3D Blaster 5 FX5900 Ultra review - Page 3 - inside the Box and Installation

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 08/04/2003 06:00 AM [ ] 0 comment(s)

UltraShadow Technology
One of the newer features that became available with the release of the NV35 series was UltraShadow technology. Basically it can now render more accurate shadows by maintaining the interactions of various lights sources and 3D objects while remaining efficient and thus gives good performance. The more passes that are required for the lighting and shadow calculations for example, scenes that involve multiple light sources and many physical objects in sight the more significant the performance improvement, with the most complex scenes achieving the most noticeable results.

UltraShadow enables a Higher Quality somewhat cinematic experience in games. Games like the Upcoming Doom III will use it.

What's in the box
A trend nowadays that I notice a lot is that we see less and less software in the box. It makes sense as manufacturers try to sell the the more expensive line-up as cheap as possible. Including software and anything additional costs money and thus raises the price. Creative Labs Europe is following that trend as they are trying to bring this product to the European market for the best possible/acceptable price.

We see a driver CD and the game GunMetal. Furthermore we'll see a quick installation guide and a power supply connector cable (Molex). That's it my friends. What i'm tring to say here is this, the Geforce FX 5900 Ultra already is a very expensive product, Creative likely did the right thing here. Keep it simple as it's all about the product and cut additional costs.

You can click on any photo to enlarge it towards 1024x768 high-resolution

Installation
It's really not hard to install a graphics card yourself nowadays. Especially with brands like ATI and NVIDIA who use unified driver sets. If you have a really new product then make sure you have the latest drivers on your HD. Insert the graphics card, boot up windows, run the driver installation, then restart and you are set to go.

The first thing I noticed when I powered up the test-system was the fact that the cooling fan was much more quiet compared to the reference model. I mean, the reference model already was very acceptable compared towards the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra, this one is just down right silent which is very nice to see (hear).

Let's go look at some photo's shall we ..

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Creative Labs 3D Blaster 5 FX5900 Review
Today's review ladies and gentlemen is based on the GeForce FX 5900, not the Ultra model, just the 5900. Basically this is the entry model in the high-end graphics card series. That means a better price but still awesome performance.

3D Blaster 5 FX5900 Ultra review
It has been a while since we tested a graphics card from Creative Labs Europe, make no mistake. They are still very active on the European market. And while Creative Asia and North America are selling ATI Radeon based products right now the lineup from Creative Europe still is based on nVIDIA products. From that nVIDIA line-up they granted us with the honor of testing their top-of-the-line 3D Blaster 5 FX5900 Ultra.