With the emergence of Intel’s 915 and 925 chipset which introduced PCI-Express there is now a need for new video cards. The GeForce PCX GPUs will deliver better graphics and more vibrant digital media to PC consumers through the additional bandwidth and features offered by Intel’s new PCI Express bus architecture. Since the GPU has the largest bandwidth demand of all the PC subsystems, NVIDIA has been a key contributor to the joint definition, development, and deployment of PCI Express solutions.
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Grapics Engine
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GeForce PCX 5750
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Memory Size
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128MB DDR
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Memory Bus
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128-bit
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Engine Clock
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425MHz
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Memory Clock
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400MHz
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Bus Standard
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PCI Express x16
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Output
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DVI, S-Video, and VGA
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Maximum Resolution
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2048×1536 @ 85Hz
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Most of the features of the this video card have not changed much since the NV45 core is basically a NV40 with a High Speed Interconnect (HSI) bridge. Nevertheless that does not mean that the features listed below are any less impressive.
CineFX Engine
Powers cinematic effects beyond imagination. With advanced vertex and pixel shader capabilities, stunning and complex special effects are possible. In addition, increased horsepower delivers faster and smoother game play. The 2nd-generation CineFX 2.0 engine of the GeForce FX 5900 GPUs powers more advanced pixel shaders.
High-Precision Graphics
By combining the incredible dynamic range of today’s state-of-the-art 3D motion pictures with 128-bit studio-precision color, the GeForce FX GPUs bring you the industry’s best image quality for the most demanding applications.
Intellisample Technology
The industry’s fastest and highest quality antialiasing delivers ultra-realistic visuals, with no jagged edges, at lightning-fast speeds. The 2nd-generation Intellisample HCT, supported in GeForce FX 5900 GPUs, extends performance and quality gains to higher resolutions and antialiasing levels.
nView Multi-display Technology
The nView hardware and software technology combination delivers maximum flexibility for multi-display options, and provides unprecedented end-user control of the desktop experience. NVIDIA GPUs are enabled to support multi-displays, but graphics cards vary. Please verify multi-display support in the graphics card before purchasing.
Digital Vibrance Control (DVC)
Allows the user to adjust color controls digitally to compensate for the lighting conditions of their workspace, in order to achieve accurate, bright colors in all conditions. Currently this feature is not available on Mac systems.
Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
Guarantees forward and backward compatibility with software drivers. Simplifies upgrading to a new NVIDIA product because all NVIDIA products work with the same driver software.
Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Optimizations and Support
Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all DirectX 9 applications.
OpenGL® 1.4 Optimizations and Support
Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all OpenGL applications.
400MHz RAMDACs
Industry’s fastest RAMDACs support QXGA displays with ultra-high, ergonomic refresh rates.
DVI Support
Able to drive the industry’s largest and highest resolution flat-panel displays with up to 1600×1200 resolution.
Integrated TV Encoder
Provides best-of-class TV-out functionality for resolutions up to 1024×768.
Integrated Full Hardware MPEG-2 Decoder
Delivers full-frame, full-screen MPEG-2 video on your desktop.
New 64-phase Video Scaler
Highest quality for scaling DVD and other video to full-screen HDTV resolutions.
Architected for Cg
Ensures that the newest, cutting-edge special effects in applications will run flawlessly. Speeds up content creation so game developers can get their new games out to PC users faster than ever before.
From the top of the card you can see that it is pretty small compared to cards like the Nvidia 6800 Ultra and ATi X800 Pro. The card has a blue PCB that matches Albatron’s PX915G Pro motherboard which I will be testing this card on. There is no SLi connector on the top of the card which rules out the possibility of using two of these cards at once in the future. On the front side of the card there is a large sized heatsink which cools the GPU and RAM and looks like it will do a good job. The back side of the card does not have any cooling which shouldn’t be a problem because it will not get very hot and will receive some airflow from the rear exhaust fan.
Underneath the heatsink is the GeForce FX 5700 GPU and below that is the High Speed Interconnect (HSI) bridge chip. The HSI bridge chip allows AGP graphics processors to work on the PCI Express x16 bus. Future cards will be native PCI-Express Nvidia says but for the transition to the new standard a bridge is a much easier and cost effective solution it seems. A thermal pad was used on the core and HSI while the RAM had no pad or compound.
This video card has a VGA, DVI, and S-Video connection which is nice to see on a mid level video card. This particular card uses Hynix 4ns TSOP memory chips which is the standard for a card like this. The memory used is somewhat slow so I’m not sure how well this card is going to overclock.
Though this card is a mid level card Albatron does include Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, a 5-in-1 CD (AOWII, Max Payne, Zax, Beambreker, Rally Trophy), and drivers. Normally with a budget card like this you only get a driver CD so its nice to see some games included. A S-Video to RCA adapter is provided however there is no S-Video or RCA cable to take advantage of the TV-out. Then manual is pretty straight forward and does provide in detail all of the necessary information about the card.
Because PCI-Express so new to the market this is the first OCmodshop has received for review. If I were to compare it against the AGP cards I have the results would be uneven. My AGP system is an AMD one with a different CPU, memory, motherboard, and video card. There are simply too many differences that would make comparing the two worth while. So rather than comparing this video card to any others I chose to test it with different settings to see how it performs. I will be benchmarking with FarCry, Unreal Tournament 2003, Comanche 4, and 3DMark03. Each benchmark will use no AA/no AF, 2xQAA/4x AF, and 8xS/8x AF.
Test system
- Abit AA8-3rd Eye
- Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz LGA775
- 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair TWIN2X1024-5400C4PRO (4-4-4-12)
- Albatron PCX5750 (425/500)
- 30GB 7200RPM Western Digital hard drive
- Windows XP SP1a.
FarCry with no anti aliasing and no anisotropic filtering did not perform very well even at 1024×768. Raising the resolution to 1280×1024 and 1600×1200 dropped the frame rate to unbearable and of course unplayable.
Changing the anti aliasing to 2xQ and anisotropic filtering to 4x decreased performance a little as expected. The results are not drastic so with some overclocking it may be possible to get these FPS up to something that would be playable.
Bumping anti aliasing up to 8xS and the anisotropic filtering to 8x did not affect the FPS much compared to 2xQ AA and 4x AF. Even with no AA and no AF the results are very similar which would have been a great thing to see if any of the results would be playable.
Unreal Tournament 2003 is older than FarCry so the results are much better. With no anti aliasing and no anisotropic filtering all of the resolutions tested are way above playable.
Increasing the anti aliasing to 2xQ and no anisotropic filtering to 4x decreased performance a little again. 1024×768 would easily be playable however 1280×1024 and 1600×1200 might start to get choppy if there is a lot of action going on.
Moving the anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering to its maximum drops all of the frame rates to unplayable. Interestingly the results of the 1600×1200 benchmarking were higher than the 1280×1024. I don’t believe this to be a fluke because further testing revealed similar results.
Comanche 4 is older than Unreal Tournament 2003 and is a helicopter flight simulator game. The results from the testing with no anti aliasing and no anisotropic filtering are playable but at 1600×1200 may get choppy.
Boosting the anti aliasing to 2xQ and anisotropic filtering to 4x leaves 1024×768 as the only resolution that probably wouldn’t get choppy. Higher resolutions would probably be choppy and at 1600×1200 would be unplayable.
Lastly the results while testing at 8xS anti aliasing and 8x anisotropic filtering are similar to those of Unreal Tournament 2003. At 1024×768 the frame rates are too low for enjoyable game play and at 1600×1200 the FPS are actually higher than 1280×1024.
I ran 3DMark03 with all the settings at default which left the resolution at 1024×768. The scores decline with each increase of anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering. All of the scores are pretty low but with this being a lower end card that isn’t shocking.
Overclocking
After adding the coolbits registry hack to my system I started overclocking the card from its stock speed of 425MHz/500MHz. This is the first time I have used the “Detect Optimal Frequencies” button which worked really well. After it finished testing different speeds it overclocked the card to 495Mhz/630Mhz. I then tried to push the card farther than what it set it to but running it any faster would cause artifacts to appear or the system to lock up. This overclock is quite nice and will give you some extra power which will make gaming less choppy and more enjoyable.
Conclusion
Being that there are very few PCI-Express video cards on the market, this first showing from Albatron fits right in where I expected it to. With most of the benchmarks that were run the FPS and scores were not very high. Using this card for gaming would not be the best choice especially if you desire to use a resolution higher than 1024×768.
Though this card does not make for a high end gamers card it does provide good frame rates for older games that are not outdated yet. If you are planning on playing games like FarCry, Unreal Tournament, or Half-Life 2 I would suggest buying a faster card. If you are looking to play older games or want the benefit of having DVI and S-Video out this card could work nicely for you.
In the coming months we will see newer and faster PCI-Express card hitting the market which will be able to handle new games like Half-Life 2. Until this new expansion slot matures a little we will need to be a little patient and wait for new cards or stick with AGP. Overall I am pretty happy with what this card can do and am going to give it an 8/10. I would like to thank Albatron for sending me this video card to review.
Pros
- PCI-Express
- Overclocks well
- Quiet fan on the heatsink
- DVI & S-Video out
- Blue PCB
Cons
- Performance somewhat unimpressive
- Lacking game bundle