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MSI GEFORCE FX 5900 XT VTD128

"In this article we test the MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT VTD128 against the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT using the following software:- 3dmark 2001 SE, 3dmark 2003, Comanche4, GL Excess, Quake III Arena, Serious Sam the Second Encounter, Unreal Tournament 2003 and X2 The Threat."

THE MOST AFFORDABLE PRICE AND PERFORMANCE FROM THE FX 5900 GRAPHICS FAMILY MEMBERS

MSI ignites the cinematic revolution with the most powerful members of the NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX family-the GeForce FX 5900 XT graphic card with 2.8ns Ultra Speed DDR memory. Powered by the second-generation NVIDIA® CineFX™ 2.0 engine with the industry's only true 128-bit precision processing-MSI GeForce FX 5900 XT graphic card take cinematic quality special effects to new levels!!!

With the most advanced overclocking engine of MSI, Dynamic Overclocking Technology™, it enhances 10% Overclocking Level Performance.

MSI DYNAMIC OVERCLOCKING TECHNOLOGY™ MAXIMIZING THE OVERCLOCKING POSSIBILITY

MSI's best engineering process and design maximizes the overcloking possibility! MSI GeForce FX 5900 XT series equips the most advanced Dynamic Overclocking Technology, enabling the synchronized GPU & DDR overclocking performance up to 10% improvement by 6-level setting Commander, General, Colonel, Captain, Sergeant and Private levels. With the best optimization and easiest setting within the driver's menu, D.O.T. becomes the conqueror of all the DirectX 9.0 designed PC games!

MSI T.O.P. TECH™ COOLING BLAZING SPEEDS WITHOUT SWEAT

Continuing the MSI tradition of incorporating only the best engineering process and design techniques, the GeForce FX 5900 XT series take advantage of the most advanced and sophisticated T.O.P. TECH™ COOLING technology. This advanced ventilation cooling mechanism enables higher performance through faster clock rates, while still remains in comparable low GPU temperature.

NVIDIA® INTELLISAMPLE™ HCT TECHNOLOGY INVINCIBLE GAMING QUALITY

MSI GeForce FX 5900 XT Series also introduce NVIDIA® Intellisample™ high-resolutioncompression technology (HCT), which extends the experience of ultra-realistic visuals at lightning-fast speeds to higher resolutions and antialiasing levels. Intellisample HCT includes an advanced anisotropic engine designed to deliver true anisotropic filtering for incredible image quality without performance degradation. The advanced antialiasing and anisotropic filtering techniques combined with the industry's only true 128-bit precision computation capabilities result in image quality unmatched by any other solution.

NVIDIA® CineFX 2.0 Engine DOUBLING THE GAMING POWER

Advanced pixel shaders in the new CineFX 2.0 engine deliver up to double the floating-point pixel shader power of previous-generation GPUs, allowing for faster, more efficient execution of even the most complex pixel shading tasks. In addition, CineFX 2.0 continues to deliver the highest level of image quality and film-industry levels of precision through true 128-bit precision computing, enabling special effects on par with Hollywood films.

NVIDIA® ULTRASHADOW™ TECHNOLOGY FANTASTIC GAMING EXPERIENCE

With the latest NVIDIA ULTRASHADOW™ TECHNOLOGY, MSI FX 5900 XT Series accelerates shadow volumes for next generation games, while accurately maintains shadows and discarding non-useful information.

DYNAMIC OVERCLOCKING TECHNOLOGY

MSI FX 5900 XT Series equips Dynamic Overclocking Technology, and T.O.P. TECH Cooling, developing the supreme overclocking & cooling & de-noise performance. Outstanding cooling performance, quiet de-noise performance, and the innovative design of Dynamic Overclocking solution is what MSI brings out the best engineering process and design techniques for FX 5900 XT Series.

NVIDIA CINEFX 2.0 ENGINE

Advanced pixel shaders deliver 2x the floating-point shader pixel performance.
Support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 (DX9) pixel shader 2.0+.
Support for DX9 vertex shader 2.0+.
Long pixel programs up to 1,024 instructions.
Long vertex programs up to 256 static instructions with up to 65,536 instructions executed.
Dynamic, conditional execution and flow control.
Architected for Cg and Microsoft HLSL for maximum compatibility for nextgeneration content.
128-bit, studio-quality, floating-point precision computation through the entire rendering pipeline.
Native hardware support for 32 bpp, 64bpp and 128 bpp rendering modes.
Up to 12 pixel shader operations/clock.
Up to 16 textures per rendering pass.
Support for sRGB texture format for gamma textures.
DirectX and S3TC texture compression.
Optimized for 32-, 24-, 16-, 15- and 8-bpp modes.
True-color, 64x64 hardware cursor alpha.
Multibuffering (double, triple or quad) for smooth animation and video playback.

INTELLISAMPLE HCT PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGY

Increased visual quality at higher resolutions through advances.
Blistering-fast antialiasing and compression performance.
Support for advanced lossless compression algorithms.
Fast z-clear.

ULTRASHADOW TECHNOLOGY

Accelerates shadow volumes for nextgeneration games.
Accurately maintains shadows while discarding non-useful information.

ADVANCED DISPLAY PIPELINE WITH FULL NVIEW CAPABILITIES

Integrated NTSC/PAL TV encoder supporting resolutions up to 1024x768.
DVD and HDTV-ready MPEG-2 decoding up to 1920x1080i resolutions.
Dual, integrated 400MHz RAMDACs for display resolutions up to 2048x1536@85Hz.
Dual DVO ports for interfacing to external TMDS transmitters.
Internal TV support.
Dual internal TMDS encoders (one single and one Dual link).
VIP 1.1 interface support for Video-In function.
Microsoft Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) support f.or multiple video windows.

DIGITAL VIBRANCE CONTROL (DVC) 3.0

DVC color controls.
DVC image sharpening controls.

ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

AGP 8X including Fast Writes and sideband addressing.
0.13-micron process technology for higher levels of integration and higher clock speeds.
Advanced thermal management and thermal monitoring.
40 mmx40 mm, BGA 1309 flip-chip package.

OPERATING SYSTEMS AND API SUPPORT

Windows® XP / 2000 / Me / 98SE.
Complete DirectX support, including DirectX 9.0 and lower.
Full OpenGL 1.4 and lower.

COMPATIBILITY

NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
Fully compliant OpenGL 1.4 API with NVIDIA extensions, on all Windows operating systems.
WHQL-certified for Windows® XP, Windows® Me, Windows® 2000.

NAME	CHIPSET	GPU SPEED	MEMORY	MEMORY INTERFACE	MEMORY SPEED	AGP SPEED
MSI GEFORCE FX 5900 XT VTD128	NV35	390MHZ	128MB	256BIT	700MHZ DDR	8x
SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT	RV360	500MHZ	128MB	128BIT	650MHZ DDR	8x
NAME	CHIPSET	GPU SPEED	MEMORY	MEMORY INTERFACE	MEMORY SPEED	AGP SPEED

GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION

PROCESSOR	AMD ATHLON XP 3000
VIDEO CARD	MSI GEFORCE FX 5900 XT VTD128
	SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT
ATI DRIVER	CATALYST v4.2
NVIDIA DRIVER	FORCEWARE v53.03
MOTHERBOARD	ASROCK K7S8XE+ SIS748
MEMORY	512MB CRUCIAL PC3200 DDR
OPERATING SYSTEM	WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 1
DIRECTX VERSION	v9.0b

NOTE - HQ MEANS THAT 4x ANTI-ALIASING AND 8x ANISOTROPIC FILTERING HAS BEEN ENABLED.

SYNTHETIC BENCHMARKS

3DMARK 2001 SE

	13797
	12465
	10222
	7720

3DMARK 2003

	4954
	3899
	2940
	1885

GLEXCESS

	11323
	9148
	8538
	7232

MSI GEFORCE FX 5900 XT SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT
MSI GEFORCE FX 5900 XT (HQ) SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT (HQ)

COMMENT

3DMARK 2001 SE - The MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT storms into 1st place with a 1332 point lead over the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT, things get even more interesting when we enable 4xaa/8xaf and the MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT manages a massive 2502 point lead over the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT. The reason for the MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT's great performance is it's huge 50% fillrate advantage over the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT. The MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT's vertex shader is also 25% faster and when it comes to pixel shading it's 34% faster.

3DMARK 2003 - Let's see how the MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT performs in this DX9 benchmark, once again the MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT is in first place leading the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT by 1055 points and even after enabling 4xaa/8xaf the MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT still leads the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT by 1047 points. Once again the reason for the impressive MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT performance is it's 50% fillrate advantage over the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT.

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
3DMARK 2001 SE
1024x768 Resolution
32Bit color
D3D Hardware T&L
Antialiasing Disabled
Double Frame Buffer
Compressed Texture Format
24Bit Z-Buffer Depth
3DMARK 2003
1024x768 Resolution
No Pixel Processing
Optimal Texture Filtering
4x Max Anisotropy
Optimal Vertex Shaders
No Repeat Tests
No Fixed Framerate
GLEXCESS5
1024x768 Resolution
Scene 1 Intro
Scene 2 Waver
Scene 3 Facescape
Scene 4 Exploding Logo

COMMENT
GL EXCESS - Unlike the two 3dmark programs featured above GLexcess uses OpenGL and not Direct3D. Once again the MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT leads the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT by a massive 2175 points and 1306 points with 4xaa/8xaf enabled.

3DMARK 2001 SE

CAR CHASE

	198
	148
	68
	67

DRAGOTHIC

	257
	227
	141
	129

LOBBY

	181
	175
	81
	80

NATURE

	82
	72

MSI GEFORCE FX 5900 XT SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT
MSI GEFORCE FX 5900 XT (HQ) SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT (HQ)

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
1024x768 Resolution
32Bit color
D3D Hardware T&L
Antialiasing Disabled
Double Frame Buffer
Compressed Texture Format
24Bit Z-Buffer Depth

COMMENT - "The MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT wins all of the game tests at low quality very easily. However the HQ game tests are much more stressful and the MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT and Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT are about equal."

3DMARK 2003 GAMES

WINGS OF FURY

	157
	133

BATTLE OF PROXYCON

	37
	25

TROLL'S LAIR

	30
	23

MOTHER NATURE

	29
	24

MSI GEFORCE FX 5900 XT SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
1024x768 Resolution
No Pixel Processing
Optimal Texture Filtering
4x Max Anisotropy
Optimal Vertex Shaders
No Repeat Tests
No Fixed Framerate

COMMENT - "Both the MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT and Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT run the dx7 game test very well, with the two dx8 game tests both video cards start to struggle although the MSI Geforce FX 5900 XT managed to stay near 30fps."

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