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Gainward GeForceFX 5900

A GeForceFX that's thin, quiet AND fast? We show you the Gainward card that fills the middle slot (and only one slot) of the GFFX line up.

Introduction:

It has been quite a while since we have reviewed a product from Gainward. Our last product review was a Gainward GeForce4 Ti 4200 video card back in May of 2002. The long delay between then and now is mostly due to all the troubles the NV30 and GeForceFX line have had. The long wait for the core itself combined with the long delays of getting products on the shelves has attributed to this long slumber with no new cards. Surely these long delays have put a slight dent in card sells with AIB (Add In Board) partners that sell graphic cards based on NVIDIA GPUs in the last year. During this time period AIB partners selling cards based on ATI VPUs have soared. However now with the advent of the NV35, NV34, and NV31 GPUs, we are starting to see a rise with GeForceFX product line sells.

Editor's note: As of talking to AIB partners today in the global arena, I think we will in fact be seeing 5900 Ultras and 5900s showing up soon into retail channels in large quantity in the US in July. I am not so sure that companies that have taken advantage of the online sales and have focused here will have much stock on NVIDIA products, at least not till the end of summer. So my point is that NVIDIA is not out of the woods or even close to it yet when it comes to selling tons of GPUs. While ATI is still outsold by NVIDIA in retail outlets in terms of quantity, ATI has recently overtaken the 50% of sales in their category when it comes to revenue.

Gainward entered the video card market with a bang, clearly setting their focus on the hardcore enthusiast crowd. From the GeForce3 up to the GeForce4 Ti 4600, their cards were clearly geared for the true geek at heart. They dubbed the term “Golden Sample” into their product line which indicates that the card has outstanding stability and performance, even at higher clock speeds, by using hand selected GPUs and qualified memory chips. That dedication to overclocking has helped strengthen their position as some of the best quality cards out there.

Gainward's current GeForceFX lineup consists of cards based on the GeForceFX 5800/Ultra, 5600/Ultra, 5200/Ultra, and the brand new NV35 GPU 5900/Ultra. If you haven’t been keeping up on the latest NVIDIA GPU happenings, I suggest you read all about the NV35. This new GPU from NVIDIA is an evolutionary step up from the NV30, which includes a few enhancements to increase performance. IQ remains the same as the NV30. One of the biggest performance improvements on the GeForceFX 5900 Ultra is the use of a 256-bit memory bus. Combined with high speed DDR, it has impressive raw memory bandwidth.

Today we are reviewing a new product from Gainward, but it isn’t a 5900 Ultra. This is the Gainward FX PowerPack! Ultra/1200 XP 128MB Golden Sample. How is that for a long product name? This is a GeForceFX 5900 128MB card. Note the dismissal of the “Ultra” part of the name. Let's see what Gainward has to say about this card:

“Gainward's award winning High-Performance/ Wide-BandwidthTM hardware design powered by NVIDIA's most innovative GeForce(TM) FX 5900 GPU and integrating 128 MB of the latest high-speed DDR memory which offers enhanced, leading-edge performance for the 3D enthusiasts."

“Includes Gainward's award winning EXPERTool™ tuning utility for customized performance enhancements and efficient desktop management. Also includes performance enhanced, accelerated software drivers for all major operating systems and APIs."

“TV-out support (NTSC/PAL) TV system - Support Capture Video from TV,VCR,DV or camcorder with Composite & S-Video connector"

There is a feature list here.

So what makes this card different from a GeForceFX 5900 Ultra? It is basically an NV35 core that still uses a 256-bit memory bus, but this card uses 128MB of RAM instead of 256MB. It runs at a different core frequency, 400Mhz versus 450Mhz on the 5900 Ultra. Surprisingly the memory speed is exactly the same 425MHz (850MHz DDR). Also, it is a one slot design, not requiring a “FlowFX”. That is pretty much it. Keep in mind, this isn’t the “Value” 5900, that will most likely have a 128-bit memory bus.

Pics:

On the front of the box the model name and accessories in the box are listed. Everything is packed tight with padding all around so that items do not shift during transit. As you can see from the pictures of the video card, it is definitely quite unique. This is the retail PCB design and is shorter than the PCB that was on our NVIDIA GeForceFX 5900 Ultra. Also, this design is a single slot solution with a hefty HSF. You can see the placeholders for the RAM on the back of this card for the 256MB model. This model only has 128MB of RAM, and hence only has chips on the front of the card.

All of the pictures above show the card running in our test system. As you can see, the fans do have three blue LEDs per fan. I was actually surprised how bright it really is. Inside a case it is quite illuminating. A future addition in this design I would like to see is some kind of switch that would allow you to turn the lights off if you did not want them on at any given time.

The HSF unit is held firmly in place by five push pins. Once we took it off and got a peek underneath, we were happy to find plenty of thermal compound on both the RAM and the core. Both the RAM and the core make excellent contact with the heatsink unit. The RAM is Hynix part number HY5DU283222AF-22. This means it operates at 2.8v and 454MHz max clock frequency. Given that the default RAM speed is set at 425MHz, we do have a little headway in terms of memory overclocking.

Interestingly enough, according to Hynix’s spec sheet on this RAM, they even have a 2ns model which is rated at 500MHz. That’s some pretty fast DDR RAM there, and no doubt expensive.

A DVI Port and VGA port are standard fare as well as a video port that is used for the VIVO functionality of this card. In keeping with the red theme of this card, the cables and DVI adapter are wrapped in red for your pleasure. This card comes fully equipped for composite and S-video in and out and comes with Intervideo’s Win Cinema for video editing.