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These days are very different from the good old days of 1998, as instead of a handful of choices, we have a whole bunch of graphic cards coming out so frequently, it's hard to keep up. The card you buy now will almost certainly be replaced as soon as you pull it off the shelves, and unless you have deep pockets, this really blows. For the budget conscious, does a 6 month old "entry-level" card need to be upgraded to another entry-level card? That is the question we're going to focus on today as we look at the Albatron 5700P Turbo and compare it with a similar classed card of late 2003.
Specifications:
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Graphics Engine:
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GeForce FX5700
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Memory Size:
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128MB DDR
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Memory Bus:
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128bit
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Engine Clock:
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425MHz
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RAMDAC:
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650MHz
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Max. Resolution:
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2048X1536@85Hz
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Bus Standard:
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AGP 8X / 4X
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VGA Output:
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Yes
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TV-out:
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Yes
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DVI:
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Yes
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WINDVD:
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Yes
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3D GAMES:
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Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
Game Pack
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Packaging
When the package arrived, the box was a little bit smashed on the side. We were a little bit worried about internal damage but after preliminary testing everything was fine.
Inside the package, we have the FX5700P Turbo sealed in an anti-static bag, a user manual, bundled software (which is comprised of Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, a game demo bundle, WinDVD Creator and a driver disc), a RCA cable and a S-Video to RCA adapter.
The card offers both standard VGA and a DVI connection. I was a little bit dissaponted that no DVI-to-CRT adapter was included though, as from my point of view, all cards that have a dual screen option should come with the tools needed to take advantage of it.
The Albatron FX5700P Turbo is a relatively small card, that is, it is a little longer than a sound card. This card is well suited for those of you who may have space issues within your case. Even the smallest Small Form Factor PCs should have no problems with clearance, unless you have one of those half-height ones.
Heatsinks adorn the ram modules, and match the gold heatsink fan combination used for the GPU. The cooling was a bit smallish in my opinion, but the benefit should be less noise caused by the fans. We've questioned the need of the ramsinks in the past as well, but they do add flare, and we will investigate if they do in fact make any difference in overclocking.
Test Setup
Athlon XP 2600+, AOpen AK79D-400 MAX Dual Channel, Western Digital 120GiG, 8 Meg Buffer, OCZ Dual Channel platinum kit Edition PC3200 512MB
The comparison card will be the XFX FX5600 Ultra, which was last year's mid-range entry for NVIDIA. The hardware platform will be the same for both cards, both running at stock speeds.
The games and software we will be doing our benchmarks with are:
Aquamark3
Unreal Tournament 2003
Max Payne 2
Farcry
Call of Duty
Need for Speed: Underground
We will deal with image quality after the benchmarks. A combination of game scripts and FRAPS will be used to gauge performance in the same manner as our previous video card reviews.
Aquamark 3 - Albatron FX5700P Turbo Only
Reviews from around the web demonstrate the FX5900 XT averages about 32 000. At maximum settings (no AA/AF), the FX5700P Turbo manages 30 141 which is a pretty good result from the card.
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