Test Setup

ABIT NF7-S v2.0: AMD Barton 2500+, 2 x 256MB Corsair TWINX PC3200 Ram, XFX FX5600 Ultra, 80GB Western Digital, Windows XP SP1, Detonator FX 45.23.

ABIT NF7-S v2.0: AMD Barton 2500+, 2 x 256MB Corsair TWINX PC3200 Ram, Chaintech FX5600 Ultra, 80GB Western Digital, Windows XP SP1, Detonator FX 45.23.

Test Software will be:

Code Creatures
Specviewperf
Unreal Tournament 2003
Jedi Knight 2
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Splinter Cell

The comparison video card will be the Chaintech FX5600 Ultra. Benchmarks will be shown with and without AntiAliasing and Aninsotropic Filtering. Settings for both cards are "Balanced".

CPU clock speed will be 11.5x181, totalling 2083MHz. The ram is running at 2-3-3-5 timings at 200MHz.

Code Creatures

This is a DX8 benchmark that makes good use of vertex and pixel shaders. Given that these cards are DX9 parts, we can get an idea of how it will handle an older video shader specification.

Code Creatures @ 1024

Code Creatures @ 1280

Without overstating the obvious, you won't find many differences between FX5600 Ultra boards, so look into the best bang for the buck. The XFX performs alright at 1024, but takes a nosedive once we start increasing the AA and AF quality.

SpecViewPerf7

Video cards aren't just for fun and games, and I'm sure some developers and multimedia authors are curious about how the XFX FX5600 Ultra would do in a professional OpenGL environment.

Professional level OpenGL isn't something the FX5600 is designed for. Both cards perform within mere percentage points of one another here.