nVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra Reference Card
February 2, 2004
Manufacturer: nVIDIA
Introduction
The graphics "war" between nVIDIA and ATI has been fierce in the last 18 months with both manufacturers trying to best each other at every card release. Now nVIDIA is back with a new and faster card, the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra. Can this card battle it out with ATI's current flagship, the Radeon 9800XT, and finally take the graphics crown once again for nVIDIA?
The nVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra 256Mb Reference Card
Also known as NV38, the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra is really just an overclocked FX 5900 Ultra (NV35) in some ways. There have been minor improvements in its architecture to boost performance and yields but basically what you get in this card is a speed bump from its predecessor. With its core clocked at 475MHz and the memory at 950MHz DDR, this card is theoretically 5-10% faster than its old brother. Is this enough to challenge ATI's flagship? Other than that, the only thing different when compared to the old FX 5900 Ultra would be its cooling solution. Below is a table comparing the FX 5950 to other cards in its class.
| Graphics Card | Core/Memory | Memory Interface | Memory | Maximum Bandwidth |
| FX 5950 Ultra (NV38) | 475/950 | 256 bit | 256 mb | 30.4 Gb/s |
| FX 5900 Ultra (NV35) | 450/850 | 256 bit | 256 mb | 27.2 Gb/s |
| Asus Radeon 9800XT | 412/730 | 256 bit | 256 mb DDRII | 23.3 Gb/s |
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