ProLink PixelView GeForce FX5900XT Golden Limited Review - Overclocking and Conclusion
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To overclock the PixelView FX 5900XT, I used the coolbits registry patch to enable the Clock Frequencies tab. From there I used the auto detect function under manual overclocking to jump to a decent overclock. From past experience, auto detect is fairly representative of the card's limits. Auto detect gave me a core overclock of 474 MHz and memory overclock of 870 MHz. For comparison, a 5900 non ultra is 400/850, a 5900 Ultra is 450/850, and a 5950 Ultra is 475/950. So overclocked, the PixelView FX 5900XT falls right between the 5900 Ultra and 5950 Ultra. Quite a deal for a sub $200 card, I'd say.
There has been suspicion the 5950's NV38 GPU is just a rebadged NV35 GPU, and the FX 5900XT core being able to run at 474 MHz with moderate cooling certainly supports that. The reason our memory overclock is limited to 870 MHz is of course due to the cheaper 2.8ns Hynix memory used. Still, 870 MHz is very admirable for something that is rated for 700 MHz.
The overclock boosts minimum frame rate in Halo to 30 FPS making it 100% playable at this resolution. A 13 FPS increase in average frame rate is also received.
Far Cry receives little benefit from the overclock. Keep that in mind as more games of this nature - Doom III, HL2 - come out.
Conclusion
As expected, the FX 5900XT performs better than both the 5700 Ultra and overclocked 9600 Pro. In some cases the differences are very noticeable while in others are insignificant. The 256-bit memory bus really makes up for the 5900XT's lower clock speeds giving it the edge over these other closely priced video cards. But more importantly, the 256-bit bus basically doubles the performance of an overclock done to the 5900XT versus either of the other two 128-bit cards. And considering all the 5900s share the same NV35 core, the $200 Prolink PixelView GeForce FX 5900XT Golden Limited is a remarkable video card. The 5950 Ultra is above $360, the 5900 Ultra is near $330 and the 5900 non ultra is around $260. The cheapest 5900XT is $175 but the PixelView offers a lot for $25 more: PDF II cooling and display, and superb overclocking. So for just $200, you're getting a card that when overclocked, can be worth near $360. That's quite a value in my book and is something everyone thinking of an upgrade should consider. The 9800 Pro is also dropping in price to the $200 level - so that's a great value as well. The bottom line is if you're currently considering a 5700 Ultra or 9600XT, you should definitely considering spending an extra $30-50 and buying either a 5900XT or 9800 Pro.
Dev Hardware would like to thank you for joining us here today for the review of the PixelView GeForce FX 5900XT Golden Limited. Shoot me an email if you have any questions, otherwise head back to the front-page for some other news and reviews or checkout the forums!
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