Got my Gainward FX5900 Ultra!

Futher

Golden Member
Jan 18, 2002
1,362
0
0
If you don't feel like reading, skip to the recap.

I got my new video card yesterday, and noticed some things. After all these years, I finally know the difference between ATI and Nvidia. And the bottom line is.... ATI owns Nvidia (from what I can tell). I play Asheron's Call 2, and before I got this card I had a Radeon 8500 OCed to the max. I was able to play this game on the "High" settings with few problems. I installed the new card, used 3D mark 03 and got in the High 6,000's. Think it was 6800 something. This is a very good score for someone with a stock XP 2200. Despite this high powered Video card, AC2 recommened I play this game using the High settings. Not "Very High". I was confused by this because people with slighty "worse" cards can play using these settings.
Not only was I frustrated because I had to mount this card which weighs 10 damn pounds in my Knex Case, now it didn't perform in the only game I actually play and enjoy. I left the settings on High, played the game, and it seemed to work well for about a half an hour. Random landscape was missing, the water changed colors, and things were missing such as names and weapons and such. I'm thinking this could be heat, but my case runs very cool and with a heatsink like that, I can't see why it would be hot. The fan is not as loud as everyone things it is. Maybe it's because my case is plastic and plexiglass, not aluminum. Right now I'm not extremely happy with the card, but I wouldn't consider it a bad card at all. It performs extremely well in Maya and 3D Studio, and that's the main reason I got it.

RECAP! The card is expensive, the card is heavy, the card runs hot, the card is not as noisy as most think, I got a 6800 with a stock XP2200, it performs well with 3D programs, the one game I tried it on had trouble.

I didn't run any other benchmark yet. Is there a program that can tell you the heat of your video card Like motherboard monitor does with the processor? And does anyone know what could be wrong with the game that has experience with Nvidia? Thanks a lot, hope this helped some people. If you want any more information or pictures or anything, just ask.

RIG: Ga7-VAX
Athlon XP 2200
1024 DDR PC2700
Gainward FX5900 Ultra
(1) 100 gig drive
(2) 120 gig Raided drives
CDRW
SCSI DVD-ROM
Game Theater XP
Klipsch 5.1
etc....
 

SexyK

Golden Member
Jul 30, 2001
1,343
4
76
Did you fully remove your old ATI drivers? That can cause a lot of problems at times.
 

Nebor

Lifer
Jun 24, 2003
29,582
12
76
Did you make absolutely sure that all your radeon drivers were gone, and that you install the drivers that came w/ the vid card?
 

Futher

Golden Member
Jan 18, 2002
1,362
0
0
yeah I did. I used the program to get rid of all drivers, and I wasn't sure that worked so I formatted.
 

LikeLinus

Lifer
Jul 25, 2001
11,518
670
126
Originally posted by: Futher
Well I need 256, and it's probably not a Gainward. Oh well, damage is done already. I'll enjoy my top-of-the-line-this-month card =)


Glad to see you are enjoying your top of the line card!


 

Nebor

Lifer
Jun 24, 2003
29,582
12
76
Generally you want to install the drivers that come with your card, then update to the newest ones. Because otherwise, your computer probably doesn't recognize what type of card it is, and it doesn't have the specialty software. My card comes w/ several custom MSI applets for tweaking performance.
 

sharkeeper

Lifer
Jan 13, 2001
10,886
2
0
I like this card.

The fan is louder when you boot the system (like most servers except it doesn't ROAR like the latter!) and when you engage any 3D application. The fan is "hissy", has no vibration or growl to it like others. Not bad at all even at highest speeds.

I really like the digital vibrance control. Colours appear much brighter. I haven't seen this since my GF4 4600...

There is a new feature called "image sharpening" which appears to do the *opposite* of what cleartype does. I think I will leave that one off! (I don't use cleartype as well, it makes the text blurry)

The card is heavy although I don't think it weighs 10#. :)

It does run warm after an hour of UT with all the eye candy on. My 3DMark 03 was close to my 9800 Pro score: ~5800. 6800 is DAMN high, I'm using Dual Channel ECC DDR and two Xeons at 2.66 GHz! :Q I don't care what 3DFart says, both cards play any game as fast as I like!

I'll have to fire up Tiger Woods 2003 and see how that looks. The 9800 has terrible problems with this game with trees popping up, etc! It was one of the reasons I bought the 5900U for...

-DAK-