How is the GeForce FX 5600 256MB Video Card?

[Guest flightjunkie]

How does it compare to say, the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro? Is it smart to buy now, or is something revolutionary due to come out this summer that will kick the pants off either of the two?

[Guest ba747heavy]

Get the 9800, hands down. The FX 5600 is a low end card, not even in the same league as the GeForce 4 MX 440http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,a...1,tk,prx,00.asp

[Guest Id Rather Be Flying]

Here is a good review on a bunch of different GeForce and Radeon side by side comparisons:http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030311/index.html

[Guest Lindy]

Actually the 5600 is more a middle-of-the-road card, and not bad at all. I have it. I wanted a card to replace my GEForce 2 Ti 64 mg card and am happy with the 5600. Textures are crisper; I have much less "swimming" textures at the altitudes I fly (low level in choppers). I do not have any significant change in frame rates, either good or bad, but I DO notice more smoothness when flying at detailed airports and/or through dense scenery. That said, however, I think it is overpriced at $249.00 (at Best Buy). -Lindy

[Guest flightjunkie]

Wow, thanks. I'm surprised by that. I thought since it was a 256MB card, it is a new generation of video card that surpasses the 128MB (including the Radeon 9800 PRO).

[Tabs 2,790]

Whoa whoa, hold on here - the current top of the line cards are the Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB and the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra 256MB. The latest benchmarks I saw (which were done on a nearly feature complete alpha build of Doom 3) had the GeForce FX 5900 slightly ahead of the Radeon. They attributed this to the drivers though and basically said that the two cards are equally fast, though the ATI still has the edge in image quality. Personally, I think I'm gonna go with the ATI for my new FS2004 system in July, if there's no speed difference, then why not go for the best visual quality?Ryan

[Guest PaulL01]

>How does it compare to say, the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro? >>Is it smart to buy now, or is something revolutionary due to>come out this summer that will kick the pants off either of>the two?The FX5600 and FX5600-ultra offer very similar performance to the old GFTI4600-8xAGP with DX9 features enabled and the ultra adds an extra 50Mhz increase to core clock, this card is much better than any ATI-85-9000pro but falls about 20% short of the performance of an ATI9500Pro much less a 9700PIf want the best for FS you have two or three choices and I will do my best to spell it out the best I can here:1.Nvidia5900Ultra 256mb @ $450+ (later a 128mb version $350+)This card offers slightly faster performance as tested on several applications and games over the ATI9800Pro, however on FS the difference will be diminished as a result of FS CPU dependency.Pros: All of the NV cards provide real full scene AA and AF, the ATI card does not... Trees and other objects that use alpha textures in FS do not get Antialiased with the ATI card but do with the NV, same as for Anisotropic filtering; the ATI card does not use any AF at angles between horizontal and vertical and the NV card does at all angles and this IS noticeable in games like FS where the terrain is rotated as when banking the aircraft in a turn.Cons: more expensive and AA quality is inferior to the ATI past x4s (however, comparing the performance loss of using AA at higher settings is very questionable on a 9800P as the performance loss in FS is more than your average game)ATI9800Pro-256/128mb:Pros: superior Antialiasing at the highest levels except for the aforementioned shortcomings, very high performance just behind the 5900P for a bit less $$$.Cons: as mentioned in 5900P summery.ATI-9700P/9500P:Frankly Best value out there if the lack of AA on the alpha textures doesn't bother you, to get rid of the shimmering non AA tress in FS others have turned LOD details down which in my book defeats the whole purpose of purchasing a high end video card, but to each his own. Just to add, the Nvidia FX5200 series are more on a par with the old GF4MX series of cards except if you need DX9 support which they have, but the card is as slow as 50 weight motor oil on cold winters day.If you can wait another two months prices will be a bit better, well thats always the case anyway...Take care.