GEFORCE PCX 5900 PERFORMANCE

"Powered by the Geforce PCX 5900 GPU this video card uses PCI-Express, Directx 9.0 and has 128MB DDR memory using a 256-bit memory interface. The original Geforce 5900 was a high price video card produced for the high-end market, Nvidia later released a cheaper to produce version of the Geforce 5900 called the Geforce 5900 XT which was clocked slightly slower than the Geforce 5900 while retaining the important features of the Geforce 5900 like the 256bit memory interface. Although you would expect the Geforce PCX 5900 to offer compariable performance to the Geforce 5900 the Geforce PCX 5900 is clocked quite abit slower and will offer performance more like the Geforce 5900 XT. For this review we have benchmarked using 23 games including 1944 Battle of the Bulge, Aurora Watching, Chronicles of Riddick, Codename Panzers Phase 2, Comanche4, Delta Force Extreme, Earth 2160, Far Cry, GT Legends, King Kong, Lego Starwars, Quake 3, Quake 4, Scooter War3z, Scrapland, Serious Sam 2, Trackmania Sunrise, Tribes Vengeance, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2004, Warhammer 40,000 - Dawn of War, World Racing 2 and Xpand Rally."

CINEFX ENGINE - Powers cinematic effects beyond imagination. With advanced vertex and pixel shader capabilities, stunning and complex special effects are possible. In addition, increased horsepower delivers faster and smoother gameplay.

HIGH-PRECISION GRAPHICS - By combining the incredible dynamic range of today's state-of-the-art 3D motion pictures with 128-bit studio-precision colour, the GeForce FX GPUs bring you the industry’s best image quality for the most demanding applications.

NVIEW MULTI-DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY - The nView hardware and software technology combination delivers maximum flexibility for multi-display options, and provides unprecedented end-user control of the desktop experience.

DIGITAL VIBRANCE CONTROL (DVC) - Allows the user to adjust colour controls digitally to compensate for the lighting conditions of their workspace, in order to achieve accurate, bright colours in all conditions. Currently this feature is not available on Mac systems.

MICROSOFT DIRECTX® 9.0 OPTIMIZATIONS AND SUPPORT - Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all DirectX 9 applications.

OPENGL® 1.4 OPTIMIZATIONS AND SUPPORT - Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all OpenGL applications.

HARDWARE MPEG-2 DECODER - Delivers full-frame, full-screen MPEG-2 video on your desktop.

DVI SUPPORT - Able to drive the industry's largest and highest resolution flat-panel displays with up to 1600x1200 resolution.

350MHz RAMDAC - Supports QXGA displays with ergonomic refresh rates.

ARCHITECTED FOR CG - Ensures that the newest, cutting-edge special effects in applications will run flawlessly. Speeds up content creation so game developers can get their new games out to PC users faster than ever before.

UNIFIFED DRIVER ARCHITECTURE (UDA) - Guarantees forward and backward compatibility with software drivers. Simplifies upgrading to a new NVIDIA product because all NVIDIA products work with the same driver software.

1944 - BATTLE OF THE BULGE LOW QUALITY 140 137 115 89 MEDIUM QUALITY 46 42 36 31 HIGH QUALITY 35 31 26 22 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200 COMMENT - "Geforce PCX 5900 delivers a very playable performance using low quality settings and is playable at all resolutions. Even though the Geforce PCX 5900 takes a 60% performance hit when using medium quality settings the Geforce PCX 5900 is still playable at all resolutions. The Geforce PCX 5900 takes a further 25% performance hit when using high quality settings the Geforce PCX 5900 is still playable upto 1024x768." BENCHMARK SETTINGS St. Vith Scenario LOW QUALITY Texture Detail Low Particle Density Low Shadow Resolution Low Water Disabled Decals Disabled Fog Enabled Wire Physics Disabled Grass Disabled MEDIUM QUALITY Texture Detail Medium Particle Density Medium Shadow Resolution Medium Water Disabled Decals Enabled Fog Enabled Wire Physics Disabled Grass Enabled HIGH QUALITY Texture Detail High Particle Density High Shadow Resolution High Water Enabled Decals Enabled Fog Enabled Wire Physics Enabled Grass Enabled

AURORA WATCHING LOW QUALITY 70 52 45 39 MEDIUM QUALITY 57 40 34 27 HIGH QUALITY 34 24 19 15 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200 COMMENT - "The Geforce PCX 5900 has no problem running Aurora Watching at a playable level and delivers playable performance at all resolutions when using low quality settings. The Geforce PCX 5900 takes a 19% performance hit when using medium quality settings but is still playable upto 1280x1024. Unfortunately High Quality settings reduce the performance of the Geforce PCX 5900 by 40% and it can only deliver a playable performance at 800x600 using high quality settings." BENCHMARK SETTINGS "Worst Hangover Ever" Level LOW QUALITY Quality Shadows Disabled Texture Resolution 25% Pixel Shaders Disabled Fullscreen Effects Disabled Decal Textures Disabled High Particle Count Enabled MEDIUM QUALITY Quality Shadows Enabled Texture Resolution 50% Pixel Shaders Disabled Fullscreen Effects Disabled Decal Textures Enabled High Particle Count Enabled HIGH QUALITY Quality Shadows Enabled Texture Resolution 75% Pixel Shaders Enabled Fullscreen Effects Disabled Decal Textures Enabled High Particle Count Enabled

CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK ESCAPE FROM BUTCHER BAY 31 28 19 9 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200 BENCHMARK SETTINGS Fullscreen Enabled Texture Quality Maximum Model Shadows Enabled Anisotropy Maximum Shadermode Auto Vertical Sync Disabled COMMENT - "The DX9 effects used in Chronicles of Riddick make the Geforce PCX 5900 really struggle to offer playable performance with this game and it is only playable upto 1024x768."

CODENAME PANZERS PHASE TWO LOW QUALITY 50 47 36 31 MEDIUM QUALITY 32 32 25 20 HIGH QUALITY 28 25 9 8 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200 COMMENT - "The Geforce PCX 5900 starts off well offering playable performance at all resolutions when using low quality. When using medium quality performance is reduced by 36% and the Geforce PCX 5900 is only playable upto 1024x768 and only marginally playable at 800x600 when using high quality." BENCHMARK SETTINGS "Tunis" Level 32bit Color Depth Default Refresh Rate Vsync Disabled LOW QUALITY Anti-Aliasing Disabled Shadows Disabled Texture Detail Low Bilinear MEDIUM QUALITY Anti-Aliasing 2x Shadows Normal Texture Detail Low Trilinear HIGH QUALITY Anti-Aliasing 4x Shadows Self Texture Detail High Anisotropic