FX 5900 Ultra vs. R9800 Pro - Conclusion

GeForce FX 5900 Ultra vs. Radeon 9800 Pro

VS.

FX 5900 Ultra

2x AA / 8x AF	4x AA / 8x AF	4xS AA / 8xAF
6xS AA / 8xAF	8x AA / 8x AF	Full Blown

R9800 Pro

2x AA / 8x AF	4x AA / 8x AF	Full Blown

Unfortunately here we don't have screenshots of identical area's here in UT2k3 with both cards but I decided to post these anyways. I merely want to give you a chance to checkout what visual quality you will see with either card at a given level of AA/AF. Both cards perform well for in-game visual quality but the R9800 Pro continues to have the edge.

Overclocking

Just a quick section to cover how well each card overclocked.

Radeon 9800 Pro Stock: 380/340 Increase 11.3%

Radeon 9800 Pro Overclocked: 423/380 Increase 11.76%

GF FX 5900 Ultra Stock: 450/850 Increase 16.66%

GF FX 5900 Ultra Overclocked: 525/945 Increase 11.17%

Both cards overclock admirably. However a clear winner is somewhat cloudy. The BFG Asylum 5900 Ultra comes clocked stock at 450/850 while the eVGA 5900 comes clocked at 500/900. So while the BFG 5900 Ultra appears to be a great overclocker, it may actually be shipping at somewhat conservative core and memory speeds.

Cooling

Better cooling is essential for newer and faster hardware. Even with a .13 and .15 micron process, these cards are getting hot. Which manufacturer is to be commended for a better cooling system? I would have to say the FX 5900 Ultra. These particular cards are manufactured directly by nVidia to keep strict adherence to their standards, then pieced out to the individual manufacturers for resale. Not only does the FX 5900 Ultra have great GPU cooling, the memory chips are cooled with gargantuan sized sinks that are mounted separately from the GPU cooler. Add to this the fact that you can overclock the 5900 at both the 2D and 3D level, you can keep your card cooler while not running in 3D Apps if your the type to keep your card overclocked day in, day out. Memory chips get hot on the R9800 Pro yet this particular model does not have any sinks on the memory. Fortunately, ATi implemented them on their newer R9800 Pro 256MB model which has DDR II that can get very hot.

R9800 Pro

GF FX 5900 Ultra

Conclusion

Let's break down performance of both cards and see which one comes out on top.

UT2k3 - FX 5900 Ultra - While both cards perform well, the FX 5900 comes out on top

AquaMark - R9800 Pro - The R9800 takes home the gold in this real-world benchmark

Comanche 4 - R9800 Pro - The R9800 also wins out by an edge for this nearly obsolete benchmark

Specviewperf 7.0 - R9800 Pro - This one is really close but the #'s lean to the R9800

Code Creatures - FX 5900 Ultra - The 5900 beats up the R9800 pretty good in this intensive benchmark

Splinter Cell - R9800 Pro - Hands down, the R9800 takes it in this awesome game from UBISoft

ShaderMark - R9800 Pro - While the FX 5900 Ultra makes a good showing, the R9800 wins this one

3DMark 01 SE Build 330 - R9800 Pro - The R9800 takes top honors with this tried and true synthetic benchmark

3DMark 03 Build 320 - FX 5900 Ultra - Should we include this? Possibly not, however the FX 5900 wins with WHQL Det Drivers

3D Visual Quality - R9800 Pro hands down

And the winner is.........The FIC ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB. We compared these cards in every category we could think of and in the end, we saw better performance overall from the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. Did the FX 5900 fail to impress us? No, not at all. We believe both cards are worthy of any good system but we do have to tip our hats to the excellent performance that the Radeon 9800 Pro has showed us here today.

We'd like to thank you for joining us here at OCAddiction today. Want to discuss this review and others in the forums? We'd surely enjoy the opportunity to hear your feedback should you have any. Looking to pickup the Radeon 9800 Pro for your box? Checkout PriceGrabber for a line on the best prices on the net. Want to pickup a GF FX 5900 Ultra? Be sure to checkout our front page for news from some of the best hardware sites on the net.