Introduction

The DirectX 9 graphics card war is well into the fight with different variants of each product being released pretty regularly recently. What if you don't want the top of the range or the bottom of the range, what is there for you? This is where the brand new Inno3D GeForceFX 5700Ultra comes into play, the latest midrange chipset created to fight off the competition... primarily the Radeon 9600XT.

Very much a pheonix from the fire, the FX5700 Ultra came at a time when NVIDIA was struggling to stamp their dominance on the DirectX 9.X ready graphics scene and hit the competition where it hurts, in the cash generating middle sector.

Technical Specifications

So what does the 5700Ultra have to offer? Lets take a look at the card's specification.

Graphic Controller :

• NVIDIA® GeForce FX 5700 Ultra

Memory Configuration :

• 128 / 256MB 128-bit DDR-II Memory

Product Overview :

• Powered by NVIDIA GeForce™ FX 5700 Ultra GPU
• 256-bit graphic core and 128-bit memory interface
• 0.13 micron process technology
• NVIDIA® CineFX™ 2.0 engine
• NVIDIA® UltraShadow™ technology
• NVIDIA® Intellisample™ high-resolution compression technology (HCT)
• True 128-bit studio precision computation
• Advanced pixel shaders
• Supports shading language like for Cg and HLSL
• NVIDIA® ForceWare™ unified software environment (USE)
• NVIDIA® Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
• Optimizations and Support for DirectX9 and OpenGL 1.5
• NVIDIA® nViewTM multi-display technology
• NVIDIA® Digital Vibrance Control™ (DVC) 3.0
• 4 Pixels/Clock Rendering Pipeline
• Supports AGP8X interface (2.1 GB/s Bandwidth to System)
• Dual 400MHz RAMDACs supports up to 2048*1536 at 85Hz
• DVI Output supports up to 1600*1200
• Integrated NTSC & PAL TV encoder supports up to 1024*768 resolution
• Integrated full hardware MPEG2 decoder accelerates DVD playback
• 64-phase video scaler

CineFX™ 2.0 Engine :

• CineFX™ 2.0 shading engine delivers 2x the floating-point pixel shader performance.
• Allows fetching from up to 16 unique texture maps in a single pixel shader program.
• Produces gaming effects on par with the hottest motion pictures.
• Vertex Shaders 2.0+ and Pixel Shaders 2.0+
• Support of 1024 instructions in a single rendering pass, allowing for complex effects that aren't practical in any other architectures.
• Combined with 128-bit studio-quality color provides high precision computation and produces the resulting image with best quality.
• Allow developers to easily apply their distinctive style to digital content, achieving cinematic visual effects in real time with shaders.
• Shifts the focus from simple pixel fill rate to sophisticated pixel shading.

Intellisample™ High-Resolution Compression Technology :

• Intellisample's intelligent antialiasing captures a higher-resolution version of each image, then resizes and resamples it for output to your screen, reducing "jaggies" and smoothing away imperfections
• Second-generation Intellisample technology provides up to 50% increase in compression efficiency for compressing color, texture, and z-data
• New 6XS mode, calculating 50% more sample in 4XS mode, delivers silky-smooth visuals with gamma-adjusted sampling
• Deliver unprecedented visual quality for resolutions up to 1600*1280 with antialiasing
  

UltraShadow™ Technology :

• Deliver accurate and complex shadows effect to make the audience feeling as if they are part of the action
• Speed up the processing of shadows much quickly by discarding non-useful information
• Complex shadow effects are now available at high frame rates

The Ultimate Multi-Display Solution with NVIDIA® nView Display Technology :

• NVIDIA's nView hardware and software technology combination leverages NVIDIA's industry-leading hardware and software expertise to deliver multi-display functionality of immense flexibility. nView incorporates built-in attribute and performance tuning for each of the different display devices - including CRTs, Televisions, and flat panel LCDs - and provides for completely intuitive and flexible work environments.
• Dual, 400MHz RAMDAC's for display resolutions up to and including 2048x1536 @75Hz.
• Integrated NTSC/PAL TV encoder support resolutions up to 1024x768 without the need for panning with built-in Macrovision copy protection.
• DVD and HDTV-ready MPEG-2 decoding up to 1920x1080i resolutions
• DVI support for compatibility with next-generation flat panel displays with resolutions up to and including 1600x1200.

OK, you now know what the card supposedly does, but before we put these specs into practice, lets have a look at what you get for your money.

The Card