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
Our introduction to NV36 in the form of the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra has really been a different experience than we expected. We thought we would see similar gains on the 5600 that we saw the 5950 make over the 5900. We also didn't expect NVIDIA to drop the veil they've had on the technical aspects of their products.
From the first benchmark we ran, we knew this would turn out to be a very interesting turn of events. In going down to San Francisco for NVIDIA's Editor's Day event, we had planned on inquiring about just how they were able to extract the performance gains we will reveal in our benchmarks. We got more than we had bargained for when we arrived.
For the past few years, graphics companies haven't been very open about how they build their chips. The fast paced six month product cycle and highly competitive atmosphere (while good for consumers) hasn't been very conducive to in depth discussions of highly protected trade secrets. That's why we were very pleasantly surprised when we learned that NVIDIA would be dropping their guard and letting us in on the way NV35 (including NV36 and NV38) actually works. This also gives us insight into the entire NV3x line of GPUs, and, hopefully, gives us a glimpse into the near future of NVIDIA hardware as well.
Aside from divulging a good amount of technical information, NVIDIA had plenty of developers present (a response to ATI’s Shader Day, no doubt). For the purposes of this article, I would like to stick to the architectural aspects of the day rather than analyzing NVIDIA developer relations. It isn't a secret that NVIDIA spends a great deal of time, energy, and money on assisting game developers in achieving their graphical goals. But we believe that "the proof is in the pudding" so to speak. The important thing to us (and we hope to the general public) isn't which developers like and dislike working with an IHV, but the quality of the end product both parties produce. Truth be told, it is the developer's job to create software that works well on all popular platforms, and its the IHV's job to make sure there is sufficient technical support available for developers to get their job done.
We should note that NVIDIA is launching both the NV36 (GeForce FX 5700 Ultra) and the NV38 (GeForce FX 5950 Ultra) today, but since we have already covered the 5950 in our previous roundups we will focus on the 5700 Ultra exclusively today.
First let us look at the card itself.
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Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
The review at Extreme Tech lines up with Anadtechs review. Both on FPS and IQ. Im still checking out other reviews on other sites though. So far it seems to me that there anrt any worthy problems with AT's review.Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
It's so sad that when ATi might have real competition in the midrange, the fanATIcs are still out in full force, labeling any site that doesn't trash nVidia as "biased" and "bought".And when in the blue hell has having an ad from a company meant the site is biased? THG, for example, has AMD, Intel, ATi, nVidia, and XGI ads on its pages. Ads are how sites make money.
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
Some of you guys have to get out more.Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
face fact girls who keep complaining. from what i see, both ati and nvidia both make great cards. buy whichever suits your needs.Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
Whats going on with that Ti4200 on homeworld 2!!!!Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
jesus, fanatics get all pissy if their card loses in FPS tests... you act like every consumer who reads this review will be swayed into believing that NV sells a superior midrange card... its obvious that the "ATI v NV" battle is personal to u... my only question is why? are you guys trying to justify your purchases by bashing something that poses a threat? personally, i dont let hardware sites choose what i buy... i often times purchase 2 contending cards, and take it upon myself to determine which is better... the winner stays in my machine, the loser goes back to where it came from...Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
Kyle is just pissed he didnt get invited to NVIDIA's editorial day (or he didnt get paid enough to go to Editorial Day), while NVIDIA probably just canceled an advertisement deal with Tom.Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
#10: ATI ads are in the same article on the right sidE!!!!Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
Well I am going to read the 5950 review in this site. If the comments section will be this lame, that will be my last...Sorry, but the gfx card reviews are getting worse and worse in each review.. No in depth analysis, no IQ comparisons.. At the end, given the frame rates, I still believe that 9600XT is a better card than 5700 given that that card has almost %60 of the bandwidth that 5700 has and still beats it in most of the AA tests.
I appreciate the amount of work here, but if you can not do it right, that do not do it..
Best,
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 23, 2003 - link
#28 sorry but i was in a big hurry.