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MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT

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

GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION

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

THE MOST AFFORDABLE PERFORMANCE FROM THE FX 5900 FAMILY

MSI ignites the cinematic revolution with the most powerful members of the NVIDIA GeForce FX family-the GeForce 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 5900 XT graphic card take cinematic quality special effects to new levels!!!

GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION

PROCESSOR	AMD ATHLON XP 3000
VIDEO CARD	MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT
	SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT
ATI DRIVER	CATALYST v4.2
NVIDIA DRIVER	FORCEWARE v53.03
MOTHERBOARD	ASROCK K7S8XE+
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.

COMANCHE 4

800x600

	51
	48

1024x768

	51
	48

1280x1024

	49
	47

1024x768 (4xAA & 8xAF)

	46
	37

MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Fullscreen Enabled
32Bit Colour Depth
Anti-Aliasing Disabled
Terrain Detail High
Object Detail High
Texture Quality High
Water Quality High
Shadows High
Particle Density High

COMMENT "This is a very close result because Comanche4 is more cpu limited rather than video card limited. The MSI GeForce 5900 XT and Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT were both playable at all of the resolutions tested however the MSI GeForce 5900 XT had much better performance with 4xAA & 8xAF which was very impressive."

QUAKE 3

800x600

	280
	259

1024x768

	278
	251

1280x1024

	272
	236

1024x768 (4xAA & 8xAF)

	211
	155

MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
Four.dm68 Benchmark
32Bit Colour Depth
Texture Compress Disabled
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometric Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering

COMMENT "Although Quake 3 is getting very old it's engine is still being used in a wide range of different games. It goes without saying that most modern video cards are more than playable with this game and the MSI GeForce 5900 XT and the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT both performed very well. The MSI GeForce 5900 XT's performance was very impressive especially with 4xaa/8xaf enabled."

SERIOUS SAM SE

CITADEL

	98
	86
	88
	72

ELEPHANT ATRIUM

	124
	113
	102
	84

GRAND CATHEDRAL

	126
	105
	104
	78

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

BENCHMARK SETTINGS
1024x768 Resolution
Fullscreen Enabled
Extreme Quality Settings
Large Texture Size
Optimal Texture Quality
Detail Textures Enabled

COMMENT "It was a fairly close result and both the MSI GeForce 5900 XT and Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT performed very well, the 4xaa/8xaf performance by both video cards was excellent however the MSI GeForce 5900 XT was superior."