X-bit labs

Extreme Overclocking Experience: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra against ATI RADEON 9800 Pro

Category: Video

by Tim Tscheblockov

[ 10/07/2003 | 11:01 PM ]

In this article we are going to take a really close look at a stylish MSI NBOX on the top NVIDIA graphics solution and attractive PowerColor R98-C3 on one of the top-end chips from ATI. We will also undertake a couple of really exciting extreme overclocking attempts. 30% performance boost is worth a try, isn’t it?

Table of contents:

• MSI NBOX: All-Out Ultra!
  
• Closer Look: GPU Voltage Regulator
  
• GPU Voltage Regulator Modification
  
• Graphics Memory Voltage Regulator Modification
  
• Redesigning the Cooling System for GeForce FX 5900 Ultra
  
• PowerColor R98-C3 Graphics Card (ATI RADEON 9800 Pro)
  
• GPU Voltage Regulator Modification
  
• Graphics Memory Voltage Regulator Modification
  
• Redesigning the RADEON Cooling Solution
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Extreme Overclocking of MSI NBOX (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra)
  
• GPU Overclocking
  
• Graphics Memory Overclocking
  
• Overclocking Both: GPU and Memory
  
• Extreme Overclocking of PowerColor R98-C3 (ATI RADEON 9800 Pro)
  
• GPU Overclocking
  
• Graphics Memory Overclocking
  
• Overclocking Both: GPU and Memory
  
• Extreme Overclocking Resume
  
• Conclusion
  

It is no secret to anybody who keeps up with the GPU market situation that R360 and NV38 chips from ATI and NVIDIA are nothing more but “overclocked” versions of their predecessors, NV35 (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra) and R350 (ATI RADEON 9800 Pro). ATI has been steadily pushing up the frequency of the good old R300, while NVIDIA has “officially” overclocked a relatively new chip.

In our today’s article we will try to get ready to the arrival of NV38 and R360 by estimating the overclocking potential of NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra and ATI RADEON 9800 Pro. We will squeeze all their fps out of them by the well-known method – increase of the GPU and graphics memory voltages.

For our today’s tests we took an MSI graphics card based on the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra GPU from the NBOX kit and a PowerColor R38-C3 card featuring ATI RADEON 9800 Pro.

MSI NBOX: All-Out Ultra!

The gorgeous kit from MSI called NBOX will represent NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra based graphics cards in our today’s review. NBOX is designed stylishly and laconically: you will not see any of those beauties or monsters or terminators or any other hi-tech embellishments on the box:

The paper skin conceals an even more taciturn package – a black box with a single “NBOX” logotype on the lid:

The graphics card lies in its bed of microcellular rubber. It sits quite tight, but you will have no problems removing it, because the bed has special cuts for your fingers:

The rest of the kit lies in the bottom section of the package. In order to access it, you take up the section with the card. You can see a strap made exactly for this purpose in the snapshot (on the left). When you lift the card’s case up, you will hear a sound of the outgoing sticker that has been keeping it closed.