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MSI nBox N5900 Ultra-VTD256: We take a look at MSI's flagship FX card. Dubbed the nBox, it packs in the goodies, and is backed up by the killer FX5900 GPU. |
| Date: |
October 8, 2003 |
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| Written By: |
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| Price: |
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Direct X Benchmarks
First lets look at everybody's favorite DirectX benchmark, UT2003. The graphical quality of this game are not at the absolute highest level anymore but are still a very good for current games. It can still bring current graphics hardware to its knees, so how does this top of the line card do in this test. Note that the test is only the flyby, as the botmatch is mostly CPU limited still. So lets look at 1024*768 at high quality.
| Video Card |
Minimum FPS |
Average FPS |
Maximum FPS |
| MSI FX5900 Ultra Oc'd: |
90.10924 |
149.90 |
200.5383 |
| MSI FX5900 Ultra: |
90.07781 |
150.59 |
206.8467 |
| MSI FX5900: |
N/A |
157.33 |
N/A |
| Radeon 9800 Pro AiW: |
N/A |
161.65 |
N/A |
| Matrox Parhelia: |
61.14269 |
77.28 |
94.7638 |
| Radeon 9000 AiW: |
43.6987 |
57.46 |
77.14979 |
Here we see a bit of a discrepancy between the two systems. The other test system, with the FX5900 and the 9800 Pro performs better in this CPU limited test, at least it is for most of the cards. Clock speed of the FX5900 series means nothing in this test as the overclocked version is only as fast as the stock clocked version of the card. The Parhelia and the Radeon 9000 don't fair as well in this test, but the Parhelia still offers frame rates over 60fps even at a minimum so that is still playable in most peoples books. What about adding AA and ansio as usual?
| Video Card |
Minimum FPS |
Average FPS |
Maximum FPS |
| MSI FX5900 Ultra Oc'd: |
84.92226 |
123.17 |
155.8243 |
| MSI FX5900 Ultra: |
85.71924 |
115.12 |
155.4476 |
| MSI FX5900: |
N/A |
104.53 |
N/A |
| Radeon 9800 Pro AiW: |
N/A |
109.30 |
N/A |
| Matrox Parhelia: |
27.89434 |
36.93 |
60.35887 |
| Radeon 9000 AiW: |
10.72575 |
14.62 |
23.98148 |
The cards show more of a difference in this test. Much like in Serious Sam SE the Parhelia and Radeon 9000 have about a 1/3rd or even less of the frame rate of the FX5900 series. Compared to the regular FX5900 the speed increase is very nice from 10-17%, and a 5-13% increase compared to the Radeon 9800 AiW. Apart from the Parhelia and the Radeon 9000 AiW all of the other cards are playable at these settings.
| Video Card |
Minimum FPS |
Average FPS |
Maximum FPS |
| MSI FX5900 Ultra Oc'd: |
88.58468 |
124.62 |
155.6165 |
| MSI FX5900 Ultra: |
99.44684 |
113.61 |
137.6611 |
| MSI FX5900: |
N/A |
100.91 |
N/A |
| Radeon 9800 Pro AiW: |
N/A |
90.51 |
N/A |
| Matrox Parhelia: |
26.83351 |
33.85 |
50.29846 |
| Radeon 9000 AiW: |
15.99292 |
24.14 |
43.83663 |
The results here are very similar to the results with AA and ansio. The FX5900 series seems to have a step up on the ATi Radeon 9800 card in this test, as even the regular FX5900 is faster than the Radeon 9800 AiW. Again the Parhelia and the Radeon 9000 Pro do not provide what most people would consider playable frame rates. The minimum frame rate of the FX5900 Ultra is still far above a 60fps minimum. What are the results with AA and ansiotropic filtering enabled here?
| Video Card |
Minimum FPS |
Average FPS |
Maximum FPS |
| MSI FX5900 Ultra Oc'd: |
46.92379 |
59.14 |
77.09355 |
| MSI FX5900 Ultra: |
38.38597 |
52.56 |
85.93354 |
| MSI FX5900: |
N/A |
38.06 |
N/A |
| Radeon 9800 Pro AiW: |
N/A |
51.95 |
N/A |
| Matrox Parhelia: |
12.68326 |
16.72 |
30.68432 |
What are the results that we see? To be honest none of the video cards we have here managed to reach a average frame rate of 60fps. The FX5900 Ultra when overclocked to 514/964 we managed to just get slightly above 60fps as an average. Looking at the results here we see the regular FX5900 runs out of steam, having a lower frame rate by a fair bit than the FX5900 Ultra. The stock speed FX5900 Ultra is ever so slightly faster than the Radeon 9800 Pro, basically about 1% which can be considered within the error range of the test. Now lets look at a game that is a fair bit more demanding, Splinter Cell.
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