Overclocking

One of my favorite sections out of everything has to be the overclocking. The FX5600P has a pretty good reputation for being a good over clocker, added to that the fact that it had the 3.3ns Samsung memory I went into this with high expectations.

I was able to achieve a maximum of 360MHz core clock and a whopping 715MHz on the memory. That works out to a 230MHz over clock on the memory when you take into account that it is DDR. The 3.3ns Samsung ram really paid off in this case. Going any higher than these speeds would cause image degradation and system lockups. Splinter Cell was run again under these over clocked conditions and the results are as follows.

As you can see the overclock on the card only provided a 3FPS difference. For having such a high overclock on the memory you would expect more, but Splinter Cell may have been affected more if the clock speed on the card could have been raised higher. 3FPS is still 3FPS, so it was not a total bust.

Final Words

The appeareance of the FX5600P overall is very nice. The blue and gold theme is appreciated (since it's the colors of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers). The heatsink on the card is ample enough and the added ram sinks are appreciated and helped with the high overclock on the ram. The molex connector seems to be there for looks, so you can choose to do whatever you like with it.

The packaging for the FX5600P was interesting to say the least. It is not too flashy, but still will grab your eye. I am still trying to figure out why Gigi the Fairy is pictured on the front. Maybe Albatron is trying to take some attention from Dawn and Dusk.

The included bundle could have been better, ok much better. Simply put it was bare. 2 old games and 3 cables don't quit make it a must buy. Added to that the lack of a DVI adapter was a dissapointment. In the long run however, having a smaller bundle does make the product easier on the pocketbook.

Performance of the video card had it's ups and downs. The FX5600P use the nVidia FX5600 gpu so don't expect to play all of the latest games at the highest settings. The 5600 is the low-middle of the line gpu, aimed at the budger-gamer market. Unreal Tournament 2003 did run just fine at up to 4x anti-aliasing, but dont expect to go to 6AA or higher without getting a level of choppiness. With that said however the FX5600P was a pretty good overclocker. Allowing for a 35Mhz overclock on the gpu and a 230Mhz overclock on the memory was definatly an achievement. Sadly this did not result in too much of a performance gain in Splinter Cell. Overall it is a good video card for someone looking for a low-priced upgrade.

Pros
Looks really cool (Blue + Gold)
Adequite Performance
Don't have to plug in a 4-pin molex connector
Good price
Good cooling

Cons
Won't play new games like Splinter Cell at high detail
Old Bundled games
No DVI Adapter

Bottom Line: If you are looking for an upgrade from a previous generation of video cards without shelling out 400+ dollars this could be the card for you. Adequite performance for a , you cant go wrong.

Questions or Comments, hit me up in the Forums.

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