Now that I have the goodies taken care of, lets plug the Apogee FX 71 in and get it all connected. As you can see, she takes up some room, and I almost forgot to plug in the external power source. Doh. Once fired up, I notice that there is a blue diode in there, imagine that, it matches my case too.

Unreal Tournament 2003

First up is the UT 2003 benchmarking scripts that we use from using the high quality batch run at 1024 and 1280 resolutions. Maps chosen are Antalus, Inferno, and Citadel. We will cycle thorough the AA/AF settings.

Antulus @ 1024, Max Detail

Antulus @ 1280, Max Detail

The Apogee FX71 performs well at 1024x768, as long as you don't go above 2xAA/8xAF. There is always room to tweak out some extra FPS, but if you are tweaking to gain FPS to use 2xAA/8xAF, you are losing what you are trying to gain.

Inferno @ 1024, Max Detail

Splinter Cell

So now we try to kill our video cards, Splinter Cell (using the ) is probably the hardest current release out there for graphics cards. This will give us a look into what future games have in store for the 5600 Ultra, as they will be as hard, if not harder on it.

Splinter Cell, 1024x768, Max Detail

Splinter Cell, 1280x1024, Max Detail

Both of the cards struggle here. To make Splinter Cell playable, you will have to run at 8x6 or tweak the ever living crap out of it. This does not bode well for future games, as the 5600 Ultra does not have much room for growth here.

Overclocking

Overclocking should net you some extra performance, but beware of the risks. Never jump straight to the highest overclock, and make sure you move up a little at a time. Like the XFX FX5600 is there are two clock speeds depending on what you are doing. Stock 2D speed is 235MHz Core/800MHz Memory, while the 3D speed is bumped up to 400/800.

There isn't really much point in overclocking the 2D, so concentrating on the 3D, we managed a final overclock of 435/870. We managed an OC to 440/875, but the system wasn't stable enough for more than two minutes into 3DMark 2003. We were a little disappointed here as the OC isn't much better than that on the XFX, and with Chaintech's fancy cooling, we had hoped for better numbers.

Splinter Cell OC Results

Compared to stock speeds, we gain just over 9 FPS, which is a pretty big jump. Is the added risk of cooking your hardware worth it? That's a question only you can answer.

Final Words

Brook

It's nice to see that the 5600 Ultra is pretty comparable across manufacturers. The differences here could just have easily been the same card with a 2nd set of runs and averages. Before reviewing the FX71, I had been using an ATI 9000 Pro 128 which did not do AA/AF at resolutions of 1280x1024, and does not do AA/AF well at all.

If you have a card in the same class as the 9000 Pro or the GeForce 4MX (depending on memory of course), you might want to look to the 5900 or spring for a FX5700. I do not see enough of an improvement (unless you are running UT2k3, which uses DirectX 8 more intensely than most DirectX 8 games) to warrant a switch from that breed. If you do however have a video card that has 64MB of memory, this is a good step into 128MB and decent performance for most of today's games. With a little tweaking, she will run HL2 and Doom3 until you can afford that nextgen.

My first impression of the card was 'Nice looking, big HS, hope it fits' and after opening the box I was surprised at the lack of included games, albeit the InterVideo products are a nice touch. Once running in my machine it has some very nice features and capabilities, some of them I use frequently, like the improved look and feel of DVD Video.

For today's games, the will do the job nicely, it even gives you a little room for breathing (with a tweak or two) for games yet to come. Picking this card will not only make your gaming experience a better one, it will improve the look of your 'windowed side panel', as long as you have a blue theme.

Scott

The card itself performs well in comparison with an older card such as the 9000 Pro, especially so under FSAA situations, so this card could be a nice jump up to graphics with a softer edge. Overall looks for the card itself are very nice, and the included blue LED is a nice touch.

Temperature wise the card is very good despite the small fan, with a 41C average; when you consider that most high end cards are in the 50C+ range it hits home exactly how good the temperature is. As the HSF is also responsible for cooling the ram, any watercooling enthusiasts will be let down here, as removing the HSF to apply a waterblock will also mean having to attach seperate ramsinks. The low temperature of the core is fine, however without the need for watercooling. Being a mainstream card this isn't too surprising though, as the core speed is a lot lower than the high end of the 5900's. One thing I am worried about is the need to increase the AGP Voltage; the card should have run fine at defaults of 1.5v, a shame.

This is the sort of card you would buy to save a bit of cash, as it retails in the , and still get some punch from your graphics. So if you are an owner of an older card, say over 6 months old, then this could be what you are looking for. If your still using something along the lines of the Ti4200 series, then you're probably better off sitting tight for a few more months and allowing time for games such as Half Life 2 and Doom III to make an appearence in review site benchmarks.

Pros: Good Performance, Exceptional Cooling (41C is nothing to a GPU), Application Software included is a good bundle, Good Looking in viewable case, Good price Point.

Cons: Demo Game Software, minimal performance gain over last years High End Graphics, must tweak/OC to make Splinter Cell playable, Needed an increase in AGP Voltage to reach expected performance.

Bottom Line: If you need to replace your card because it is getting old, won't play DirectX 8 or 9 games, and flat out does not look good in that windowed case, the Chaintech FX71 is a good choice. It separates itself from the pack of 5600 Ultra's with exceptional looks and above average cooling. Questions or Comments, hit me up in the Forums.