Video Card: Gigabyte 5900XT Review :: The Card

Gigabyte GEFORCE FX 5900XT
Brand	Gigabyte
Model	GEFORCE FX 5900XT
Graphics Chip	NV35
Graphics Memory Type	DDR
Memory (MB)	128
Graphics Core Clock (MHz)	400
Memory Clock (MHz)	350
Memory Speed (ns)	2.8
RAMDAC Frequency (MHz)	400
Active Cooling on Graphics Chip	Yes
Heatsink on Memory	Yes
Video Capture	No
System Health Monitoring	No
Ports
Dual Monitor Support	Yes
VGA Out	DVI-I+VGA
Video In and Out	S Video Out
Package and Support
Printed Manual	Yes
Driver CD	Yes
Performance Tool Software	No
Major Games	Tomb Raider Angel Of Darkness, Arx Fatalis, Rainbow Six 3 Raven Shield, Call Of Duty
Major Software	No
VR Glasses	No
DVD Player Software	PowerDVD 5
Video Recording Software	No

One thing that I like about Gigabyte is that they have always done eye-catching box art. The box art on the 5900XT is no different. On the front cover is a stylized version of a beautiful woman with metallic wings. Also present on the front cover box art is a sticker for a full version of Call Of Duty, which is a new addition to their bundle, a brief description of the included features (128 MB, AGP 8x, DVI, DirectX 9.X) and a sticker of NVIDIA's The Way It's Meant To Be Played program. The back of the box is populated by the feature set of the card including brief descriptions of the CineFX 2.0 Engine, High-Precision Graphics, Intellisample HCT Technology and AGP 8x support.

The board itself is an interesting different look compared to most cards based upon the 5900XT. The card length is 7 ¾ inches long which is small compared to what most NVIDIA cards are today. By way of comparison, the reference 5950 Ultra from NVIDIA is almost 9 inches long. I kind of prefer ATI's cards as they're generally only a little longer than an AGP slot but this card will fit easily into any motherboard case including the Shuttle XPC I'm writing this review on.

The cooling system on this card is interesting. The fan covers the GPU with a 10 fin fan. The size of the fan is rather small compared to other cards based upon NVIDIA's 5900 Ultra and the front memory modules. There is no cooling on the back side of the card. This should be sufficient for most users that need cooling on the card, and in practice the card didn't run very hot at all.

Memory on the 5900XT is provided by 8 16 MB 2.8ns Tiny BGA modules situated on the front of the PCB giving a total of 128MB of onboard memory rated at 358 MHz (1000/2.8). The card is clocked at 400 MHz for the core and 350 MHz for the memory (Note: I never double DDR clocks, while this is an acceptable measure, I feel it does a bit of disservice to double clocks with latency and other issues.) For this market (the under $200 market), 128MB is enough.

There is a 4 pin Molex power connector to the card, which is required to boot the system up. One thing about the card being based upon the high-end 5900 Ultra is the continual requirement for extra power than provided by the AGP slot. Virtually every high-end part today requires the extra power, and this is not a negative. Of course NVIDIA's 6800 Ultra chip requires 2 Molex power connectors, but that's another story that will soon be told.

The input/output block of the card is typical of virtually every video card based on NVIDIA's chips since the TNT. The connectors include a DVI-I port, a S-Video Out port, and a VGA port. Dual monitors are supported by NVIDIA's nView application which is included with the drivers in combination with a DVI-I to VGA adapter. The 6800 Ultra introduced dual DVI-I ports which I hope will carry on to NVIDIA's mainstream and value parts in the near future.