Gainward CoolFX PowerPack Ultra 1800XT (Geforce 5950) Ultra Golden sample

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME that we have been aware that a partner has shown cards at the same time as the chip company reference card. And Gainward is not even what we might call one of the big guns.

Still, the times they are a changing, and even Nvidia lost or, better to say, shared Asus with ATI. They won Gigabyte, implying that this is direction where future graphics is going: Everyone doing everyone and anyone.

Anyhow, after ATI introduced its Radeon 9800XT twenty-two days ago, everyone was waiting for the latest Nvidia response, codenamed NV38. Well the NV38 is here and, just as Anand said a few weeks back, it's clocked at 475MHz core and 950MHz memory so just 25MH faster then current FX5900 Ultra cards and with 50MHz faster memory. There's not much more to tell its faster - that's it. There are no technological improvements on this card apart from its clock. It comes with 52.16 drivers and its picture quality looked quite ok to us.

This time Gainward sent us its new Gainward CoolFX PowerPack Ultra 1800XT Golden sample based on Geforce 5950 Ultra, although that is not actually mentioned in the name. The card out of the box works at 550MHz/1050MHz memory while Nvidia reference clock is 475MHz core and 950MHz memory. Gainward needs water to chill down so the complete kit features Inovatek's water kit with pump, a block that comes mounted on the card, tubes and radiator - all you need to get rocking and rolling.

It takes some time and you definitely need to be careful, but we got it up and running in about 30 minutes. We could strongly advise that only highly experienced computer people could put the thing together.

Gainward also packed its IN and OUT cables in red since this is its house colour, together with a DVI port in red making the whole card and package look stylish. WinDVD 4 is also bundled in this package.

The new test rig
Pentium P4 at 2.8GHz FSB 800
Albatron i865PR board
2 x 256MB Corsair PC3500 XMS DDR 433 modules
Western Digital 80GB 8MB cache drive
Pioneer Slot IN DVD
Targa Visionary 19 inch Display

We tested CoolFX 5950 Ultra 550 MHz 1050 MHz clocked card against the same card clocked at 475 MHz 950MHz - Nvidia's reference speed. And we tested PowerColor's Radeon 9800PRO 256 MB DDR 2 clocked at 378MHz core with 702MHz memory. We simply didn't have a Radeon 9800XT in our hands.

Results

Quake 3	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
Gainward CoolFX 5950 Ultra 550 /1050 MHz	325.7	308.4	269.1
Geforce FX 5950 Ultra Nvidia ref speed 470 / 950 MHz	323.6	298.1	249.6
Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB DDR II 378 / 702 MHz	299.4	279.5	227.5
Quake 3 FSAA 4X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
Gainward CoolFX 5950 Ultra 550 /1050 MHz	296.6	256.5	204.5
Geforce FX 5950 Ultra Nvidia ref speed 470 / 950 MHz	290.3	273.7	180.9
Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB DDR II 378 / 702 MHz	265.2	181.2	125.1
Quake 3 FSAA 4X + 8 Aniso	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
Gainward CoolFX 5950 Ultra 550 /1050 MHz	288	237	188
Geforce FX 5950 Ultra Nvidia ref speed 470 / 950 MHz	276.2	214.2	162.6
Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB DDR II 378 / 702 MHz	253.3	172.6	121.3
3Dmark 2001SE Nature	Nature	1024x768
Gainward CoolFX 5950 Ultra 550 /1050 MHz	112.2	15981
Geforce FX 5950 Ultra Nvidia ref speed 470 / 950 MHz	100	15531
Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB DDR II 378 / 702 MHz	122.6	16471
UT 2003 FLY	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
Gainward CoolFX 5950 Ultra 550 /1050 MHz	203.8	199.8	169.6
Geforce FX 5950 Ultra Nvidia ref speed 470 / 950 MHz	203.6	193.2	151.3
Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB DDR II 378 / 702 MHz	205.9	184.6	135.6
UT 2003 BOT	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
Gainward CoolFX 5950 Ultra 550 /1050 MHz	63.7	63.5	63.5
Geforce FX 5950 Ultra Nvidia ref speed 470 / 950 MHz	63.7	63	63.3
Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB DDR II 378 / 702 MHz	64.11	64	63.6
Serious Sam 2 FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
Gainward CoolFX 5950 Ultra 550 /1050 MHz	116.7	100.2	77.1
Geforce FX 5950 Ultra Nvidia ref speed 470 / 950 MHz	113.5	91	67.5
Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB DDR II 378 / 702 MHz	105.5	78.9	58.1
Aquamark 3			1024x768
Gainward CoolFX 5950 Ultra 550 /1050 MHz			46.8
Geforce FX 5950 Ultra Nvidia ref speed 470 / 950 MHz			42.85
Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB DDR II 378 / 702 MHz			41.12
Composite Figures 3Dmark03	3Dmark03	game 2	Game 3	Nature
Gainward CoolFX 5950 Ultra 550 /1050 MHz	6882	50.9	40	41.3
Geforce FX 5950 Ultra Nvidia ref speed 470 / 950 MHz	6233	45.6	36.1	36.1
Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB DDR II 378 / 702 MHz	5685	37.9	33.5	33.4
Composite Figures 3Dmark03	Single Texturing	Multi Textur.	Vertex Shader	Pixel sharer 2.0
Gainward CoolFX 5950 Ultra 550 /1050 MHz	1698.7	2827.9	23.1	58.5
Geforce FX 5950 Ultra Nvidia ref speed 470 / 950 MHz	1507.1	3302.2	20.4	50.9
Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB DDR II 378 / 702 MHz	1713.1	2615.9	18.3	47.9

Well, the results are pretty straightforward, since Gainward, whose core is 75 MHz higher clocked than Nvidia's and whose memory runs 100 MHz faster than Nvidia's reference Geforce FX 5950 design unsurprisingly beats Nvidia in every single case.

In the case of Quake 3, you can clearly see that, at heavy loads with 4X FSAA and 8 Aniso at 1600x1200, this is the scenario where you will gain a significant extra 20 FPS.

In every single case - apart from the 3dmark01 SE result which was surprisingly very kind to ATI since in both Nature and overall score it beats both Nvidia clocks - Nvidia wins out.

500 more marks in 3Dmark03 is something that you cannot say no to and every single result will be nicely increased. Unreal tournament will give you less than 20 FPS in fly mode while Bot mode won't benefit at all from this clock speed upgrade.

Serious Sam 2 will seriously give you 10 more FPS's and new Aquamark 3 will give you only 4 FSP - about 10 percent.

Conclusion
Nvidia upgraded the speed of its current core and Gainward did a super upgrade but at a price. Nvidia's reference clock speed beats ATI's Radeon 9800PRO 256 MB DDR 2 edition in every single case but bear in mind that we haven't played with the Radeon 9800XT yet.

Gainward's solution is definitely the fastest card that you'll be able to buy in retail but will cost you as much as 899 € Euros, or a little bit less. Performance at the price - that's how it always goes.

Still, if you have an FX 5900 Ultra card I would not even consider buying the 5950 Ultra is an option as you simply won't benefit much from it. I believe that for people with an FX 5800 or TI 4600 / Ti 4800 this is the right time to upgrade to this water one or the normal FX 5950 Ultra, if you have the cash to hand of course.

If you have the money and want the fastest card on the market, this is something that you will have to buy but it will cost you at least 200 €. But you can upgrade this card to be able to cool your CPU and Northbridge again at a price.

This is simply the best that NV38 that a lot of money can buy. µ