5700 Ultra review

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm no expert, but I think the biggest improvement in performance is what they're able to do with drivers. If you read the explanation given in the article, nVidia is doing exactly what I said they would. They're translating the existing code into something the GeForce FX GPU can process more efficiently... I think we're gonna see a lot more of this from nVidia. ATI played the innovator for a while when they created the 9700 Pro... now it's nVidia's turn. We'll see what happens with NV40 and DX9.1... the optimizations to the compiler may not be necessary for NV40 since nVidia and MS will work more closely on DX9.1. I think it's pretty impressive that nVidia was able to compensate for this performance gap just by writing software... and with new revisions of the NV3x GPU, and the new NV40 GPU, they'll be able to tailor the hardware more to what the software requires... then work their magic with drivers again.

innovator? in the form of the 5700? if anything, it is on par with 9600 XT, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[BoberFett]

Holy crap, I just checked Pricewatch and the Leadtek 5900 is $220 right now.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Holy crap, I just checked Pricewatch and the Leadtek 5900 is $220 right now.

wow, your right. from a reputable retailer as well: gameVE

edit: AND its retail

 

[BoberFett]

It's the same price at Newegg.

 

[kylebisme]

i'll bet the prices on them go back up soon though now that nivida's drivers are reasonably competitive.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: shady06

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm no expert, but I think the biggest improvement in performance is what they're able to do with drivers. If you read the explanation given in the article, nVidia is doing exactly what I said they would. They're translating the existing code into something the GeForce FX GPU can process more efficiently... I think we're gonna see a lot more of this from nVidia. ATI played the innovator for a while when they created the 9700 Pro... now it's nVidia's turn. We'll see what happens with NV40 and DX9.1... the optimizations to the compiler may not be necessary for NV40 since nVidia and MS will work more closely on DX9.1. I think it's pretty impressive that nVidia was able to compensate for this performance gap just by writing software... and with new revisions of the NV3x GPU, and the new NV40 GPU, they'll be able to tailor the hardware more to what the software requires... then work their magic with drivers again.

innovator? in the form of the 5700? if anything, it is on par with 9600 XT, nothing more, nothing less.

I'm talking about the drivers, not the 5700.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: shady06

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm no expert, but I think the biggest improvement in performance is what they're able to do with drivers. If you read the explanation given in the article, nVidia is doing exactly what I said they would. They're translating the existing code into something the GeForce FX GPU can process more efficiently... I think we're gonna see a lot more of this from nVidia. ATI played the innovator for a while when they created the 9700 Pro... now it's nVidia's turn. We'll see what happens with NV40 and DX9.1... the optimizations to the compiler may not be necessary for NV40 since nVidia and MS will work more closely on DX9.1. I think it's pretty impressive that nVidia was able to compensate for this performance gap just by writing software... and with new revisions of the NV3x GPU, and the new NV40 GPU, they'll be able to tailor the hardware more to what the software requires... then work their magic with drivers again.

innovator? in the form of the 5700? if anything, it is on par with 9600 XT, nothing more, nothing less.

I'm talking about the drivers, not the 5700.

gotcha

 

[molthian2]

Originally posted by: X14
Where can I find the 5700 Ultra for sale online? This is the card I've been waiting for.

PNY 128MB DDR2 AGP 8X Video Card with nVidia's Verto GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 3D Chip

$229.99 (and a $30 mail in rebate which will show up Oct. 25th on the site) = $199.99

 

Originally posted by: shady06

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

innovator? in the form of the 5700? if anything, it is on par with 9600 XT, nothing more, nothing less.

And its on par with a 9700pro on some occasions. Dont forget the good stuff shady..

:beer:

PS: I know it was openGL..

 

[kylebisme]

on par benchmarks wise but the aa is not nearly as good as the 9700s.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: molthian2

Originally posted by: X14
Where can I find the 5700 Ultra for sale online? This is the card I've been waiting for.

PNY 128MB DDR2 AGP 8X Video Card with nVidia's Verto GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 3D Chip

$229.99 (and a $30 mail in rebate which will show up Oct. 25th on the site) = $199.99

Or you could spend $10 less and get a much faster card.

Unless the price drops on the 5700, I don't see where it fits into Nvidias price/performance structure.

 

Yeah, it wont be worth it until it drops below @175.00.
Give it a few weeks. But I also think the 5900's will start to go up slightly.

 

[X14]

I think I'm going for the 5700 Ultra but before I do, should I consider a 5900 for $50 more? NV36 vs. NV35? What the heck is the difference? I've been out of the vcard loop for a while but I know the 5600s are a no-no.

 

[Jeff7181]

I'd go with a 5900 ... in fact, I did

 

[Pete]

Originally posted by: X14
I think I'm going for the 5700 Ultra but before I do, should I consider a 5900 for $50 more? NV36 vs. NV35? What the heck is the difference? I've been out of the vcard loop for a while but I know the 5600s are a no-no.

5900 = 2 x 5700U, almost literally. 5700U's appear to be ~$220 w/$20 MIR, 5900's go for as low as $220 for a retail Leadtek at GameVE/NewEgg and $230 for a retail eVGA at NewEgg. I see no reason at all to go with the 5700U right now when you can have twice the card for $20 more. Maybe when the 5700U has been out a while and the price drops to $160 it'll be a better deal, but for now, it's not a good deal. Pick up a 5900 if you're in the market for an nVidia card at the moment.

 

[stardust]

Originally posted by: shady06

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm no expert, but I think the biggest improvement in performance is what they're able to do with drivers. If you read the explanation given in the article, nVidia is doing exactly what I said they would. They're translating the existing code into something the GeForce FX GPU can process more efficiently... I think we're gonna see a lot more of this from nVidia. ATI played the innovator for a while when they created the 9700 Pro... now it's nVidia's turn. We'll see what happens with NV40 and DX9.1... the optimizations to the compiler may not be necessary for NV40 since nVidia and MS will work more closely on DX9.1. I think it's pretty impressive that nVidia was able to compensate for this performance gap just by writing software... and with new revisions of the NV3x GPU, and the new NV40 GPU, they'll be able to tailor the hardware more to what the software requires... then work their magic with drivers again.

innovator? in the form of the 5700? if anything, it is on par with 9600 XT, nothing more, nothing less.

Anandtech review:
After testing the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, we have been very pleasantly surprised by NVIDIA. We mentioned last week that the 5700's new architecture might help to close the gap. In fact, NVIDIA has flipped the tables on ATI in the midrange segment and takes the performance crown with a late round TKO. It was a hard fought battle with many ties, but in the games where the NV36 based card took the performance lead, it lead with the style of a higher end card.

at $200 i think it has won! this year at least.... *waits for HL to be brought up*

 

[stardust]

Originally posted by: Pete

Originally posted by: X14
I think I'm going for the 5700 Ultra but before I do, should I consider a 5900 for $50 more? NV36 vs. NV35? What the heck is the difference? I've been out of the vcard loop for a while but I know the 5600s are a no-no.

5900 = 2 x 5700U, almost literally. 5700U's appear to be ~$220 w/$20 MIR, 5900's go for as low as $220 for a retail Leadtek at GameVE/NewEgg and $230 for a retail eVGA at NewEgg. I see no reason at all to go with the 5700U right now when you can have twice the card for $20 more. Maybe when the 5700U has been out a while and the price drops to $160 it'll be a better deal, but for now, it's not a good deal. Pick up a 5900 if you're in the market for an nVidia card at the moment.

Did you just mean memory bits? the reviews show the 5900 leading by ~20% i think. Is that twice?

 

[RayEarth]

after finding out the performance/price the 5700u brings, I decided to buy an evga 5900 at newegg today for $247 with tax. I agree with those who suggest buying a 5900 over a 5700u if you plan on buying now. I noticed the leadtek one is $220, but just a reminder, the leadtek model that sells for $220-260 is often the LX model which uses 2.8ns memory like many other manufacturers use on their low end 5900 cards, but the evga 5900 uses 2.2ns memory which is better for overclocking.


gorillaman My system setup is pretty similiar to yours so I would like to know how long have you had your fx5900 card, have you experienced any problems with it and did you ever need to update the bios? are the new 52.16 performing well?

 

[Pete]

Originally posted by: stardust
Did you just mean memory bits? the reviews show the 5900 leading by ~20% i think. Is that twice?

Well, theoretically the 5900 is a little less than double a 5700U.

5900: 400/425, 4x2/8x0, 256b memory bus, 4x64 crossbar memory switch
5700U: 475/450, 2x2/4x0, 128b memory bus, 2x64 crossbar memory switch

That's practically double, except for vertex shaders (nV says the 5700U has the same three VS units as the 5900). You won't necessarily see the difference between the two cards as clearly as possible in the relatively "low-res" 10x7 benches shown here, but crank the res a bit and the 5900 should walk away. It doesn't happen all the time, and the difference isn't as big as the hardware almost-doubling would imply, but the 5900 can outperform the 5700U by 2x or so on more than a few occasions. This is easy to see at once in the Digit-Life NV36-38 review (I'm loathe to link to that review, as they included benches on the leaked HL2 beta, but ignore those and focus on their other numbers). The Hardware.fr NV36 and NV38 reviews also show big differences, where the 5900U (basically as fast as a 5900) performs as fast in 16x12 AA+AF as the 5700U does in 10x7 AA+AF. Sure, you won't see a 2x improvement all the time (mainly 20-40% for current titles, as you can see in the GamePC and Firingsquad 5700U reviews), but I think the difference will be more pronounced with upcoming shader-bound titles (and possibly Doom 3, if the 5900 can calculate twice as many stencil ops per clock as the 5700). Anyway, a 20-40% speed increase isn't bad for $20 more.

I'm not sure how nV arrived at these price points, but I can't imagine both cards cost about the same to produce. Maybe this is a temporary price compression?

 

[BenSkywalker]

I'm not sure how nV arrived at these price points, but I can't imagine both cards cost about the same to produce. Maybe this is a temporary price compression?

I would say it's temp price compression. Looking over at Fry's the 5700Ultra can be had for ~$10 more then the 5600Ultra, looking at it from that angle it certainly seems like a good deal. The 59xx parts are all well over $300 at that location, 50% more in cost then the 5700Ultra. Right now I think it is simply a case of we are seeing MSRP everywhere instead of the normal gap between it and street.

On the 5700 front I think the most promising aspect I've seen about the board is how well the early samples are overclocking. If that is the case, that tends to mean that yields are likely quite high and they won't be suffering the yield issues they have had with the 5600 that kept the prices so high(in relation to the normal MSRP/street rift). It will be nice to see what the Gainwards etc will offer for terms of 'stock' overclock and what they hit at their limit. This part at @600/1000 would be pretty nasty in the mid range. As of right now, I think going with a 5900NU is a no brainer versus the 5700U, but that could change quickly within the next few weeks.

 

[stardust]

Originally posted by: Pete

Originally posted by: stardust
Did you just mean memory bits? the reviews show the 5900 leading by ~20% i think. Is that twice?

Well, theoretically the 5900 is a little less than double a 5700U.

5900: 400/425, 4x2/8x0, 256b memory bus, 4x64 crossbar memory switch
5700U: 475/450, 2x2/4x0, 128b memory bus, 2x64 crossbar memory switch

That's practically double, except for vertex shaders (nV says the 5700U has the same three VS units as the 5900). You won't necessarily see the difference between the two cards as clearly as possible in the relatively "low-res" 10x7 benches shown here, but crank the res a bit and the 5900 should walk away. It doesn't happen all the time, and the difference isn't as big as the hardware almost-doubling would imply, but the 5900 can outperform the 5700U by 2x or so on more than a few occasions. This is easy to see at once in the Digit-Life NV36-38 review (I'm loathe to link to that review, as they included benches on the leaked HL2 beta, but ignore those and focus on their other numbers). The Hardware.fr NV36 and NV38 reviews also show big differences, where the 5900U (basically as fast as a 5900) performs as fast in 16x12 AA+AF as the 5700U does in 10x7 AA+AF. Sure, you won't see a 2x improvement all the time (mainly 20-40% for current titles, as you can see in the GamePC and Firingsquad 5700U reviews), but I think the difference will be more pronounced with upcoming shader-bound titles (and possibly Doom 3, if the 5900 can calculate twice as many stencil ops per clock as the 5700). Anyway, a 20-40% speed increase isn't bad for $20 more.

I'm not sure how nV arrived at these price points, but I can't imagine both cards cost about the same to produce. Maybe this is a temporary price compression?

oh. on the digit life review here are some #s i got from the seperate comparisons grrr i wish they'd combine those charts! lol

quake3: 5700U 202fps OCed: 218
5900U 228fps
RCTW: 5700U 158fps OCed: 195
5900U 245fps
unreal2k3: 5700U 81
5900U 105
halo: 5700U 31fps
5900U 53fps

I guess the memory speed has quite alot of impact on the scores. If you underclock the 5700U to 5900U core/mem speeds i can see how they would be halves of each other. But still! the 5700U does have higher core/mem so it isn't AS handicaped. Im trying to justify my future purchase here!!!!! Also, the VIVO edition 5900 non-ultra is alot more expensive... brings me to a point, you were talking about the 5900Ultra all along huh? I would imagine the 5900non-ultra to be slightly slower. But again this is most likely to be the clock speeds. Well, you get what you spend! Street prices for the 5700U will drop to $180 pretty soon and they come with Vivo.

ughh i jus read u wanted the higher res benchmarks!!! ahh well i see it lol good nuff i ain't gunna erase what i wrote!

 

[Rogodin2]

Driver Haven's conclusion:

"So who should consider this card as an upgrade? Put up against the 9600 XT I just can?t recommend anyone to buy the 5700 Ultra. It?s clear that Nvidia can squeeze performance out of the card?3DMark shows that. However people buy cards to play games and there is no way Nvidia can optimise their FX range for performance in every game that is released. Nothing emphasises the situation FX users are going to be in more often than not than Max Payne 2, a game that is a week old and which no manufacturer has had time to optimise for, there really is no competition in the performance here."


http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/5700/index.htm


I guess they weren't too impressed.


rogo

 

[Pete]

I dunno, Driver Heaven seems a bit ATi-happy to me. They've been getting interview after interview with ATi people, going on multiple tours of their HQs, and some of their conclusions are a bit hard to draw from their limited benchmarks.

I, too, thought the FX line was handicapped in terms of shader performance. The Det 52's have changed my mind. I don't share the conclusion any more that if the FX line performs poorly on a title at the title's "unoptimized" (uncorrupted? ) debut, it will always remain that slow. I'm expecting MP2 performance to increase with later drivers.

So now the focus shifts from the simple performance comparison (which is why I and others have basically scorned the FX line, though the Radeon's superior AA was also a significant factor) to the more intricate and possibly subjective IQ comparison. The FX series may now be on par with Radeons in heavy DX8/DX9-shaded games, but the former is mostly rendering at FP16, while the latter is at FP24. So things have gotten potentially more complicated, and the onus falls on reviewers to help point out any differences, if they exist.

 

[kylebisme]

you saw Dave's the shadermark results didn't you?

 

[Pete]

Yeah, but I'm not sure how much stock I place in Shadermark. It's still based on an ATi demo, right? And given how performance increased in Halo and TR:AoD, perhaps it's the game/benchmark that's coded unfairly/overly idealistically. I'll reconsider Shadermark if FutureMark's upcoming review of current drivers shows more cheating on nV's part, but, for now I'll mainly focus on real games (thus I tend to ignore AM3 until I see more IQ comparos, and, as I said, I'm ignoring 3DM03 until FM's final final final review of everyone's cheatin' drivers).