Which 5900 card to buy?

[pannam1]

Guys, I need your help...

Which of these 5900 cards to get? Consider everything including coolness factor, packaged goodies, card stability, etc...

XFX 5900 SE $189
eVGA 5900 SE $182
Gigabyte 5900 XT $194
Leadtek 5900 XT $194
MSI 5900 XT $195
BFG 5900 OEM $172
PNY 5900 Retail $ 199 (after 30 tigerdirect rebate)

I'm leaning towards the eVGA cuz it has COD included and it looks cool. Any comments... I'm going to buy one tomorrow so help!

OK, now I'm leaning towards the BFG.... it seems the street value of COD is about 20-25$ on ebay so a retail version of the BFG is the best deal.

 

[Gagabiji]

Here is another one...

 

[ponyo]

If you can get a working card I would recommend BFG since it's cheap, uses 2.2 ns memory, and has VIVO. Some package even has Call of Duty. Mine unfortunately was DOA. But fortunately BFG has lifetime warranty.

 

[Megatomic]

Make sure that whichever 5900 you get that it has a 256bit memory bus. And no, no all 5900s have it...

I personally went for a Gainward card, it was a few $$$ more and didn't come with CoD (I'd have not played it anyways, I dislike all the army/soldier games) but it is a high quality card.

 

[modedepe]

I'd get the BFG for the reasons which Naustica has stated.

Make sure that whichever 5900 you get that it has a 256bit memory bus. And no, no all 5900s have it...

Which ones don't?

 

[Megatomic]

A Gainward card with 128bit memory bus

There used to be others but it looks like the # of 5900s for sale is not as plentiful as they once were... Did NVidia finally realize what they were doing?

 

[modedepe]

:Q

What's the point of that? I thought the main reason for replacing the fx5800 was because it only had a 128 bit bus. Pretty high price, too.

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
A Gainward card with 128bit memory bus

There used to be others but it looks like the # of 5900s for sale is not as plentiful as they once were... Did NVidia finally realize what they were doing?

I think that description might be misprint. One of the reviewer claims he got high 5000 in 3dmark03. He wouldn't get anywhere near that with 128bit bus card. More like high 3000s.

 

[Jeff7181]

My Aopen FX5900 overclocksto 490/940 100% stable with no problems. I've run it at 520/1050 but tearing is horrible and it becomes unstable in certain games (but not all).

 

[Corporate Thug]

BFG

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Make sure that whichever 5900 you get that it has a 256bit memory bus. And no, no all 5900s have it...

ummm... what 5900 comes with 128b memory bus? if it doesn't, it's not a 5900, it's a 5800.

I personally went for a Gainward card, it was a few $$$ more and didn't come with CoD (I'd have not played it anyways, I dislike all the army/soldier games) but it is a high quality card.

to the OP, they're all pretty much the same (the se/xt have slower memory but also lower latency, putting them only a few % behind the 5900nu in performance), but i'd for for a 5900nu with 2.2ns memory, as they all seem to be quite capable of running 5900u speeds or above. from your list would narrow it down to

BFG 5900 OEM $172
PNY 5900 Retail $ 199 (after 30 tigerdirect rebate)

long as you don't buy it from gameve.com, i'd get the bfg with the lifetime warranty. it's $27 less than the PNY, has a better warranty, and you don't have to mess with the rebate. grab while while you can, the price for these seem to have gone up about $30 in the last week.

if you go the se/xt route, i'd go for the one with the most efficient cooling, which "seems" to be the gigabyte, tho leadtek has always been strong in this area.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
A Gainward card with 128bit memory bus

There used to be others but it looks like the # of 5900s for sale is not as plentiful as they once were... Did NVidia finally realize what they were doing?

that's a misprint by newegg.. all 5900 gpu's use are 256-bit memory bus. here's the spec's from gainward's site:

Gainward FX PowerPack! Ultra/1100 TV/DVI 128M

Integrated NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 GPU with AGP 8X
- Supporting 128MB ?V2.8ns high-speed 256bit DDR RAM memory (BGA)
- Support AGP 8X and double the bandwidth of AGP4X 2.1GB/sec. vs 1.1GB/sec of data transfer between the graphics engine and the rest of the system for more complex models and detailed textures, creating richer and more lifelike environments. Uninterrupted data flow allows for smoother video streaming and faster, more seamless game play.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: shady06
BFG

ditto

 

[Megatomic]

Yeah, you guys are actually right. I looked at the details page of that card I linked up there and it says on that page that it has a 256bit memory bus.

LINKAGE

I wonder how many ordered a more expensive card because of this? I would have still bought the 1200 model for the faster memory chips and VIVO capability though.

 

[nick1985]

BFG

 

[Defector]

BFG5900nu

.. and STAY AWAY FROM GAMEVE....... they have sent our a bunch of 5900 DOAs to people that have been opened before..... some folks think they have been sending out RMA'd defective cards to snag you as a buyer, and then refusing to give you a 100% refund and directing you to BFG to claim from them on the manufacturer's warranty.

Pathetic. Avoid this outfit at all costs. Pay a few extra bux to buy from a reputable dealer like newegg.

 

[anim8r]

BFG all the way. Lifetime warranty, 2.2ns memory modules, 24/7 tech support, and currently the best prices. I've contacted them twice with questions and both times they seemed competent and friendly.

EDIT Additionally, on their free Boomsplang mouse rebate offer, they went the extra mile for those of us who ordered prior to the cutoff date by extending the rebate on back orders. No questions asked. In this day and age that says something about a company.

 

[Megatomic]

BFG's marketing dept. needs a kick in the arse now though. Go to BB and see if they have any of the 5900s. And go to NewEgg. Are they there? Two of the biggest vendors I know of and neither is carrying that card.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
BFG's marketing dept. needs a kick in the arse now though. Go to BB and see if they have any of the 5900s. And go to NewEgg. Are they there? Two of the biggest vendors I know of and neither is carrying that card.

yeah, why doesnt newegg carry it?

 

[Bucksnort]

Because BFG doa cards are so many. Look around at other boards. Seems more dont work than those that do. I would hold off on getting a BFG till this clears up some if it does.
There is a reason that this card is the only 5900 selling for under 200 bucks hint hint

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
BFG's marketing dept. needs a kick in the arse now though. Go to BB and see if they have any of the 5900s. And go to NewEgg. Are they there? Two of the biggest vendors I know of and neither is carrying that card.

i think that's going to be almost the case everywhere, as they are becoming hard to get (hence the pricing has been going up the last 2 weeks).

Fry's still had some left, some even with CoD, but that was a few days ago.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: nick1985
BFG

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Bucksnort
Because BFG doa cards are so many. Look around at other boards. Seems more dont work than those that do. I would hold off on getting a BFG till this clears up some if it does.
There is a reason that this card is the only 5900 selling for under 200 bucks hint hint

i'm not sure i'd agree with that. almost every one of the problems with those 5900's have come from the same place - GameVE. it sure looks fishy if you ask me, and why almost everyone is down on GameVE, not BFG (not only here, but nvnews forums as well).

Newegg has carried those on several different occasions as well, but keep selling out.

i actually got one from GameVE that worked heh, but it was not shrinkwrapped.

EDIT it actually would not surprise me a bit that nvidia might be phasing this card out, and replacing them with the XT/SE version (which might explain the very quiet xt/se launch), since they almost all overclock to 5950u speeds, leaving little reason to actually buy nvidia's flaghship product. heck, many people have bios flashed these to actual 5950u. the only difference being .2ns slower memory... oh, and of course 128mb less memory

 

[anim8r]

Originally posted by: Bucksnort
Because BFG doa cards are so many. Look around at other boards. Seems more dont work than those that do. I would hold off on getting a BFG till this clears up some if it does.
There is a reason that this card is the only 5900 selling for under 200 bucks hint hint

More BFG 5900nu's are DOA than not, huh? That's an interesting conclusion..

 

[jevans64]

I picked up an MSI GeForce FX 5900 XT from ZipZoomFly for $195 shipped. While not the top performing card, it is one of the quietest at about 28 dB @ 12 inches. Considering the Ultra version runs $350, this might be the FX version of the "Ti4200." I think pannam1's prices are all for the XT/SE versions.

I got the 5900XT to replace my Ti4600 for fear of not having a back-up card. Other posters are correct in saying that the "normal" 5900s are being replaced by the 5900 XT/SE models. The flavors are now 5950 Ultra, 5900 Ultra, 5900 XT/SE. CPU & Memory clocks ( & speed ) are the only differences.

The MSI comes with 128 MB of Samsung 2.8 ns memory. There is not much room for overclocking there. The 3D CPU clock is set at 400 MHz. The memory clock is set at 700 MHz. The 2D clock is set at 300 MHz.

***** I did have some problems with getting the card to seat properly in my AGP 8x slot. I guess it depends on the mobo & case ( my slot retaining screw was a little off ).

The card is the retail version that comes with games - Elder Scrolls 3 : Morrowwind, Ghost Recon, Duke Nukem : Manhattan Project. Also comes with WinDVD creator plus and a driver disc with other goodies on it. The MSI driver version uses the nVidia 53.03 version. It comes with several cables - the VIVO cable, DVI to VGA dongle, and necessary video cables.

The first thing I did was run benchmarks using 3DMark2001SE build 330 and 3DMark2003 build 340.

My system:

Pentium 4 3.2 GHz w/ 800 MHz FSB & 512K L2
512 MB DDR400 CL2 ( Kingston HyperX 3200 )
Asus P4C800 Deluxe mobo
Windows ( Windoze , Winders, Windudz ) XP w/ SP1
DirectX 9.0b
nVidia driver v44.03 ( Ti4600 ) & v53.03 ( 5900 XT )

How the Ti4600 scored: ( Note : The v44.03 drivers worked best on this card - the 5x.xx drivers resulted in a ~8% preformance reduction )

3DMark 2001 SE b330 = 15261 ( standard settings for free version )
3DMark 2003 b340 = 1774 ( standard settings for free version - cannot be altered )

How the FX 5900 XT scored: ( I have not tried the 52.16 drivers. These are rumored to be faster than the 53.03 )

3DMark 2001 SE b330 = 16427 ( standard settings for free version )
3DMark 2003 b340 = 5639 ( standard settings for free version - cannot be altered )

Not much gain was seen in Mark 2001 SE since this is meant for DirectX 8.x. The real gain is in DirectX 9.x and 3DMark 2003.

I did a quick compare of similar CPU speeds vs. different GPUs and found that this GPU in my system is not far behind OCed 5900 Ultras. Some of those
ultras scored 5500 to 6000.

Consider the MSI 5900 XT if a quiet solution is needed.