RV360 and NV36: What’s New? Part II: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra

The NVIDIA NV36 graphics processor is interesting for its ancestry. Unlike the NV31, it is the product of evolution of the NV35 architecture rather than the NV31, as might have been supposed. Thus, the new chip inherited technologies like a full CineFX 2.0 technology support from its elder brother.

NVIDIA claims the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra to process 32-bit pixel shaders at twice the speed of the NV31.

That’s the die of the new graphics processor:

In fact, the NV36 is an NV35, which has somehow lost half of its pipelines and the 256-bit memory bus. In our today’s tests this GPU is represented by the eVGA e-GeForce FX 5700 Ultra graphics card:

The graphics card looks most imposingly due to its huge PCB and massive cooling system. The total weight of this card is about 360g against the RADEON 9600 XT’s 200g. The cooling system accounts for the biggest share in this weight.

The big heatsink is equipped with a quiet fan. It cools both the 475MHz-clocked GPU and the GDDR2 memory chips from Samsung with 2.2ns access time. The memory works at 900MHz (450MHz DDR).

Yes, there is no misprint. NVIDIA returns to the expensive and hot GDDR2 memory as if they have already forgotten about the mishap with the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra. This is quite a surprise. On the other hand, the relatively simple PCB design may make up for the memory price. Anyway, NVIDIA had to roll out the products using GDDR2 sooner or later, even for the sake of getting experienced with production of such devices.

The total memory amount the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra carries onboard is 128MB.

The memory chips on the back side of the PCB are covered with a passive heatsink. There is also an iron plate labeled “NVIDIA” there. It adds robustness to the card and serves as an additional fastening for the heatsink. The heatsink itself is attached by means of spring nuts that don’t allow it to crash the GPU die. Here’s the same yellow “gum” thermal interface between the chip and the heatsink, while the memory chips make contact with the heatsink through a layer of thermal paste deposited on some fiber base. The back part of the PCB with its power connector and voltage regulators resembles a lot the PCB of the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra. Otherwise, the PCB is original. The power connector is robust enough to withstand frequent plugging-in/out of the cable.

The front part of the PCB is more exciting. We can see a landing place for a VIVO chip as well as for an additional TMDS transmitter. Why is it here if the NV36 has an integrated transmitter already? Beside the VGA connector you can see contacts compatible with a DVI-I connector. Thus, installing a second extra transmitter, the manufacturer can produce a graphics card with two digital outputs for work with two LCD panels at a time.

This graphics card also provided an excellent quality of the 2D picture up to 1600x1200@85Hz resolution.