Review: ASUS V9950 GeForce FX5900

If you hadn't already guessed, it's not as easy as looking at an architecture and how it's setup and saying "that one will be quicker". Games aren't coded equally, each game on the market has a certain setup that it likes to run on, all other things being equal. So with that in mind, we have to make a judgement about what is faster overall.

The two main contenders in this article are 9800 Pro and the NV35 boards. I'll pick the ASUS since it is the star of this particular show after all. 9800 Pro is faster than the V9950 in some tests, the shoe is on the other foot in the rest.

Just like the MSI review, I have to conclude that overall, performance wise, FX5900 just edges it for me. In the games I play, it's faster (no, 3DMark 2001 isn't a game!). I can't really be fairer than that.

And even if it's not faster in the games you play, there's other factors to consider, other than performance.

Noise

Was it noisy? No, not at all. Not as quiet as the MSI, or the Sapphire 9700 Pro, but a lot less irritating than the 9700 Pro too. The Sapphire isn't noisy per se, but the fan is a whiny bastard. The ASUS is slightly louder in terms of decibels, but the noise it makes is flatter. Out of the tested group, the stock Hercules 9800 Pro was the worst. If that makes sense, give yourself a pat on the back.

Overclocking

Does the ASUS' copper cooling beat out the dual sided, dual fan cooling on the MSI? Nope, the MSI hit higher clocks. The ASUS sample, as tested with the same 120mm fan blowing over the edge during benchmarking, only hit 478/988 in 3DMark 2001SE. Whether its a lower voltage to the GPU in the ASUS, the big cooler not hugging the GPU as well as MSI's solution, no cooling on the back side of the GPU, a slight westerly breeze on the 3rd Wednesday in June, whatever, it just didn't go as high. The noted temperatures in NVIDIA's integrated temperature utility were higher than the temperatures on the MSI.

As always, it's a press sample, your mileage with a retail board will very much vary. I'd estimate it's a decent clock to be aiming for with your own however. Ultra+ performance for free, whisper it quietly before NVIDIA come and kill me.

Overall

Assuming price being as close to £300 as possible, the ASUS has to get same plaudits as the MSI. It ships with a good bundle like the MSI, and performance was spot on. It might not have clocked as well and was a little noisier, but the bundle is comparable and hopefully price is too.

Feel free to pick your own winner, they both perform identically and both are capable of smacking a 9800 Pro about a bit in some tests.

Thumbs up to ASUS for a classy board, good presentation and a great bundle of games and demos, it's every bit as good as the MSI. Price alone lets it down, the high end is expensive these days sadly.

Score