Technical data

GeForce FX 5900
Only a few months after the introduction of the pre-
vious top model, the 0.13µ GeFo r ce FX 5800
( N V 3 0 ) , NVIDIA replaced the heavily criticized card
(loud cooling solution, great heat dissipation, too low
m e m o r y bandwidth) with the FX 5900 (NV35). I n
addition to re-designing the re f e r ence cooling solu-
tion so it is much quieter, NVIDIA also decided to
d rop the ve r y hot DDR II memory on this card ,
instead widening the memory bus to 256 bits. 3 D
f e a t u r es saw only minor improvements or twe a k s
(Color Compression and floating-point perform a n c e,
U l t r a S h a d ow feature ) . Of note is the fact that the FX
5900 Ultra chip is clocked 50MHz slower than the
FX 5800 Ultra. In exchange, the memory bandwidth
grew from 16.7 GB/s to a ve r y impre s s i ve 27.2
G B / s . The number of transistors also increased slight-
l y, f r om about 125 million to 130 million.
O b v i o u s l y, the FX 5900 Ultra is the fastest card of
the fa m i l y. Since the Ultra ve rsion is only ava i l a ble in
a 256 MB configuration, it is also the most expensive
of the bu n c h . 128 MB and a lower price might have
made more sense in making the card more attractive.
The non-Ultra ve rsion runs at slightly lower clock
s p e e d s , while the GeFo r ce FX 5900 XT seems to
offer the best price to performance ratio.A l t h o u g h
running at lower frequencies than the two fa s t e r
m o d e l s , it offers the full feature set.
Versions:
GeForceFX 5900 XT - 128 MB - 256-bit -
400/700 MHz
GeForceFX 5900 - 128 MB - 256 Bit - 400/850
MHz
GeForceFX 5900 Ultra - 256 MB - 256-bit -
450/850 MHz
Articles:
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graph-
ic/20030512/index.html
NVIDIA’s Current Product Family
GeForce FX 5500
The GeForce FX 5500 is based on the FX 5200.
Aside from the change in clock speeds there are no
known differences.
Versions:
GeForce FX 5500 - 128/256 MB - 64-/128-bit
- 270/400 MHz
GeForce FX 5700
The GeForce FX 5700 series is based on the
GeForce FX 5950 (NV38), but is cut down to four
pixel pipelines. It features the same number of ver-
tex shader units as its bigger brother, though.
During the product cycle, NVIDIA refined the
Ultra version of the FX 5700, giving it GDDR 3
memory.
Versions:
GeForce 5700 LE - 64/128MB - 64-/128-bit -
400/500 MHz
GeForce 5700 - 128/256MB - 64-/128-bit -
425/550 MHz
GeForce 5700 Ultra - 128MB - 128-bit -
475/900 MHz
GeForce 5700 Ultra - 128MB GDDR3 - 128-
bit - 475/950 MHz
Articles:
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graph-
ic/20040405/index.html
GeForce FX 5950
The NV38, or GeForce FX 5950, is a further
refinement of the NV35 architecture.The main
improvement in this case is the higher clock speeds,
as the card was meant to be an answer to ATI’s
Radeon 9800 XT.
Versions:
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra - 256MB - 256-bit -
475/950 MHz
Articles:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graph-
ic/20031023/index.html
GeForce PCX 5300/5750/5900
The GeForce PCX series is NVIDIA‘s first product
line for the PCI Express interface. The cards are
based on the existing AGP versions, and the model
numbers compare as follows: PCX 5300 = GeForce
4 MX, PCX 5750 = FX 5700, PCX 5900 = FX
5900. Note that the PCI Express versions run at
different clock speeds from the AGP versions, how-
ever!
THG Graphics Card
Buyers Guide
17