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 - 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.