AOpen Aeolus FX 5900 XT review - Page 2 - Introducing GeForce FX 5900 XT

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 01/07/2004 09:00 AM [ ] 0 comment(s)

A reference based card and a really heavy duty cooling solution are the first two things that come to mind when opening the box. Basically a standard FX 5900 with a tad slower memory and core and of course 'only' has 128 MB memory yet is using that excellent 256-bit memory bus thus leaves heaps of memory bandwidth, this is a value GeForce FX 5900. Make no mistake .. this is the 256-bit version. Will there be a significant performance decrease over the high end models ? We'll we're gonna find that out, aren't we?

Specifications & Features

256-bit Memory Architecture 128MB of DDR memory
2nd Generation compression & caching
Intellisample HCT (High Compression Technology)
UltraShadow Technology
CineFX 2.0 Engine
0.13um Fabrication Process
Much more silent cooling solution than FlowFX
Core clock speed of 390 MHz
Memory frequency 700 MHz (2x350).

The 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. First uninstall your current graphics cards drivers carefully, this is very important especially if the older graphics was from a different chipset manufacturer. Now power down the PC and pull out the power cable. Insert the graphics card in the slot, secure it with a screw, connect the monitor and boot up windows, run the driver installation, then restart and you are set to go. That's all. Also important, make sure you have the latest version of DirectX (9) installed.

Below, you can notice the differences between the FX 5900XT and the 'normal' high end FX 5900 model. There's quite a big difference in memory bandwidth that will definitely demand its toll. However thanks to that 256-bit memory interface we can see a fantastic memory bandwidth at 22.4 GB/sec MB/sec.

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 that manufacturers try to sell the product as cheap as possible as cards have gone into the deep end, price wise.

Including software raises the price, it's as simple as that. AOpen follows that trend, you get the basics and nothing more.

A driver CD with additional technology demos and one free application, InterVideo WinCinema. Next to it we can find a DVI->CRT dongle (to be used for dual monitor's with both CRT connection) and a SVideo to composite output cable. That's it folks.

GeForce FX 5900 XT

Name	FX 5900	FX 5900XT
Codename	NV35	NV35
Core Clock	400/425 MHz	390
Memory Clock	425 MHz	350
Memory Interface	256-bit DDR2	256-bit DDR
Frame Buffer Size	128 MB	256 MB
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)	25.6	22.4
Vertices/sec	300 Million	262
Thermal	Silent, single-slot Fansink	Silent, single-slot Fansink

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AOpen Aeolus FX 5900 XT review
The product we will review today is the new NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 XT. I say new because it's fresh in the Quarter 4 lineup from NVIDIA. BTW NVIDIA, copycatting is not really a nice thing, the XT obviously has been chosen to compete with the Radeon 9x00 XT series of graphics cards.