Well, this time you don't actually need an 'Intro' column because it has already been "said" in the technical review of NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra (NV35) Graphics Adapter in the HARDWARE LABORATORY department on this site. So, first of all, it's recommended to read the technical review here. To know the details of the drivers setup (it's strongly recommended for you to know the exact video card configuration) for the video chip before seeing its tested in this department, read the article 'NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 (NV35) Drivers Setup' in the SOFTWARE EXCLUSIVE department - here. After reading these articles, you are fully "equipped" with all the required knowledge for this benchmark testing.
First, let's take a look at the testing configuration.
Processor - Intel Pentium 4 3066
MHz (HT=ON)
Mainboard - ASUS P4G8X (iE7205)
RAM Memory - 1024 MB DDR SDRAM Memory;
Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda IV 40GB;
Software Environment - Windows XP SP1;
DirectX 9.0a.
Monitors -
Drivers Configuration - NVIDIA Detonator FX
44.03 (VSync - off, textures compression in applications - off)
The following video chips' results are provided for a comparison analysis:
Reference card NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800 Ultra
(500/500 (1000 DDR) MHz, 128 MB)
ATI RADEON 9800 PRO (380/340 (680 DDR) MHz, 128 MB, driver
6.307)
Graphics Performance
As the video core was not changed (since the release of NV30). I will illustrate only the main peculiarities of the new graphics chip (I mean NV35).
| Settings | Quake3 Screenshots |
|---|---|
| Example 1 | |
| Bilinear, Quality |
 |
| Trilinear, Quality |
 |
| Trilinear, Performance |
 |
| Trilinear, High Performance |
 |
| Example 2 | |
|---|---|
| Trilinear, Quality |
|
| Trilinear, Performance |
|
| Trilinear, High Performance |
|
It should be admitted that NV35 is, at this moment, the fastest graphics adapter. The following has to be said:
Although
NV35 showed some results that were worse than the ones shown by ATI Radeon
9800 Pro, it's the fastest playing video card at the moment. And, as it
was tested with the new Detonator FX Drivers (I wrote about it's release
in the Software Department recently). It will remain the king in the world
of video adapters at least until the release of NV40/R400.
It's important that NV35 is NOT an
ADDITION to the unlucky NV30 series, it's a SUBSTITUTION of it...Although
NV*5 chips have always been an addition to NV*0 series, NV35 is a
self-dependent type. Is he alright enough for that ? Well, 256-bit local
memory bus is provided but the core remain unchanged.
This video card is an ideal sample
for the mass distribution that many manufacturers have waited for (unlike
NV30).
NVIDIA should be sorry really for the
customers that bout their NV30 graphics adapter. It's quite fast anyway so
should be alright. Its disadvantages are that the price you pay for its
quality is too high and that the cooling system (FX Flow) was very noisy.
Thanks to NVIDIA, it was optimized and fixed.
(Thanks to iXBT Team for help in preparing these benchmark testing !)
Published on 10.02.03 21:25 GMT
