This
new Nvidia GeForce FX 5950 Ultra uses the NV38 core used in
the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra for top-of-the-line graphic cards.
This is really an updated GeForce FX 5900 Ultra graphics card
with increased core clock speed to 475MHz and increased memory
clock speed to 475MHz for a larger memory bandwidth. These
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra cards come with 256MB of memory.
Reference and Comparison Guide:
| |
GeForce
FX 5950 Ultra
256MB
|
GeForce
FX 5900 Ultra
256MB
|
ATI
Radeon 9800 XT
256MB
|
ATI
Radeon 9800 Pro
256MB
|
| Manufacturing
process |
0.13
micron
|
0.13
micron
|
0.15
micron
|
0.15
micron
|
| Chip
technology |
256-bit
|
256-bit
|
256-bit
|
256-bit
|
| Transistor
count |
130
million
|
130
million
|
107
million
|
107
million
|
| Core
clock speed. |
475MHz
|
450MHz
|
412MHz
|
380MHz
|
| Memory
clock speed. |
475MHz
(DDR=950MHz)
|
4250MHz
(DDR950MHz)
|
365MHz
(DDR=730MHz)
|
350MHz
(DDR=700MHz)
|
| Memory
Bus width |
256-bit
DDR
|
256-bit
DDR
|
256-bit
DDR / DDR-II
|
128-bit
DDR
|
| Memory
bandwidth. |
30.4GB/sec
|
27.2GB/sec
|
23.4GB/sec
|
22.4GB/sec
|
| Rendering
Pixel pipelines. |
16
|
16
|
8
|
8
|
| Texture
units per pipeline. |
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
| Textures
per Texture unit |
16
|
16
|
8
|
8
|
| Pixel
fill rate. |
Colour+Z
1.9Gpixels/sec
|
Colour+Z
1.8Gpixels/sec
|
3.1Gpixels/sec
|
3.1Gpixels/sec
|
| Vertex
shader units. |
FP
Array
|
FP
Array
|
4
|
4
|
| Colour
bits per channel |
10
|
10
|
10
|
10
|
| AGP
4x/8X |
Yes
+ DX9
|
Yes
+ DX9
|
Yes
+ DX9
|
Yes
+ DX9
|
| Max
displays/Ramdacs |
2/2
|
2/2
|
2/2
|
2/2
|
The GeForce FX 5950 Ultra has a new more efficient and quieter
cooling heatsink system to keep the core cool while the memory
chips have a cooling plate fitted to them. The GeForce FX 5950
Ultra of course needs two slots to install. The heatsink fitted
on top of the core now follows top performance heatsinks for
processors and has a radial fan blowing the hot air out.
The reverse side of the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra also has a heatsink
over the memory. All this makes the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra somewhat
heavy.
The connector for the additional power supply on the top right
of the card.
It continues to become more important to ensure that the air
coming into your PC computer case is filtered to stop the worst
of the dirt and dust which will not only block the small gaps
between heatsink fins on your GeForce FX 5950 Ultra but also
build up an insulating layer on them.
Nvidia GeForce FX 5950 Ultra graphics card performance comparison
graph.
This simple graph shows you the performance you can expect from
the Nvidia GeForce FX 5950 Ultra compared to similar competing
graphics cards at 1024 x 768. Unreal Tournament No AA/AF and
4xAF/No AA. Warcraft III No AA/AF and 4xAA/8xAF.
Performance is much as anticipated from the specifications in
our table for the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra depending on the application
being run. It shows up clearly the substantial difference between
the top of the range graphics cards and the main stream versions.
Nvidia GeForce FX 5950 Ultra comments. All in all the
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra offers fine performance for a top quality
graphics card ensuring Nvidia are up in the top bracket.
We avoid commenting on picture quality because it depends on
so many factors of which the picture quality of your monitor
and how you have it adjusted is very important and then there
are all the different filter setting variations you can choose
between. The benefit of all these recent improvements in graphics
card performance mean that we can now run with filtering on
and still get very good frame rates.
Looking at choice again one is spoilt. As we said in our earlier
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra review we would recommend looking at the
price for the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro if you are looking to buy
a new graphics card because it offers the best value-for-money
and super performance. After that for value-for-money if the
9700 Pro is too high for your budget then look at the price
of the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro which again will offer really great
value-for-money and decent performance.
One can only wonder what the performance will be in say a year
from now or dare one think of a couple of years.
We thank: A1 Electronics.net computer hardware reviews & computer
news.
www.a1-electronics.net
