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INNO3D Tornado FX5700 Ultra with DDR-IIReview Date: April 19, 2004 Reviewed by: Ashley E. Glenn Sponsored by: InnoVISION With a new calendar year behind us, the next generation of technology is getting ready to hit the market. One of the most exciting of the tech sectors has been the video card segment, where a never-ending stream of innovations and upgrades come at an astounding – and wallet-draining – rate. While this leaves those of us with an addiction for the bleeding-edge with fast computers and deflated wallets, there is one side effect that makes many people happy: it drops the previous generation in price. And with the previous generation of graphic hardware still outpacing 90% of the “Coming Soon” gaming attractions in the hardware requirement category, this means a savings bonanza for those who wait for the prices to drop. 
Click for larger view. In this review, we’ll be taking a look at Inno3D’s Tornado GeForce FX 5700 Ultra video card. Innovision has developed a reputation for being a high-quality card provider, and their edition of NVIDIA’s 5700 Ultra card should be right in line with their previous offerings. Packed with 128MB of ultra-fast DDR2 and based on AGP8x, this card is aimed at the mid-level user who is looking for great performance and value in one package. Here is an overview of the card, taken from the Inno3D site:
Innovision ships the Tornado GeForceFX 5700 Ultra in a smartly packaged box not much wider than the video card. Everything is neatly packaged so it does not jostle around and damage the equipment or accessories. Not that there’s much room for things to move about, as the following things are taking up bounce space: 
Click for larger view.
Click for larger view. Innovision has chosen to deliver the card in a sexy black color, with a black anodized heatsink and black power plug. The metal retention mechanism used on the power plug makes it strong and stable enough to withstand some pulling and twisting. The Molex adapter on my 9800 Pro is held in place via plastic clips, leaving it to wiggle around when inserting or removing the requisite 4-pin power source. The card’s backplate has the standard VGA, DVI, and S-Video out plugs. Included in the packing (listed above) are a DVI to VGA adapter and an S-video to coaxial cable converter. 
Click for larger view. The card itself is nicely done and follows the accepted design layout. The fan is blue and is lit by an LED. As my case is brightly lit, it is difficult to see the light. The heat sinks are mounted via plastic retention pins; the rear of the card includes a heat spreader, which is held in place by the retention pins used to hold the main heat sink in place. The heat spreaders cover 128MB of 2.2ns Samsung DDR-II RAM, which is interfaced by the card via a 128-bit path. 
The card as received for testing has a 2D core speed of 300MHz, a 3D core speed of 475MHz, and a RAM speed of 906MHz. The card makes use of NVIDIA’s latest video technologies. Here is a list of the card’s 3D features, taken from Innovision’s web site: CineFX™ 2.0 Engine:
Intellisample™ High-Resolution Compression Technology :
UltraShadow™ Technology :
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