Micro-Star
International has teamed up with old faithful NVIDIA to once again
form a solid tag team, and at just under four bills a pop, this
seat isn't for the faint of heart. It's safe to say that high-end
cards aren't cheap these days, but MSI does well in giving you
the most bang for your buck by including a plethora of goodies
along with your card (we'll get to those in just a bit).
The
FX5900 benefits from the several NV35 key improvements over it's
predecessor, the NV30 (a.k.a FX5800). Toping this list is the
256-bit memory interface, which theoretically doubles the data
bandwidth per clock cycle. Running a close second is the change
over from high-clocked DDRII memory in favor of the cooler and
less expensive traditional DDR memory. Today we'll be looking
at the non-Ultra MSI
FX5900-VTD128, so without further ado, let's take a look at
what's under the hood.
Features
The
CineFX 2.0 engine gives us the ability to enjoy the same picture
quality that we've come to expect at our local movie theatres.
Microsoft's DirectX and the OpenGL environments each have their
features extensively supported by CineFX 2.0, so it doesn't matter
which library your app uses. Of particular interest to the programming
community are the advances afforded by CineFX 2.0 in coding those
complex pixel 2.0+ and vertex 2.0+ shader programs, which will
essentially make writing that code less frustrating.
For
those of us that love tweaking those AA/AF settings, Intellisample
High Compression Technology performance is a welcome addition
to the family. A nice touch is the new 6XS antialiasing setting
accessible via the control panel. Not sure what resolution you
want? Don't sweat it; all AA modes are available at all resolutions.
To make things even better, the compression really kicks in at
higher resolutions. As for the Anisotropic engine, it's designed
to be adaptive which improves performance by kicking in only as
needed.
Ultrashadow
is the new kid on the block. Shadow calculations can now focus
on specific areas deemed critical by the programmer. This essentially
accelerates shadow generation by not calculating shadows in places
that shouldn't have any to begin with. Bottom line here is complex
shadow patterns with minimal to no adverse effects while you continue
to enjoy high frame rates.
Here
are some features afforded by the Advanced Display Pipeline with
full nView capabilities. Integrated NTSC/PAL TV-encoder for some
top-notch TV-out functionality. High-quality HDTV/DVD playback
along with dual 400MHz RAMDACs to display resolutions up to and
including 2048 x 1536 @ 85Hz. Not to mention full screen, full
frame-rate MPEG-2 video to your desktop courtesy of it's integrated
full hardware MPEG II decoder.
Digital
Vibrance Control 3.0 technology makes for a much more comfortable
and controlled viewing experience. With a click and drag of just
a few sliders, color intensity, image sharpness and color separation
settings are now configurable at our discretion. So we can now
adjust the crispness and clarity of our 2D desktop applications,
which should mean less cursing at those cursed spreadsheet.
As
you'll notice in the chart just above, two of NVDIA's technologies
have been given a facelift. CineFX has been upped to version 2.0
and Intellisample has been revamped to include the High Compression
Technology (HCT). The familiar nView technology and AGP 8X support
that we've come to expect are still around. A welcome addition
to the team is the Ultrashadow technology, while the maximum memory
and vertices/sec have each risen since the 5200 line.
MSI
FX5900-VTD128
First
off let's decode the name GeForce FX5900-VTD128. Without stating
the obvious, VTD128 stands for Video-In, TV-Out, Dual Monitor
and 128MB of DDR memory. This behemoth measures in a at a staggering
12" x 18" x 3", so you're getting plenty of real
estate with this box. The 11 CD's bundled with the card contain
full versions of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, The Elder Scrolls III
: Morrowind, Duke Nukem : Manhatten Project and a trial 7 games
in 1 CD. As far as utilities go, MSI Media Center, Virtual Drive
7 Pro, Restore It 3 Pro, MSI 5.1 Channel DVD player and a host
of MSI home made apps round out the list.
Although
we feel it would have been nice to go with quality (read : newer)
rather than quantity, the games are classics none the less. If
you're worried about putting yourself over budget with this purchase,
keep in mind you could easily sell the box as a briefcase or nightstand.
Oh, did we mention there's an extra power connector, a notepad
and some I/O goodies with that? (we'll get to the I/O stuff in
just a sec).
Sporting
their trademark red PCB along with the Twin Flow cooling system,
MSI brings two words to mind with this card: eye candy. The system
consists of one massive cooler-fan combo on the front (first shot)
and another smaller one on the back (second shot). The card itself
is equipped with 128MB DDR memory and a molex connector to power
the cooling system. As we saw with the FX5800, NVIDIA has continued
on with the 0.13u process for their NV35.
Combined,
the top (first shot) and the bottom (second shot) cooling-fan
units make up MSI's modified Twin Flow cooling system. Normally
bigger would mean louder but with 26db less fan noise than NVIDIA's
reference board, that's not the case here. Another Twin Flow improvement
over the NVIDIA reference board is a drop of 8°C which will
come in handy for OC'ing.
Once
the molex connector is attached, the splitter (third shot) then
re-directs power to the two fan-cooling units. Although it might
seem to be, the thin sleek looking card is not a one slot solution,
as the top fan-cooler does slightly overlap with the PCI slot.
It is possible that there may be a tight fit between the rear
cooler-fan unit and the northbridge on some older motherboards.
Right
to left, we have the traditional DB-15 VGA connector, a TV-Out
/ Video-In (S-Video) connector and a DVI-I connector. Included
are a TV-Out / Video-In 1 to 4 connecting cable for multiple devices,
S-Video extension (1.8M) and for you dual monitor enthusiasts
a DVI-I / VGA adapter.
Test
Setup
ABIT
IS7 Max II Advance:
Pentium 4 2.4C (12x200: 2.4GHz), 2 x 256MB Corsair TWINX PC3200
Ram, ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, 80GB Western Digital, Windows XP SP1,
ATi Catalyst 3.4.
ABIT
IS7 Max II Advance:
Pentium 4 2.4C (12x200: 2.4GHz), 2 x 256MB Corsair TWINX PC3200
Ram, MSI FX5900-VTD128, 80GB Western Digital, Windows XP SP1,
Detonator FX 44.03.
Test
Software will be:
Unreal
Tournament 2003
Jedi Knight 2
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Splinter Cell
Code Creatures
Specviewperf
The
comparison video card will be the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro. Benchmarks
will be shown with and without AntiAliasing and Aninsotropic Filtering.
Due
to the fact that the ATI 9700 Pro is not designed to do some AntiAliasing
testing that the FX5900 can, we'll be presenting those benchmarks
at the end of each game test. Of course, same can be said, cards
reversed (no 16x Anisotropic Filtering for example), and we will
not be presenting those ATI numbers since you can read about that
in our All-In-Wonder review.
