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FORSA FX5900 Ultra 256MB


Review Date: August 30, 2003
Reviewed by: Dwayne Sessom
Sponsored by: FORSA








Introduction:



FORSA is probably not a name you have heard before if you live in North America. The FORSA brand is a product of Geniman International Limited (GIL) which is based in Hong Kong. Established in 1998, GIL has grown to 800 employees in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Dongguan, China and generated revenue in excess of 80 million USD last year. In the past, FORSA concentrated on the Asian markets such as Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Korea.
Now, FORSA is breaking into the US and European markets with their high quality, and very competitively priced graphics cards. The current line of FORSA cards includes the FX5200, FX5600, and FX5900 Ultra - all three of which will be reviewed here at PCExtreme this week. We are proud to be the first commercial hardware review site to have these cards for review, and we believe you will be hearing a lot more from this company! They will be available in North America and Europe at Powernode.com in September.





Packaging:




The retail packaging that the FORSA FX5900 Ultra comes in is less than spectacular, when compared to others like the ASUS 9550 for example. The art work is fine, but the box itself is very thin with next to no padding to protect the card during transport from the factory to you. It almost seems a shame to put such a great performing card in such a flimsy box. If I had to make a single recommendation to FORSA, it would be to beef up the box, and add some padding to protect the fragile electronics. Now with that out of the way, here is what you get in the commercial package:
  • The card itself.
  • The driver CD.
  • PowerDVD.
  • Games Try-out CD - Includes demos of: Age of Wonders II, Beam Breakers, Myth III: The Wolf Age, Rally Trophy, Stronghold Crusader and Zax.
  • DVI - to - VGA adapter.
  • S-Video VIVO (Video-In, Video-Out) Cable.
  • User manual.






Features:


  • Powered by nVidia GeForce FX 5900 GPU
  • Graphic Core : 256-bit
  • Core Speed : 450MHz
  • Memory Configuration : 256MB DDR
  • Memory Speed : 850 MHz
  • Memory Bandwidth (GB/Sec) : 27.2
  • Bus Interface : AGP 8X
  • Pixels per clock (peak) : 8
  • Veticles/sec. : 338 million
  • Fill Rate : 3.6 billion
  • RAMIDACs (MHz) : 400
  • Max Resolution : 2048 x 1536 @ 85Hz
  • Monitor Support : Analog Monitor , HDB-15 connector , VIVO , Digital Flat Pane l, DVI-I
  • nVIDIA® Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
  • Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Optimizations and Support
  • OpenGL® 1.4 Optimizations and Support





NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 (Ultra)
  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. The 2nd-generation CineFX 2.0 engine of the GeForce FX 5900 GPUs powers more advanced pixel shaders.

Intellisample Technology
The industry's fastest and highest quality antialiasing delivers ultra-realistic visuals, with no jagged edges, at lightning-fast speeds. The 2nd-generation Intellisample HCT, supported in GeForce FX 5900 GPUs, extends performance and quality gains to higher resolutions and antialiasing levels.

High-Precision Graphics
By combining the incredible dynamic range of today's state-of-the-art 3D motion pictures with 128-bit studio-precision color, the GeForce FX GPUs bring you the industry¡¦s best image quality for the most demanding applications.

UltraShadow Technology
Advanced technology designed to enhance the performance of bleeding-edge games that use complex shadows.

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.

AGP 8X
Provides double the bandwidth of AGP 4X - X2.1GB/sec. vs. 1.1GB/sec. AGP 8X enables more complex models and detailed textures, creating richer and more lifelike environments. Uninterrupted data flow allows for smoother video streaming and faster, more seamless gameplay.

Unified 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.

Digital Vibrance Control (DVC)
Allows the user to adjust color controls digitally to compensate for the lighting conditions of their workspace, in order to achieve accurate, bright colors in all conditions.

256-bit Memory Interface with Advanced Memory Control
Delivers more memory bandwidth and efficiency to power the latest games and applications at blazing speeds.

MicrosoftR DirectXR 9.0 Optimizations and Support
Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all DirectX 9 applications.

OpenGLR 1.4 Optimizations and Support
Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all OpenGL applications.

400MHz RAMDACs
Industry's fastest RAMDACs support QXGA displays with ultra-high, ergonomic refresh rates.

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

Integrated TV Encoder
Provides best-of-class TV-out functionality for resolutions up to 1024x768.

Integrated Full Hardware MPEG-2 Decoder
Delivers full-frame, full-screen MPEG-2 video on your desktop.

New 64-phase Video Scaler
Highest quality for scaling DVD and other video to full-screen HDTV resolutions.

0.13 Micron Process Technology
Delivers high performance through faster clock 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.
  NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
Fully compliant professional OpenGL 1.4
API with NVIDIA extension, on all Linux and Windows operating systems
WHQL-certified for Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows 2000
Complete Linux XFree86 Drivers
  Intel Pentium 4/III/II/Celeron, AMD AthlonXP/Athlon/Duron or compatible
with AGP 4X/8X slot
Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
Operating Systems : Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows NT(all),
Windows 98/95, Linux compatible


The GeForce FX Family Tree:



GeForce FX series
Name
5900 Ultra
5800 Ultra
5600 Ultra
5200 Ultra
Fill Rate (AA Sample/sec)
3.6 Billion
4.0 Billion
1.4 Billion
1.3 Billion
Verticles/sec
338 Million
200 Million
88 Million
81 Million
Memory Bandwidth
27.2 GB/s
16.0 GB/s
11.2 GB/s
10.4 GB/s
Memory Interface
256Bit DDR-I
 128Bit DDR-II
128Bit DDR-I


Notice the extremely large gap in performance between the 5200/5600 and 5800/5900. With the GeForce FX, there really is no midrange card. Even though the 5600 is marketed as the midrange card, in reality it is not much faster than the 5200. But then the 5800 and 5900 are at the other end of the spectrum. If there is truly a midrange card for the FX family, it would have to be the FX5900 non-ultra with 128MB which is now selling for around $299 USD. But, today we are going to focus on FORSA flavored the top of the line FX5900 Ultra.


The card:




The card itself is quite a monster. One look at it and you can tell it means business. Although the GPU fan is much smaller than that of the FX5800, this card still takes up 2 slots - the AGP and the first PCI just underneath the AGP slot. This is because the squirrel cage fan and heatsink stand far enough off the PCB that it would be impossible to use the 1st PCI slot anyway, so the card is designed with a double slot cover to prevent the use of the 1st PCI slot. FORSA has not varied far from the nVidia reference card design, but there are a few differences which I will point out on the next page.


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