Page 17 - Conclusion
Conclusion
Well people, I think you will all agree with me in saying that nVIDIA is back on track. The GeForceFX 5900 Ultra really is a magnificent piece of technology. The overall impression is without a doubt in my mind awesome, feature rich, DX9, 256 MB, performance, eight pixel pipelines, basically all we want. Right now this card will make your high-end rig smoke .. and that smoke is not originating from heat this time 
The card we received was based on silicon A1, that means the first build. This build is so good that it actually will be used on the end-product/consumer boards. The card ran extremely stable on our test rig, in fact we have had not one crash and all games simply ran top notch. That's quite amazing considering we used the early beta drivers. These same drivers where WHQL certified and got the 'official' status mark in week three from May though. Again with time it's likely the product will get even a tad faster due to newer detonator driver releases with better optimisations and fixes. Also as stated, the board we tested will in retail be actually a tad smaller in size. Allow me to explain:
When I was at NVIDIA in Santa Clara in May they where working on some design changes in the technology laboratory and the final board size will be the about the same size as you see them right now on the GeForce4, the 8 layer version PCB's (Ti4600). It's true .. I've seen it with my own eyes.
That said, next to regaining the performance crown from the competition nVIDIA absolutely felt the pressure and took good note of the negative feedback you guys broadcasted on site's like Guru3D.com Therefore they switched to a cooling solution that unfortunately is still somewhat too big (takes up one AGP and PCI slot) yet is by far more silent compared to the FlowFX cooling solution we saw on the 5800 Ultra.
So nVIDIA is definitely back on track and are performance wise exactly where they should be with this product. I can highly recommend the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra to any high-end user, but not to anyone else though! Let me explain. If you play your games at 1024x768x32 or have an LCD screen then just skip this product .. go for a 5600 Ultra or another less competitive product. You will save a lot of money ! This product is for the true geeks, people that need raw power in the highest resolution with quality settings enabled. That means 1600x1200x32 with Anti Aliasing enabled at 4x and Anisotropic filtering enabled at 8x. That's where this product rocks and if this appeals to you then this product is right for you. Clear and simple. Do you play at lower resolutions and do not care about AA and AF ? Then forget about it as you'd pay a lot of money for performance you'd never see. The card will cost you 499 USD, in Europe even more due to higher taxes.
Oh and for the users that bought (where able to buy) a GeForce FX 5800 Ultra with FlowFX ... hang on to it. Only a few thousand models where shipped and this 5900 Ultra will completely replace the 5800 Ultra product, its official now it'll be exterminated. Why do I say hang on to it ? The product will become a collector's item in a few years from now. Also let me once again state .. the 5800 Ultra is not a bad product at all !
Alright, this review is getting too long already, congratulations to nVIDIA for getting back the performance lead. Two thumbs up for listening to the public about FlowFX. This is a product I can recommend by heart.
ATH ~~
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* As stated earlier in this review: in a later stage we will include additional Image Quality tests and DVD playback quality images.
Still here ? That pays off .. on the next page we'll have a litlle bonus waiting for you :)
