Geforce FX5900 128mb not slower xt or se $183

[farstar]

found this at GameVe, Chaintech FX98 GEFORCE 5900 128 MB
I was about to buy a FX5900XT or FX5900SE (which are both the same by the way) for $183 when I found this full blown 5900 for the same price. The XT and SE models are clocked at lower speeds for the memory.

Other than buying this card yesterday I have nothing to do with GameVe and do not know any of it's owners or employees.

I think this is a hot deal for those in need of a top line video card but can't afford ~$300.

 

[farstar]

damn, cut from the website and pasted into word, word added all that crap, will try with notepad this time. I have so much trouble posting

0.13u process technology
256-bit advanced memory interface
256-bit graphics architecture
400 MHz engine clock
850 MHz memory clock
400 MHz internal RAMDAC
300 Million vertices/ sec
3.6 Billion texels/ sec fill rate
27.2 GB/sec memory bandwidth
8 pixels per clock rendering engine
16 texels per pixel with 8 textures applied per clock
NVIDIA CineFX 2.0 Engine
Advanced Display Pipeline with full nView Capabilities
High-performance, high-precision 3D rendering engine
High-performance 2D rendering engine
UltraShadow technology
Intellisample HCT Performance Technology
Advanced Display Pipeline with full nView Capabilities
Digital Vibrance Control (DVC) 3.0
NVIDIA nView multi-display technology
Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)

 

[policy11]

fixed link

 

[billbillw]

Link to Chaintech website

This looks like a pretty good deal on a full 5900 with the 2.2ns memory.
It looks to have similar cooling and specs to the BFG 5900.
I have the BFG and it easily clocks to 450 core/1000 memory.

Probably the best current deal on a full 5900, but GameVE has had a fair amount of compliants lately.

 

[bookster]

might wanna read this thread before ya order from them.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=40&threadid=1229130&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=

 

[TekDemon]

Aside from that thread my own experience with GameVE has been middling...I sent back a complete card with drivers and software and everything for RMA, and they sent back a bare card in a ghetto box, with a note saying card only inside. Uhh...right. So I called them up and they said they'd see if they could find one and send it to me and I never got anything. Bunch of jerks.

They're never getting another cent from me. That was my second purchase with these guys. And my first purchase the video card came looking like someone had opened the box before since it was a bit puffy, but I figured maybe AOpen just didn't fit the boxes well. Now that I know how shady they can be it makes a lot more sense why the box was puffed up. And most of all it explains why my card couldn't overclock very well at all. It was pathetically bad, not even getting to the original speeds AOpen was going to use(but ended up not using), which was only a 50Mhz overclock on the RAM =(

So no more GameVE, newegg all the way from now on.

On a side note, one of the best overclocking cards I've ever owned was from newegg...it wasn't a very fast card, but it overclocked like a champ. This was an Asus GeForce MX200 board(7100 Pro I believe?) 32MB. The MX was neutered from the factory but the card was stable(when the case was properly vented and it wasn't overly hot in the room anyway) even when I used coolbits and dragged the sliders to the max. No artifacts or anything. It overclocked so well I was scared lol. It was pretty neat to see that my card with newer dets could actually keep up with the original GeForce 2 even at 1024x768 in 3dmark2k1. Unfortunately I think the older cards caught up if they installed the newer dets but it was still close, and that's more than I can say for most MXes. Haha what a card.

 

[superHARD]

Yeah gameve sucks.

Ordered product waited 3 weeks, called once a day for a week they they tell me it is out of stock.

They shipped me the wrong 9800se...they charged me a 15% restocking fee.

I got burned twice by them...never again!

 

[BTSpope]

only problem ive had with them is slow ship times. Ive never gotten a busted product or had rma problems with gameve

 

[apac]

I've had some serious problems with chaintech graphics cards in the past. I bought a chaintech GF4 4200 a year ago and right off the bat it started randomly sh!tting out on me in games with high quality graphics, like UT2003. I sent it back to newegg, got a DOA replacement. Sent it back again, got another replacement. A month later the fan on it died and took the chip with it. Newegg must have run out of cards to send me so I just ended up with a $150 credit that I promptly used to buy a 9800np, no problems since.

 

[Razorguts]

I have to chime in on the above testamonials about avoiding GameVE.com. I know the whole "bash gameve.com" thing may be getting old for those of us who were active in the other thread, but I'm still not convinced/satisfied with how they have handled the situation regarding those BFG 5900 cards...

 

[farstar]

I hope I have a good story to report when (if) the card arrives. Now you guys have me scared.

 

[huesmann]

How's the FX5900 compare to the ATI 9800pro?

 

[apac]

Originally posted by: huesmann
How's the FX5900 compare to the ATI 9800pro?

Very close in raw performance but the 9800pro kicks tail with AA/AF enabled.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: apac

Originally posted by: huesmann
How's the FX5900 compare to the ATI 9800pro?

Very close in raw performance but the 9800pro kicks tail with AA/AF enabled.

i disagree. i have both cards, and with both overclocked, without aa/af the 5900 is faster for the most part. with 4xaa/8xaf the performance is pretty dang close. each card beating the other depending on the game.

the real difference is ps2.0 where the 5900 is better than it used to be, but still slower than the 9800. very minor detail atm, but may be an issue when full dx9 games are the norm, not the exception.

 

[farstar]

the 9800 pro is faster and supposed to have a more stable picture. At the cost difference I decided to go with the 5900, almost as fast.

GameVE says they have shipped the card and that it is new in the box. I'll keep you informed.

 

[ponyo]

Chaintech FX5900 is the same card as BFG FX5900. BFG just rebadges Chaintech cards. As for GameVe, they're on my personal "Do Not Buy From" list.

 

[dirtrat]

More stable picture? Not sure what you mean by that BUT I'm SURE Nvidia drivers are more stable than ATI's hands down. I speak from my own experience. I've owned a 9800 Pro and a 9600 Pro and had nothing but problems and compatibility issues with both. I now have 2 BFG 5900's.

Originally posted by: farstar
the 9800 pro is faster and supposed to have a more stable picture. At the cost difference I decided to go with the 5900, almost as fast.

GameVE says they have shipped the card and that it is new in the box. I'll keep you informed.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: farstar
the 9800 pro is faster and supposed to have a more stable picture. At the cost difference I decided to go with the 5900, almost as fast.

GameVE says they have shipped the card and that it is new in the box. I'll keep you informed.

more stable picture? "supposed to" according to whom?

why do ppl make idiotic claims like this and spread misinformation?

 

[farstar]

based upon the reviews that I've read on various tech sites they state that the 9800 pro has a better picture than the 5900 and they used the words "more stable". I don't really want to go back and redo all the research I did prior to ordering the 5900 so that I can give you a reference. If you are interested google "fx98" an you'll find a couple of reviews.

All reviews thought the 5900 was a great card and very fast just not quite up to the picture quality of the ATI.

 

[farstar]

GOT it. The board came in last night. It looks unopened, the AGP connector looks unused. The board was sealed properly in it's bag. You guys had me worried, I thought I was going to have to fight with GameVE over a used card.

Based solely on my transaction with them I will give them a good rating, maybe they've turned over a new leaf.

 

[superHARD]

Keep your fingers crossed the card has the correct 3dMark score too.

 

[Chadder007]

XT from ATI = Good
SE from ATI = Suck
XT from Nvidia = Suck
Ultra from Nvidia = Good.

I wonder if they are trying to confuse people with the XT designations.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: farstar
based upon the reviews that I've read on various tech sites they state that the 9800 pro has a better picture than the 5900 and they used the words "more stable". I don't really want to go back and redo all the research I did prior to ordering the 5900 so that I can give you a reference. If you are interested google "fx98" an you'll find a couple of reviews.

All reviews thought the 5900 was a great card and very fast just not quite up to the picture quality of the ATI.

what reviews?

having both cards, I actually prefer the 5900 lol. seems to have better contrast... the dark text stands out a bit better on light backgrounds, etc (dunno how to explain it really) i know one of the gripes on rage3d is that radeon users would like a utility similar to the digital vibrance nvidia uses. at any rate it may be more of personal preference than actual differences in the quality.

in 3d, when running aa, ati has crisper lines on angles, and has a bit less of impact on performance. ati also has a 16x af mode which extends the range of texture filtering a bit, but overall most reviews give nvidia the nod for textures, tho i've also read a few preferring the ati. they're that close in IQ.

bottom line: "stability" is bullshit, and both cards have great IQ leaving little, if anything to gripe about.
follow your budget and get the best "bang for the buck" you can, regardless of brand. if you can afford the 20-30 bucks for the radeon, by all means do so, it's a great card and a great value now that it's almost dropped to the $200 range (bout $212 for OEM Sapphire), but the nv cards are no slouches either.

as for the OP, the se/xt's gpu is clocked 10mhz lower than the full blown 5900, and 150mhz slower memory clock. noteable tho is that the xt/se uses lower latencey memory than the 2.2ns mem found on the 5900, and is only a few % pts slower than the full 5900 in almost all benchmarks (even keeping up with it in some).

 

[SilverTrine]

The 9800pro is a much better card when Halflife 2 comes out and Valve makes sure Nvidia doesnt cheat the Dx9 deception that Nvidia has been running will be exposed and there will be MANY unhappy 5900 owners out there.

So yes i'm suggesting if you want a REAL Dx9 card you dont buy a 5900 and instead pony up a few more bucks and get a 9800pro.
For the people who have trouble hearing reality read the first few messages here:

Text

 

[zerodeefex]

I have used ATI since I had my old Rage Pro 8 mb 3d card and I have to say, after making the move to NVIDIA I am more than pleased. I went from a 9500, to a 9800 for a little bit and now, finally to a 5900.
The jump was MORE than worth it. Not only do I not have a problem with my drivers for EVERY FREAKING GAME (I am sick of having to have 5 driver revisions for my ATI cards just because every time they get one game working, another stops), my multi monitor support is 100x better. Horizontal span is amazing and with my Geforce FX, I don't have to freaking have a monitor on every time I want to enable TV out support. It just treats the TV like a monitor and starts showing a picture. Add that to the 100 other things that seem to work out a whole lot better and I am happy to say I am a complete NVIDIA convert.
The funny thing is that when I had an ATI card, I defended it vehemently and no one could sway me away from it. Now, I am glad my roommate took the time to convince me to make the jump because now I don't have anymore ATI bs to deal with.