 4 1900 1 1900 906 128 14.5

When it comes to theoretical peaks, the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is simply a monster. The card’s 475MHz core clock speed yields pixel and texel fill rates that rival the Radeon 9600 XT, but the real story is the card’s memory bandwidth. With DDR2 memory chips running at an effective 906MHz, the 5700 Ultra offers a whopping 14.5GB/s of memory bandwidth—50% more bandwidth than the Radeon 9600 XT. ATI has caught some flack for the Radeon 9600 XT’s relatively unimpressive memory bandwidth, but the card has thus far held its own quite nicely against the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra. Against the bandwidth-rich 5700 Ultra, the Radeon 9600 XT may not be so lucky.

Of course, theoretical peaks are sometimes worth little more than the paper they’re printed on. Let’s see how the FX 5700 Ultra’s fill rate specs pan out in practice.

In 3DMark03’s fill rate tests, the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra delivers the best single-textured fill rate performance, but is stuck behind both Radeons when it comes to multitexturing.

Shaders

When NVIDIA claimed that NV36’s shader power was much improved, it wasn’t kidding. In 3DMark03’s pixel shader 2.0 test, the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is 50% faster than the 5600 Ultra, but even then it can’t catch the Radeon 9600 Pro. Vertex shaders are another story, though. The 5700 Ultra bursts to the front of the pack in 3DMark03’s vertex shader test. Most striking is the fact that the 5700 Ultra delivers more than double the vertex shader performance of the 5600 Ultra.

 

ShaderMark 2.0
ShaderMark 2.0 is brand new and includes some anti-cheat measures to prevent drivers from applying questionable optimizations. The Radeons run the benchmark with straight pixel shader 2.0 code, but I’ve included results for the GeForce FX cards with partial-precision and extended pixel shaders, as well.

The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra shows significantly better pixel shader performance in ShaderMark than the 5600 Ultra; in many cases the 5700 Ultra doubles the frame rate of its predecessor. However, as much of an improvement as the 5700 Ultra is over the 5600 Ultra, the card still can’t catch either Radeon 9600 in ShaderMark. Because NVIDIA’s Detonator FX drivers have yet to expose NV36’s hardware support for floating point texture formats, the GeForce FX cards aren’t able to complete a number of ShaderMark’s tests. Unfortunately, NVIDIA hasn’t yet set a timetable for including floating point texture support in its GeForce FX drivers, and it’s unclear when the functionality will be exposed to applications.

 

Quake III Arena

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

Unreal Tournament 2003

The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra offers improved performance in a number of first-person shooters, but we’re not looking at a revolution here. With the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra and Radeon 9600 XT each winning three of six tests, this one’s a wash.

 

Comanche 4

Codecreatures Benchmark Pro

Gun Metal benchmark

The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra comes out ahead in Comanche, Codecreatures, and Gun Metal. The card’s performance with antialiasing enabled is especially impressive, as is its huge performance advantage over the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra in Gun Metal.

 

Serious Sam SE

Serious Sam SE has always performed well on NVIDIA hardware, and that doesn’t change with the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra. The 5700 Ultra even comes out ahead with antialiasing and aniso enabled.

 

Splinter Cell

The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is the only card to really distance itself from the pack in Splinter Cell and offer consistently better frame rates across multiple resolutions.

 

3DMark03

The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra and Radeon 9600 XT split 3DMark03’s game tests, but the Radeon comes out ahead by a hair if we look at the overall score. Notice how much the FX 5700 Ultra improves on its predecessor’s performance in the pixel shader-packed Mother Nature test; NVIDIA’s managed to improve performance by almost 50%.

 

Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness gets its own special little intro here because its publisher, EIDOS Interactive, has released a statement claiming that the V49 patch, which includes a performance benchmark, was never intended for public release. Too late, the patch is already public. We’ve used these extreme quality settings from Beyond3D to give the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra a thorough workout in this DirectX 9 game.

The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra does a lot better in Tomb Raider than the 5600 Ultra, but the Radeons still have a healthy lead. What’s worse, both GeForce FX cards refuse to run with 4X antialiasing and 8X aniso at resolutions above 1024×768.

It’s important to note that Tomb Raider’s benchmark mode uses the default DirectX 9 code path rather than the NVIDIA-optimized path that’s used when the game is actually being played normally. The scores you see above aren’t necessarily a reflection of Tomb Raider gameplay performance, but they do show how poorly the GeForce FX 5700 can perform when it’s forced to deal with an unoptimized DirectX 9 code path. Still, the 5700 Ultra’s performance is much-improved over the 5600 Ultra, and NVIDIA’s latest drivers have significantly improved the performance of both cards.

AquaMark3

In AquaMark3, GeForce FX 5700 Ultra performs well until antialiasing and aniso are enabled. The card doesn’t perform particularly poorly with 4X antialiasing and 8X aniso, but it’s well behind the Radeon 9600 XT and even a hair behind the 9600 Pro.

Halo
I used the “-use20” switch with the Halo benchmark to force the game to use version 2.0 pixel shaders.

The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is much faster than its predecessor in Halo and even has enough horsepower to best the Radeon 9600 XT. Halo’s benchmark timedemo only runs through cut scenes, so the frame rates you see aren’t necessarily a reflection of gameplay performance. However, Halo’s cut scenes are all done using the game engine, so the benchmark mode is a valid tool for graphics performance comparisons.

Real-Time High-Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting
To test the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra’s performance with high-dynamic-range lighting, we logged frame rates via FRAPS in this technology demo at its default settings. The demo uses high-precision texture formats and version 2.0 pixel shaders to produce high-dynamic-range lighting, depth of field, motion blur, and glare, among other effects.

The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra manages to double the 5600 Ultra’s performance in the rthdribble demo, but ATI’s Radeons still have a pretty significant lead, especially at lower resolutions. Unfortunately, the images generated by both GeForce FX cards in this demo have a few issues. Either 16-bit floating point precision really isn’t enough for high dynamic range lighting, or NVIDIA’s drivers need to expose the GeForce FX’s support for floating point texture formats in order for rthdribble to work properly.

 

Edge antialiasing

In Unreal Tournament 2003, the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is really only playable with 4X antialiasing. There’s some weirdness going on with the card’s 2X antialiasing performance, which is dreadful on both the FX 5700 and 5600 Ultras. Unfortunately, NVIDIA’s antialiasing doesn’t look quite as good as ATI’s gamma-corrected SMOOTHVISION, either.

 

Texture antialiasing

In Serious Sam SE, the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra suffers roughly the same performance hit with each level of anisotropic filtering as its competition.

 

Overclocking
In testing, I was able to get my GeForce FX 5700 Ultra stable at core and memory clock speeds of 560 and 950MHz, respectively. Considering that the card’s cooler isn’t noticeably louder than what one may find on a GeForce FX 5600 Ultra or Radeon 9600 XT, I’m quite happy with an 85MHz core overclock.

Of course, just because I was able to get my sample stable and artifact-free at 560/950 doesn’t mean that every GeForce FX 5700 Ultra will be capable of those speeds. Then again, some cards may have the potential to hit even higher clock speeds. Overclocking is never guaranteed and can potentially damage hardware, so be careful.

Overclocking the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra gives the card a nice little performance boost, but remember that the Radeon 9600 XT appears to be quite comfortable with overclocking, too.

 

Conclusions
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra cards will be available in retail stores this Sunday and are expected to sell for around $199. This isn’t even close to a paper launch, folks. The card’s $200 price point puts it in direct competition with the Radeon 9600 XT, but 9600 XTs seem to be a little scarce at the moment.

Overall, the 5700 Ultra’s performance in DirectX 8-class games is impressive, and the card even handles DirectX 9 titles like Halo with aplomb. However, the 5700 Ultra’s performance with unoptimized code paths and synthetic pixel shader tests is a little discouraging looking forward. With more compiler tuning and driver tweaking, NVIDIA may improve the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra’s performance further, but the potential for future performance gains is hard to quantify and impossible to guarantee. At the very least, NVIDIA’s willingness to help developers optimize code paths should ensure that games and applications milk every last drop of performance from the GeForce FX architecture.

Since the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra beat out the Radeon 9600 XT in nearly every real-world game we tested today, it’s tempting to reinstate NVIDIA as the king of mid-range graphics. However, the Radeon 9600 XT is faster in Unreal Tournament 2003, which is particularly important title considering how many future games will use the Unreal engine. It’s also worth noting that ATI’s mid-range Radeons offer superior gamma-corrected antialiasing and a coupon for Half-Life 2, both important considerations for enthusiasts and gamers alike.

So I’m not quite ready to crown NVIDIA as the new mid-range graphics king, but I still feel pretty good about recommending the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra over the Radeon 9600 XT for gamers who have $200 to spend and need a graphics card by the end of the weekend. The Radeon 9600 XT’s performance in synthetic DirectX 9-class benchmarks makes it feel like a safer bet, but NVIDIA’s new run-time compiler has me a little more excited about the GeForce FX’s performance potential in future titles. The fact that the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra rips through today’s current games and uses some pretty swanky hardware for a $200 graphics card doesn’t hurt, either.

Of course, if you don’t need to pick up a new graphics card this weekend, I’d hold off just a little while longer. We’ll be comparing the rendering output and image quality of ATI and NVIDIA’s newest graphics chips with the latest drivers in an upcoming article; the benchmarks we saw today are just the beginning. 

BFG GeForce FX 5700 Ultra and NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra







Bjorn3D.com Reviewer


October 23, 2003
Hardware, Reviews & Articles

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Check out this brief look at the newest cards to become members of the GeForce FX family. Thanks to BFG, we weren’t just stuck with a reference 5700 Ultra. We have a retail 5700 and it’s a great overclocker. Additionally, we tested and overclocked the reference 5950 Ultra from NVIDIA. It’s smokin’ too!

Introduction


Today, we’re going to take a quick look at the newest members of NVIDIA’s GeForce FX family — the 5700 Ultra and 5950 Ultra, replacements for the 5600 Ultra and 5900 Ultra, respectively. Usually this means that we have only reference cards to benchmark, but thanks to BFG Tech, we have a retail 5700 Ultra in our possession and that’s what will be featured in this article. Although we don’t have a BFG 5950 in our hands, we do have some pictures of it to show you. The 5950 benchmarks will be from the NVIDIA reference unit.

A lot of people have been anxiously awaiting the replacement of the 5600 Ultra since it didn’t quite impress customers as much as NVIDIA had hoped. In addition to the new card, new drivers (version 52.16) are also bringing hope back into the NVIDIA camp. The mid-range performance market is certainly about to get more interesting. ATI’s 9600 Pro and 9600 XT won’t be the quick answer any more when someone asks, “What card should I get if I can’t afford the $500 ones and only want to spend $200?” The 5950 will also be packing more punch to fight back against the 9800 XT.

The method for obtaining this boost in performance for NVIDIA’s mid-range and top level GPUs is to increase the clock speeds (of course). The 5700 Ultra is boasting a 475 MHz core and 900 MHz memory clock (up from 400/800 on the 5600 Ultra) while the 5950 Ultra is sporting a 475 MHz core and a 950 MHz memory clock (up from 450/850 on the 5900 Ultra). In addition to the speed boost, BFG’s 5700 Ultra is rocking some nice DDR2 memory!

Okay, let’s get to the review, but before we do I just want to point out a couple things. This article is just a brief look at both cards. I have only had the 5700 in my hands for two days now, so I’ve done as much as I could and still get sleep. I turn 25 in a couple days, so I’m getting old and need that sleep. ? We just want to give you a feel for what these new cards offer and how NVIDIA is trying to get your attention back. First, let’s enter the Asylum … and discuss the BFG Tech Asylum GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, and then we’ll cover the reference 5950 Ultra from NVIDIA.

Asylum 5700 Ultra Features and Specs


Features:

  • AGP 8X (compatible with 4x and 2x AGP 2.0 compliant slots)
  • Up to 4 pixels per clock rendering engine
  • Up to 16 textures per pass
  • NVIDIA CineFX 2.0 engine
  • NVIDIA nView multi-display technology
  • NVIDIA Forceware unified software environment (USE)
  • NVIDIA UltraShadow technology enhances performance of bleeding-edge games that use complex shadows
  • Free 24/7 Tech Support
  • Lifetime Warranty
  • 128-bit Studio-precision color

     

Some Key Points Worth Mentioning About the Card:

  • NV36 (5700 Ultra) is 0.13 micron @ IBM
  • It is NEW ARCHITECTURE
  • ASYLUM cards are built with DDR2 (not all companies will use DDR2; they may use DDR1)
  • BFG’s MSRP at launch is $199. 99 ($219.99 with a $20 Mail In Rebate Everyday)
  • BFG has implemented an upgraded fan solution on this product that exhibits superior thermal resistance to the reference fan

This will definitely be of interest to some of you. We are now starting to see IBM produced parts, and the NV36 is new architecture. Also, as I mentioned before, the Asylum 5700 Ultra uses 128MB of DDR2 memory, but other companies may just opt to stick with DDR1.

Specifications:

  • GPU: NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX 5700 Ultra
  • Bus Type: AGP
  • Memory: 128MB DDR2
  • Core Clock: 475MHz
  • Memory Clock: 900Mhz (effective)
  • RAMDAC: Dual 400MHz
  • API Support: Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0, OpenGL for Microsoft® Windows®
  • Connectors: VGA, DVI, S-Video out
  • 356 million vertices/sec.
  • 14.4GB/sec. memory bandwidth

Included In Box:

  • Asylum GeForce FX 5700 Ultra graphics card
  • Quick Install Manual
  • DVI to VGA connector
  • Driver CD, which includes:
    • NVIDIA Forceware graphics driver (52. 16)
    • NVIDIA GeForce FX and GeForce4 demos
    • Full installation manual (PDF)
    • NVIDIA NVDVD 2.0 multimedia software
    • Windowblinds BFG / Asylum Windows XP skins

       
       
   

The included bundle is okay, but I’d like to see a game included (who wouldn’t, right?). I think BFG aims to be a cost leader though, so including a bigger bundle might not be the best strategy for them, and that’s understandable. No game is probably better than an old game no one is going to enjoy anyway. The inclusion of NVDVD 2.0 and the Windowblinds skins is a nice touch. The card also looks pretty cool with its blue PCB and the silver HSF (heatsink / fan) with the Asylum logo. You can also see the ramsinks on the memory chips. Overall, it’s a very nice design by BFG.

A couple of things you can’t help but notice (especially since I tried to use the pictures to point them out) are that this card requires a power connection and it’s pretty long. The last picture shows the Asylum 5700 Ultra above the MSI 5900, and they are actually the same length! I didn’t expect that, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. The extra real estate on the PCB allows for less crowding of components, which is a good thing. The length may cause issues in some systems though. I have never had problems with a long card though, so just keep all that in mind.

Let’s move on to the next page to take a quick look at what type of performance and overclocking the Asylum 5700 Ultra offers.

Asylum 5700 Ultra Performance / Overclocking


As I stated before, this is a retail 5700 Ultra board from BFG, so if you go out and purchase one, you can reasonably expect similar performance. When testing the Asylum 5700 Ultra, I unfortunately did not have any Radeon 9600s of any type on hand for comparison. I also did not have a reference 5700 Ultra available for testing. So, I decided to run all the benchmarks I did at stock speed and at a good overclock speed … can you say 1GHz? Hold on now, we’re not quite ready for that yet.

There will be many reviews out today and tomorrow that will feature a 5700 Ultra versus 9600 XTs and Pros, so please just bare with me. As of right now (2:30 in the morning), I know of one review that has comparisons already, and that’s Hexus.net’s review of the 9600 XT. Feel free to check that out if such a comparison is your main concern.

Test System:

  • Motherboard: Chaintech Zenith 7NJS nForce2
  • Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (stock speed, 166 FSB)
  • Memory: Corsair TWINX512-3200 (2x256MB XMS3200)
  • Hard Drive: Western Digital Special Edition 80GB 8MB buffer
  • Optical Drive: Plextor PlexWriter 40/12/40A
  • NVIDIA Drivers: Detonator 52.16, “Quality” image setting
  • DirectX Version: 9.0b

Before I just spill the results, a little discussion about the overclocking is due. As per my normal procedure, I used the CoolBits registry hack to provide clock frequency adjustments in the display driver control panel. I also used the “Auto Detect” feature and allowed CoolBits to find the “best” stable overclock, which just happened to be 522MHz core / 1000MHz memory. Oh yeah, 1 GHz lovin’! Okay, maybe a 100MHz overclock isn’t much to get overly excited about, but upping a video card’s memory clock to 1 GHz just sounds cool, doesn’t it? I was able to complete 3DMark2001SE at 570 / 1000, but the image quality in Nature was compromised. Therefore, I stuck with 522 / 1000 for this review. No need to keep you waiting any longer. Here are my benchmark results.

3DMark2001SE (Bld 330)

1024×768 – NoAA / NoAF

 Speed (Core/Mem)

 3DMarks

 
BFG 5700 Ultra (475/900) 12802
BFG 5700 Ultra (522/1000) 13245

1280×1024 – 4xAA / 8xAF

 Speed (Core/Mem)

 3DMarks

 
BFG 5700 Ultra (475/900) 5818
BFG 5700 Ultra (522/1000) 6312

3DMark2003 (Bld 320)

1024×768 – NoAA / NoAF

 Speed (Core/Mem)

 3DMarks

 
BFG 5700 Ultra (475/900) 3682
BFG 5700 Ultra (522/1000) 4003

AquaMark3

For the AquaMark3 test, I just ran the basic, default benchmark and recorded the score. The settings for this test are 1024x768x32, no anti-aliasing (AA), 4x anisotropic filtering (AF) and very high details.

1024×768 – Total Score – NoAA / 4xAF (Default)

 Speed (Core/Mem)

 Result

 
BFG 5700 Ultra (475/900) 33215
BFG 5700 Ultra (522/1000) 35744

1024×768 – GFX Score – NoAA / 4xAF (Default)

BFG 5700 Ultra (475/900) 4480
BFG 5700 Ultra (522/1000) 4936

Gun Metal Benchmark 2 — Benchmark 1

1024×768 – Average FPS – 4xAA / NoAF

 Speed (Core/Mem)

 FPS

 
BFG 5700 Ultra (475/900) 24. 44
BFG 5700 Ultra (522/1000) 32.81

1024×768 – Minimum FPS – 4xAA / NoAF

BFG 5700 Ultra (475/900) 12.24
BFG 5700 Ultra (522/1000) 19.69

Unreal Tournament 2003

For the UT2K3 tests, I used HardOCP’s UT2K3 Benchmark utility. I ran the high quality test and then averaged all the average framerate scores. That is the score you see reported below.

1024×768 – NoAA / NoAF

 Speed (Core/Mem)

 FPS (Avg)

 
BFG 5700 Ultra (475/900) 133. 12
BFG 5700 Ultra (522/1000) 141.60

1280×1024 – NoAA / NoAF

BFG 5700 Ultra (475/900) 91.22
BFG 5700 Ultra (522/1000) 100.03

1024×768 – 4xAA / 8xAF

 Speed (Core/Mem)

 FPS (Avg)

 
BFG 5700 Ultra (475/900) 72.94
BFG 5700 Ultra (522/1000) 80.23

1280×1024 – 4xAA / 8xAF

BFG 5700 Ultra (475/900) 45. 54
BFG 5700 Ultra (522/1000) 50.11

As you can see, the card performs quite well in these tests. This limited testing obviously can’t tell the whole story, but I really wish I had a 9600 XT for comparison. I think you would see the Asylum 5700 Ultra beating up on it a bit, especially at the overclocked setting. There is also image quality (IQ) to consider as well. I didn’t notice any strange IQ problems while running the benchmarks, and I’ve heard that the 52.xx drivers have cleared up many previous problems. Keeping all this in mind makes it easy to see that the mid-range performance market is just now really heating up.

The Asylum 5700 Ultra so far appears to be a great card. It overclocked easily and was absolutely stable at 522 / 1000 MHz. My 5900 Ultra only outperforms it by about 1100 3DMarks when it’s overclocked at these speeds. I think it’s a very impressive and great looking card. BFG definitely has a winner here, and if the Asylum 5700 Ultra’s performance is a fair indication of what to expect from other 5700 Ultras, then NVIDIA has hit a home run as well.

Now, let’s move on to the big papa of the bunch — the 5950 Ultra.

NVIDIA 5950 Ultra


While we were not lucky enough to also get ahold of a retail 5950 Ultra, Scott does have an NVIDIA reference 5950 that he ran several benchmarks with. He compared it to a reference 5900 Ultra to show us just how much better we can expect the 5950 to perform. Before we get to those benchmarks though, let’s take a brief look at the 5950’s specs and look at the card itself.

Specifications:

  • GPU: NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX 5950 Ultra
  • Bus Type: AGP
  • Memory: 256MB DDR
  • Core Clock: 475MHz
  • Memory Clock: 950Mhz
  • Connectors: VGA, DVI, S-Video out
  • 356 million vertices/sec.
  • 30.4GB/sec. memory bandwidth

Interesting New Design for the 5950

   

Interestingly enough, the 5950 Ultra is actually not as long as the 5900 Ultra! You can see in the first picture above that the 5950 Ultra is around an inch shorter (5900 on top, 5950 on bottom in pic). You can also see (in the second pic) that the 5950 Ultra is two-slot design, just like the 5900 Ultra. The final shot shows how much taller the new cooling solution is than the 5900 Ultra’s cooler. The 5950’s cooler is make sure it takes up as much of that two-slot area as possible!

I can’t wait to see what types of cooling units NVIDIA’s partners will come up with to keep the 5950 Ultra cool. I’m guessing most will go for something flatter and smaller, if it can still cool sufficiently of course. Here is what BFG’s Asylum 5950 Ultra looks like. Note the heatpipe at the top of the card. Cool looking design if you ask me.

I think we will have one of these for review very soon, so check back here if you’d like to find out more about it. I’m looking forward to seeing how it performs.

Performance / Overclocking

Test System:

  • Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 nForce2
  • Processor: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ @ 3200+ (400MHz FSB)
  • Memory: 1GB Corsair PC3200 (2x512MB XMS3200)
  • Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 9 200GB ATA 133 7200RPM
  • Optical Drive: Sony DVD RW 500UA
  • NVIDIA Drivers: Detonator 52.16, “Quality” image setting
  • DirectX Version: 9.0b

3DMark2001SE (bld 330)

1024×768 – NoAA / NoAF

 Vid Card (Speed)

 3DMarks

 
Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 15497
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 16048

1280×1024 – NoAA / NoAF

Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 13384
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 14118

1600×1200 – NoAA / NoAF

Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 11592
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 12322

1024×768 – 4xAA / 8xAF

 Vid Card (Speed)

 3DMarks

 
Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 11352
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 12365

1280×1024 – 4xAA / 8xAF

Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 8865
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 9810

1600×1200 – 4xAA / 8xAF

Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 6962
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 7847

3DMark2003 (Bld 330)

1024×768 – NoAA / NoAF

 Vid Card (Speed)

 3DMarks

 
Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 5650
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 6129

1280×1024 – NoAA / NoAF

Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 4366
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 4777

1600×1200 – NoAA / NoAF

Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 3437
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 3794

1024×768 – 4xAA / 8xAF

 Vid Card (Speed)

 3DMarks

 
Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 3344
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 3731

1280×1024 – 4xAA / 8xAF

Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 2427
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 2736

1600×1200 – 4xAA / 8xAF

Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 1837
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 2093

AquaMark3

Default Test — 1024×768

 Vid Card (Speed)

 Result (GFX)

 
Ref. 5900 Ultra (450/850) 5625
Ref. 5950 Ultra (475/950) 5985
Ref. 5950 Ultra (550/1020) 6738

As you can see from the AquaMark3 results, Scott was able to overclock the reference 5950 Ultra to 550 / 1020 MHz, which is a decent overclock. The boost in performance from that overclock and the overall performance of the 5950 Ultra versus the 5900 Ultra is pretty impressive. With more serious cooling, I wonder just how high the 5950 Ultra could go.

Conclusion


Armed with new and improved drivers and two new promising graphics cards, NVIDIA has stepped up its efforts in the battle to win your hard earned (or hardly earned or stolen or found) Benjamins. Despite what your feelings for NVIDIA or ATi might be, I think it’s hard to ignore the fact that this competition is good for all of us – the consumer, NVIDIA, ATi, OEMs, etc. I can’t wait to see what’s next!

I’m not sure what the MSRP will be on the 5950s when they hit shelves, but at $200 (after rebate), the Asylum 5700 Ultra from BFG is a great option to consider if you’ll be hunting for a new video card soon.


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