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BFG Technologies 5900 Ultra Review

Our first retail 5900-Ultra has arrived, and is being provided by BFGTech. We examine this video card and hopefully help you make an informed buying decision when it comes to NVIDIA’s latest and greatest.

Introduction:

BFG Technologies, the name alone gives you an instant mental image in your head. Combine that mental image with BFG Tech’s product line name, Asylum, and you start to wonder just what kind of people these are. If you want to get ‘in-the-know’ about BFGTech I suggest reading this short article, which will explain just where this company came from, and what their philosophy is. "By the Gamer For the Gamer" can basically sum up BFG’s mantra and now BFG Tech has armed themselves with the latest ammunition from NVIDIA in order to show you just how big their guns really can be.

The NV35 aka GeForceFX 5900 Ultra was announced and shown to the public mid-may. While we had in our hands a reference design from NVIDIA the final retail design would actually differ from the reference board. If you recall from that first look at the GeForceFX 5900 Ultra the PCB was quite long. Since then we have been patiently waiting for some retail 5900 Ultra action. The NV35, successor to the NV30, has been fairing much better than its predecessor did. The core is finally able to run cooler and quieter than the NV30 which was a major caveat with it. For a complete list of specifications and changes from the NV30 I suggest you first check out NVIDIA’s website for information as well as our first look at the GeForceFX 5900 Ultra.

BFG’s 5900 Ultra 256MB video card is finally here. And what slogan are they bringing with it this time? “Turn it all on”.

Dearest Gamers outside the Institution – take your gaming experience to insane levels! – Now you can “Turn it All On™” when you play the most demanding games…Turn on the higher resolutions! Turn on the antialiasing! Turn on the anisotropic filtering! Turn yourself on to the best cinematic 3D graphics you’ve ever witnessed with the Asylum™ GeForce™ FX 5900 Ultra

Specifications and Features

• GPU NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX 5900 Ultra

• Bus Type AGP

• Memory 256MB DDR

• Core Clock 450MHz

• Memory Clock 850MHz (Effective)

• RAMDAC Dual 400MHz

• API Support Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0, OpenGL for Microsoft® Windows®

• Connectors VGA, DVI, VIVO

• 338 million vertices/sec.

• 27.2GB/sec. memory bandwidth

• AGP 8X (compatible with 4X and 2X AGP 2.0 compliant slots)

• Up to 8 pixels per clock rendering engine

• Up to 16 textures per pass

• NVIDIA® CineFX™ 2.0 engine

• Microsoft® DirectX ® 9.0 with Vertex Shader 2.0 and Pixel Shader 2.0

• NVIDIA® UltraShadow™ technology enhances performance of bleeding-edge games that use complex shadows

The Card:

The guy here on the front of the box looks like someone you wouldn’t want to mess with. It looks like he is fixing to jump up at any moment and attack you. On the front of the box there are a few key points they mention to get you interested. I noticed Lifetime Warranty and 24/7 Toll-free Tech Support first there.

As you can see this board is based on NVIDIA’s reference design. Nothing has been altered or configured differently. This board is shorter than the long PCB we had on our initial Reference 5900 Ultra. This is the final retail design. The card is exactly 8.5 inches long, 3.75 inches wide and because of the double slot configuration 1.5 inches high. The HSF unit extends exactly 1 inch off of the PCB in height.

This fan is much quieter than the FlowFX on the 5800 Ultra. In 2D mode you can barely hear it, and in 3D mode your case fans will most likely drown it out when inside your case. It includes a power cable, a DVI to VGA adapter as well as a VIVO (Video In/Out) cable. This cable has nice easy to read labels so you know what each one does. There is a driver disc included as well as a manual and Video Studio 7 for video editing.

What's in the Box:

• Asylum™ GeForce™ FX 5900 Ultra graphics card

• Quick install manual

• DVI to VGA connector

• VIVO cable

• Video editing software

Driver CD, which includes

• NVIDIA® unified drivers

• NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX and GeForce™4 demos

• Full installation manual .pdf

• NVIDIA® NVDVD™ 2.0 multimedia software

• Windowblinds™ BFG / Asylum Windows XP skins