While NVIDIA Corporation always tells its Add-In-Board partners how to manufacture the graphics cards and how to clock them, the company now allows its partners to choose the performance of their non-Ultra solutions by their own. As a result, do not be surprised when you see graphics cards clocked lower than specified by NVIDIA. There is a fresh example of this trend: Albatron’s FX5900PV graphics card powered by NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 GPU are clocked at 400MHz, instead of 425MHz.

Just like other Taiwanese companies, Albatron is currently showcasing some new products on its web-site. You are probably familiar with Albatron’s i865PE-based mainboards, so, we will not touch them upon, but let us instead examine Albatron’s new graphics cards based on the GeForce FX technology.

Besides dozens of interesting and not really interesting graphics cards on the GeForce FX 5200, Albatron also offers four different GeForce FX 5600-series powered solutions:

• Albatron FX5600EQ, GeForce FX 5600 GPU clocked at 325MHz with 256MB DDR SDRAM memory, D-Sub, TV-Out, DVI outputs.
• Albatron FX5600P, GeForce FX 5600 GPU clocked 325 MHz with 128MB DDR SDRAM memory, D-Sub, TV-Out, DVI outputs.
• Albatron FX5600U, GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GPU clocked 350 MHz with 128MB DDR SDRAM memory clocked at 700MHz, D-Sub, TV-Out, DVI outputs.
• Albatron FX5600P Turbo, GeForce FX 5600 GPU clocked at 325MHz with 128MB of DDR SDRAM memory clocked at 600MHz, D-Sub, TV-Out, DVI outputs.

Pay attention to the fact that Albatron utilises the old version of the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra graphics processor with 350MHz clock-speed, not the newer one clocked at 400MHz. Keep this in mind when you go shopping for your NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 Ultra graphics card. Please also consider the statement above: NVIDIA does not require its AIB partners to clock their “non-Ultra” graphics cards as designated by the Santa Clara, California-based company, so, please refer to AIB makers for more specific clock-speed information. Also you definitely should not think you can buy a $200 graphics card for $150; you can, it will support the same technologies, but it will not offer you performance provided by a $200 card.

In addition, Albatron also demonstrates its higher-end GeForce FX 5900 and 5900 Ultra-based graphics cards. Both Albatron FX5900UV and FX5900PV feature VIVO as well as D-Sub, DVI and TV-Out connectors. The former is based on the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra graphics chip and clocked at 450MHz for core and 850MHz for 256MB of DDR SDRAM memory, while the latter is powered by the GeForce FX 5900 graphics processor functioning at 400MHz and 128MB of memory clocked at 850MHz. As you see, Albatron added VIVO functionality to their product, but lowered core-clock speed of the solution. Other manufacturers of graphics cards may perform different actions with the GeForce FX 5900, so, performance of different non-Ultra graphics cards may vary.

In July or later NVIDIA’s AIB partners will present the GeForce FX 5900 Value graphics cards. Its performance, speeds and prices are to be decided at the moment, though, already now I can state that it will also vary depending on the manufacturer.