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.

2D Speeds	3D Speeds

Like the FX5900 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 435/860.

Overclocked

Overclocking is nice and all, but let's look at some numbers and see what kind of performance we gained from OCing.

Splinter Cell OC Results

Compared to our stock speed Splinter Cell numbers, we see an increase of about 9FPS at no AA. Quite impressive.

Image Quality

NoAA	4xAA/8xAF

3D image quality was pretty good, but not quite up to the standards set by ATI. Compared to past generations of nVidia cards, the XFX FX5600 Ultra is much improved. AntiAliasing quality is very good as well.

We loaded up a 1600x1200 image we normarlly use in our video card reviews. I also pulled up several word documents with various sized fonts to judge the text rendering. The documents used white text on a black background, and vice versa. The screen resolution for all tests was 1600x1200 @ 85Hz on a Dell rebranded 21" Trinitron.

Scores are subjective, but having worked with many video cards here at the Lair, we got a pretty firm grasp on what card renders 2D better than the others. The scores will be out of 10, with 10 being excellent.

Text rendering was near the 9700's levels, but drops off at smaller white text on dark backgrounds. The bitmap we used rendered colours correctly, but not as rich as ATI.

Final Words

Our first impressions were "Hmm, interesting packaging". Our second impression when opening it up was "Hmph, not much in the way of extra software". Our third impression when looking at the card itself was "Damn! This card looks sweet". After benchmarking and overclocking, as well as typing up this very review with the card running in my work rig, what are our impressions overall?

Well, to start, performance was very good when you consider the target market and price point. At the XFX FX5600 Ultra is competitively priced. A quick look on shows most FX5600 Ultras fall within this price range, so XFX isn't pricing themselves out of the market. For $200, you're getting some excellent performance in many of todays games, though the Splinter Cell performance was severly lacking. The games of tomorrow? I can't say for sure, but I consider a card of this caliber to be the bare minimum for Half-Life 2 when it arrives later this Fall.

Overclocking went very well. Credit to XFX's additional cooling options are in order here, as the end result was a very stable OC'd card that improved its benchmarking performance noticably.

The lack of 3rd party software may be a plus or minus for some of you. If it makes for a cheaper package, I'm all for it, and in many cases, the games don't even demonstrate the abilities of the hardware. Also, as fast as the card is for the money, we've seen here that the Radeon 9600 Pro still tends to surpass the FX5600 Ultra in many benchmarks.

For the majority of todays games, the XFX FX5600 Ultra will do the job. With the overclocking potential, you should be ok for upcoming action games... or Splinter Cell. With it's competitive price, solid design, and decent performance, I doubt many of you will regret picking this card up.

Pros: Good performance, efficient cooling, well priced.

Cons: Minimal software bundle, under 20fps Splinter Cell performance.

Bottom Line: In the end, if you're in the market for a new video card, with a reasonable price, and plan on playing some of the more graphically intense games, the XFX FX5600 Ultra would make a fine choice. If you got any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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