Dave420
11-26-2003, 10:34 AM
Today we are reviewing the evga e-Geforce 5700 ultra video card.this card is based on the Geforce FX line from nvidia.To be more specific it uses the NV36 chip ,a scaled down version of the high end fx 5900/5950 .It uses 4 pixel pipelines instead of 8 and 128 bit wide memory instead of 256 bit,however it does make up some of the memory difference by using the same clock speed(475mhz )as it's big brother and the 128mb of DDR-II memory running at 900mhz and 8X AGP.it shares the cinefx 2 and pixel shaders 2.0 with its big brothers also.so what does all this mean to you?
When the Geforce FX was first introduced the high end card was the 5800 ultra-plagued with problems ,all the new and great features it brought with it were overshadowed by its huge and extremely loud fan ,its lack of 256 bit wide memory,the shortage of chips (thus shortage of cards) and the extreme cost($599 usd).Add to this that you had to pre-order it and wait over 4 months-and you can see why it did not fare well.SO nvidia moved on and brought a complete line of low end(the 5200 and 5400 series in normal and Ultra)and mid end (the 5600 and 5600 Ultra).this introduced a whole line of cards ( not just high end)that support DirectX 9.Then in a attempt to regain the speed crown they put out the 5900 and 5900 ultra(there is still a lot of debate over this one).
That brings us to the newest addition of the FX5700 Ultra and the FX 5950 Ultra.The 5700 Ultra I amreviewing cost $119.99 and comes with a $20 mail in rebate-bringing the cost down to $200(the same price as the ATI Radeon 9600XT)
The package comes with the card (with VGA,DVI and s-video out)-a s-video cable drivers -a demo disk -NVDVD 2.0 and a full copy of Ghost Recon.This is a long card(so if your system is short or if your memory crosses the path of the AGP port you may not be able to use it)it also requires a 4 pin power connector and I would not use it with less then a 350watt power supply.
The install went very smooth(evga gives you a utility that will remove your old drivers and install the new ones for you.if you forget to install the 4 pin Power connector it will still work -but if you try to launch a 3d program or screensaver it will tell you the power connector is not connected properly.when done I set all the settings to high and loaded Unreal Tournament 2003 to give her a test run.
In my test I set UT2003 to 1024 X786 with all the settings on very high detail.the game ran smooth as silk-so I upped the res to 1600X1200 -while not a smooth as 1024X786 it did run fine and was very playable(it was a whole lot faster then the old Geforce 4 Ti 4600)all in all I would say this is a bargin for $200,but the real test will come with the release of Halflife 2 and Doom 3.
I would give this product a 8.5 out of 10 overall for ease of use and bang for the buck .I will try Ghost Recon next ;).maybe santa will bring a FX 5950 for me to review next .......lol.
When the Geforce FX was first introduced the high end card was the 5800 ultra-plagued with problems ,all the new and great features it brought with it were overshadowed by its huge and extremely loud fan ,its lack of 256 bit wide memory,the shortage of chips (thus shortage of cards) and the extreme cost($599 usd).Add to this that you had to pre-order it and wait over 4 months-and you can see why it did not fare well.SO nvidia moved on and brought a complete line of low end(the 5200 and 5400 series in normal and Ultra)and mid end (the 5600 and 5600 Ultra).this introduced a whole line of cards ( not just high end)that support DirectX 9.Then in a attempt to regain the speed crown they put out the 5900 and 5900 ultra(there is still a lot of debate over this one).
That brings us to the newest addition of the FX5700 Ultra and the FX 5950 Ultra.The 5700 Ultra I amreviewing cost $119.99 and comes with a $20 mail in rebate-bringing the cost down to $200(the same price as the ATI Radeon 9600XT)
The package comes with the card (with VGA,DVI and s-video out)-a s-video cable drivers -a demo disk -NVDVD 2.0 and a full copy of Ghost Recon.This is a long card(so if your system is short or if your memory crosses the path of the AGP port you may not be able to use it)it also requires a 4 pin power connector and I would not use it with less then a 350watt power supply.
The install went very smooth(evga gives you a utility that will remove your old drivers and install the new ones for you.if you forget to install the 4 pin Power connector it will still work -but if you try to launch a 3d program or screensaver it will tell you the power connector is not connected properly.when done I set all the settings to high and loaded Unreal Tournament 2003 to give her a test run.
In my test I set UT2003 to 1024 X786 with all the settings on very high detail.the game ran smooth as silk-so I upped the res to 1600X1200 -while not a smooth as 1024X786 it did run fine and was very playable(it was a whole lot faster then the old Geforce 4 Ti 4600)all in all I would say this is a bargin for $200,but the real test will come with the release of Halflife 2 and Doom 3.
I would give this product a 8.5 out of 10 overall for ease of use and bang for the buck .I will try Ghost Recon next ;).maybe santa will bring a FX 5950 for me to review next .......lol.