FX5700 ultra?

[DangerMaus]

Are all FX5700's considered ultras? When shopping around I see some that say ultra and some that don't but the prices don't vary much.
Another FX5700 question: I also see them with 128MB memory and 256MB. Does it make much of a difference in the FX5700?

-dm

 

[Slava]

Are all FX5700's considered ultras?

<font color=red>NO!</font color=red> Check the specifications for which GPU is used. It must specifically say GeForce FX5700 Ultra GPU. If it does not, then it is not Ultra and the card will be twice slower than the Ultra. I made this mistake when I got my first 256 Mb 5700 from ASUS. It sucked.

I also see them with 128MB memory and 256MB. Does it make much of a difference in the FX5700?

At this point there is no tangible performance benefit of having 256 Mb of video memory, but more importantly, I looked (hard) and I failed to find a FX5700 Ultra with more than 128 Mb. If you find a real 256 Mb FX5700 Ultra, let me know (not that it really matters ).

By the way, a 256 Mb non-Ultra will still be much slower than a 128 Mb Ultra. Example: My Aquamark 3 score with a 256 Mb FX5700 non-Ultra was just over 26000 after overclocking while the 128 Mb FX5700 Ultra gives me close to 36000 also after overclocking.

<font color=green>"The creative powers of English morphology are pathetic compared to what we find in other languages." (Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct)</font color=green> 😎 <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Slava on 05/24/04 01:53 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[DangerMaus]

If you look at gainward's site it looks like they have 5700 ultras with 256MB.
http://www.gainwardusa.com/products/video_card.htm

-dm

 

[Slava]

If you look at the table on the page you linked to, the row that lists 5700U (which stands for the FX5700 Ultra GPU) says N/A in the column entitled 256 Mb. If this indicates to you that they do produce a 256 Mb FX5700U, than I dunno, dude. Think again. Gainward uses the word Ultra in the names of MANY of their cards. The product naming conventions have NOTHING to do with the GPU used. In the same table the row below the 5700U row indicates a 5700 GPU but the name of the Gainward product is Ultra/980 Professional. This card is called Ultra but the GPU used is 5700. It is NOT Ultra.

Further down the page there is a card called 5700LE Ultra/880LE TV-DVI. If you look at the specifications you will see that Gainward claims that this card uses a FX5700LE GPU @ 250 Mhz. This is NOT Ultra though the name of the card has the word Ultra in it. This is the reason I will never buy from Gainward. They purposely mislead and confuse the less-informed customers like you (no offense). That’s a turn-off enough for me.

<font color=green>"The creative powers of English morphology are pathetic compared to what we find in other languages." (Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct)</font color=green> 😎 <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Slava on 05/24/04 02:28 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[DangerMaus]

Ok, I get it now. Too bad they create so much confusion by using the word Ultra when they shouldn't.


-dm

 

[Mitch007]

Ultra performance difference is dominated by RAM speed, look for 2.2ns variants from Gainward and MSI, others are slower, so beware.

MIS645Ultra/2.4G A-Pent/2*Corsair 256MBit CL2-2-2-7XMSLLPT PC3200 DDR RAM/450W Enermax PSU/1*40Gig 7200rpm Wes-Dig/1*20Gig 7200 Hitachi Disk/GeF3 Ti200 LeadTek G-Card running 520/230 Ram/Core MHz.