Review: GeForce FX5600 Ultra rev2

So as we saw on the previous page, both cards are evenly matched in the midrange. They exhibit similar performance for a similar price and that's what we like to see. The clock increase on this newer revision FX5600 Ultra definitely hasn't hurt anything, infact it gives NVIDIA the midrange crown back in terms of raw performance, it definitely is faster overall than 9600 Pro.

But as I mentioned in my 9600 Pro article, it's not always about the raw numbers at the end of the day. There's a bunch of performance related factors to take in to consideration. IQ performance, driver stability and performance, and overclocking, all play a part in your purchase decision if you're the typical Hexus reader.

So while 9600 Pro may be slower, is it really when you think of the bigger picture? Does its price make up for it, since it can definitely be had cheaper than most new FX5600 Ultra boards.

Well, it's a reviewers task to voice his opinion and this reviewer is a fan of the new GeForce FX. It's an unpopular view these days, but I like them. It's a solid midrange board, brings DX9 to your table and runs nice and quick with IQ features on. I'm a huge fan of 9600 Pro too, and to tell the truth, you'd be happy with both. Don't be blind to either one, both are decent boards.

It's the little touch like the fan that switches itself off when you're not doing anything too stressful (and when you are, you should have the volume up anyway) and the good driver support (good god, someone said something nice about an NVIDIA driver) and the dual head implementation.

While you'll find most of those things on an ATI board for less money, and that's often a big factor in your decision, these things are nice, take my word for it and put it on your midrange graphics consideration list if you can't quite afford 9700 Pro.

Now, if I can just convince NVIDIA that they don't really want it back....

Score



Pro's

Performance for the money
The silent when idle fan
Overclocking (while I didn't cover it explicitly due to time constraints, I got 490MHz core, 912MHz mem out of the sample)
DX9 for the masses
Good image quality, especially in the games that can show it off like UT2003

Con's

Not quite as cheap as 9600 Pro
Slightly noisy fan, turn your speakers up

Thanks

NVIDIA for the sample
Pathway for my 9700 Pro, as always
Komplett for the digital camera used to take the shots.