The Last Bout of ‘03 – NVIDIA’s GeForce FX 5700 Ultra
by Derek Wilson on October 23, 2003 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
After testing the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, we have been very pleasantly surprised by NVIDIA. We mentioned last week that the 5700's new architecture might help to close the gap. In fact, NVIDIA has flipped the tables on ATI in the midrange segment and takes the performance crown with a late round TKO. It was a hard fought battle with many ties, but in the games where the NV36 based card took the performance lead, it lead with the style of a higher end card.
We are still recommending that people stay away from upgrading to a high end card until the game they are upgrading for is available. By that time, either new cards will have trickled out, or the prices will have fallen. We still don't have a way to predict what card will be best for you in the future. If you are dead set on getting a DX9 card, we recommend you look to the midrange cards.
Neither card can touch the 9700 Pro for price/performance right now. If the 9700 Pro is in your price range and you're looking for a better than midrange performer for a near midrange price, go ahead and pick one up.
The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra will be debuting at $199 after a mail in rebate. If $200 is your hard limit, and you need a midrange card right now, the 5700 Ultra is the way to go if you want solid frame rates.
If $200 is still a bit much, the Radeon 9600 Pro is a very healthy option; we have yet to see how the non-Ultra 5700 performs as it may also deserve some attention once it hits the streets.
What will also determine our recommendations in this segment is what clock speeds add-in card vendors actually ship the products at. We’ll be keeping an eye on that and update our recommendations accordingly.
Of course, we still have more to come in the form of image quality analysis. Our findings in that arena will affect what we recommend just as much as pure speed. Stay tuned for more.
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Anonymous User - Saturday, October 25, 2003 - link
The irregularities ATi's drivers allegedly display in AquaMark 3 and UT2003 require further investigation. Factors such as image quality, driver reliability, and compatibility are hard to convey in a review anyway.this is from tom
so to al the ati lovers here go #"&' yourself
a few weeks/months ago you guys said that nvidia cheated
and now ati does you still have a big mouth
no i am not an nvidia lover
i am de performance lover ( for me ati maybe change with the nv 40) but you guys AAAARRRGGGGHHHH
btw i havent read page 4 and 5 too busy
Anonymous User - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
Speaking of the Hardocp review. I did notice on the intial review at nvnews that their screen shot of Halo shows the blinking lights in the hallways that Hardocp said were not there. They are using the 5950 and the latest drivers, so it would seem one of the two sites made a booboo.Anonymous User - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
Excuse me, but if a review without an IQ comparions is ok, why even care about video cards at all? If image quality isn't important because yu cant really notice it in games, go buy yourself a geforce3 and knock yourself out, since it will play everything fine and you dont have to worry about image quality because you can even turn it up, how about that?And you dont need to zoom in anything to see Nvidia's new filtering method which is now, worse than ATI's. The bilinear filtering is ESPECIALLY noticeable in motion and causes the same kind of effect that aliasing does. Go look in the hardocp for yourself, especially in nascar and flight sim
Anonymous User - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
Wow. Anyone who whines about people demanding actual image quality comparisons is certainly NOT a gamer, or at least not one with decent hardware and eyes.I'll school all of your asses at UT and I'm damn sure not going to do it with dynamic detail reduction(TM), not for $200 or more.
If the IQ differences between the cards are so minimal, why is it readily obvious when playing FS2004 and TR:AOD and UT2003 which card you're playing on? I'll tell you why:
Because the ground textures on FS2004 look like crap, and trilinear filtering DOES NOT WORK AT ALL AFTER THE FIRST STAGE, REGARDLESS OF APPLICATION OR DRIVER CONTROL SETTINGS in D3D with the FX family.
Instead, we get slightly improved bilinear that looks visually inferior to trilinear by a mile.
And you know what?
It's a lot EASIER to see WHEN YOU"RE PLAYING THE GAME, because the texture 'horizon' is always moving.
Not that anyone who's fawning over AT would know. An FX5200 ain't gonna show you son.
Anonymous User - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
watchu' talkin'bout willis?!watchu' talkin'bout willis?!
watchu' talkin'bout willis?!
WooDaddy - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
#62, Live, I agree.Derek, thanks for the review. I really liked the fact that the Ti4200 was included. REALLY helpful. I think I can hold out for a while. If not, the ATI 9700PRO will be considered.
Jeff7181 - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
Ok... I checked out the other reviews... and HardOCP's results differ from AT's... but Tom's look pretty much the same.AT did come up with a different conclusion though, saying the FX5700 is a better buy than the 9600XT. And I agree. I know many of you will get your shorts in a knot about this, but ATI's driver quality still isn't up to par with nVidia's. A friend of mine has had nothing but trouble getting his 9800 Pro to work correctly.
In my opinion, ATI will have to take a hefty lead in the performance area to make up for the driver problems to get their card into my rig.
Jeff7181 - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
I'll have to take a look at the reviews by other sites... but personally, on my Aopen FX5900 @ 490/950, everything looks great. The quality is better than the 45.23's in my opinion. Taking a look at a still picture that is blown up 400X to compare individual pixels is stupid. What might look worse pixel per pixel may look better at normal size, frame by frame.Anonymous User - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
ok..5700ultra seems fine... but i bought 5600ultra 1-2 months ago... what will happen to me... ????:(
Anonymous User - Friday, October 24, 2003 - link
i think we need a butt pirate joke right about now