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BFG Asylum GFFX 5700Ultra Review

We take BFG’s new Asylum GeForceFX 5700Ultra for a spin in eight games and compare it with three popular cards in the mainstream market. Read inside for the gameplay evaluation.

Introduction:

Last Thursday NVIDIA launched two new video cards; The GeForceFX 5950Ultra in the enthusiast market and the GeForceFX 5700Ultra in the mainstream market. We took a look at NVIDIA’s reference GeForceFX 5950Ultra video card last week, but held off on evaluating the GFFX 5700Ultra as we needed more time with it and the games. Also last week we transitioned to a new style of reviewing video cards. Well actually we are not really "reviewing" video cards anymore, but rather evaluating the gameplay delivered by them in real games and game demos that anyone can download or buy off a retail shelf. We will be doing that same style of evaluation in this review of BFG’s Asylum GeForceFX 5700Ultra. Eight games, four cards, real-world results...

The GeForceFX 5700Ultra is the new mainstream chip from NVIDIA. NVIDIA is claiming 1.5x the performance of its predecessor the GFFX 5600Ultra. The GFFX 5700Ultra uses .13u fabricated at IBM. This is the first GPU from NVIDIA to go retail that is made at a plant other than TSMC. With this totally new chip NVIDIA was able to make some improvements for this mainstream card. They have bumped up the vertex processing power by three fold. The core architecture is based on that of the NV35 so that it completely supports CineFX 2.0 and everything that entails, just like the 5950Ultra. It also has support for DDR1/2 and GDDR3.

The core clock will run at 475MHz and the memory will be based on a 128-bit bus operating at 450MHz (900MHz DDR). This puts the memory bandwidth at 14.4GB/sec, which is the highest so far for a mainstream product. The thermal solution will be a near-silent, single-slot design.

BFG Asylum GFFX 5700Ultra:

Enter BFG’s retail 5700Ultra product, the Asylum GFFX 5700Ultra. BFG is truly a “By Gamers, For Gamers” kind of company.

Two very notable items listed on the front of the box is BFG’s Lifetime Warranty and Free Live 24/7 Tech Support. These are two big items when it comes to owning an expensive piece of hardware that you want to see, and BFG provides that for you. There is a little window on the back of this box so that you can see the product code of the video card inside. That way if you buy this in a store you are sure that you are getting the correct card in the box.

The first thing you notice is that BFG has gone blue; PCB that is. Their previous cards have all been the very bland green we are all use to. With their Asylum 5700Ultra they are getting a bit fancier and providing you a colorful card to shine proudly in your box. Also notice this is a single-slot small fan cooling solution. In fact this card only requires regular RAM sinks and a small round HSF. External power is still required however on the Asylum 5700Ultra.

What is most interesting about this PCB though you will see above. Above we have the Asylum 5700Ultra, on the bottom, compared to the NVIDIA reference 5950Ultra board above it. You can see the length and width of the PCB match exactly. In fact many of the same components are on this card, just laid out in a different configuration. The space around the core chipset and RAM matches that exactly of the space that is laid out for the BFG 5900Ultra and the NVIDIA reference 5950Ultra. It is as if they all share the exact same PCB design in mind with slightly different component configurations.

Above we also have the Asylum 5700Ultra compared to the ATI Radeon 9600XT and the BFG 5600Ultra. You can see there is a very big size difference between the Radeon 9600XT and the BFG Asylum 5700Ultra. The BFG Asylum 5600Ultra compared to the BFG 5700Ultra are slightly closer in size compared to the Radeon 9600XT, still there is a difference in that the Asylum 5700Ultra is longer. Also take notice it has more components on the PCB compared to its predecessor.

There is a sticker on the card showing a summary of useful information if you need to call in to Tech Support for any reason. You will find the standard VGA, DVI and TV-Out ports included. There is also a Molex splitter cable included so that you won’t loose any 4-pin Molex connectors when using this card. The CD included with our product includes driver version 52.13. However, BFG has stated that they will be placing the new WHQL 52.16 driver in the retail package as soon as they can replicate new CDs. You will also find GeForceFX and GeForce4 demos included on the CD. A full installation manual in PDF formation as well as NVIDIA’s NVDVD 2.0 multimedia software is included. There are also Windowblinds BFG/Asylum Windows XP skins included.