Siluro FX 5600 Ultra DT 128MB
Now the turn of the card that will appear slower to the majority of PC-unaware public. The ABIT Siluro FX 5600 Ultra DT 128MB.
A similar layout and box as the 256MB card. There's yet another FX 5600-based card from ABIT. The Siluro FX 5600 Ultra OTES is ABIT's top-of-the-line card with enhanced 400MHz core and 700MHz memory speeds, which is still short of the Ultra Rev. 2's 800MHZ memory clock. This card, of course, is part of NVIDIA's cinematic line, which encompasses full support for Microsoft's latest gaming API.
Open up another browser page and go back to the 256MB's picture. The extravagant cooler has made the transition over from the previous card yet it literally sounds different. The cooler starts off in quiet mode, a la the 256MB version, but then slowly builds up to a higher pitch. It's definitely a few notches above that of the 256MB's. Other than that, a couple of important changes have been implemented. The PCB is just that little bit larger than the 256MB's, which is probably down to the need for auxillary power.
The 128MB's Ultra moniker dictates that it runs at a faster speed than the bog-standard FX 5600. This card's core speed of 350MHz is 25MHz above its stablemate, yet this is still a first-generation FX 5600 Ultra. It bears repeating that the reference Ultra Rev. 2 is clocked at 400MHz core / 800MHz memory. That leads us on to the memory.
Hynix provide 128MB of memory in 8 x 128 Mbit (4M x 32) chips (4 on each side), Simple maths informs us that that the 2.8ns rating infers a memory clock of 714MHz DDR. Hynix's own catalogue lists the modules as 700MHZ complaint; exactly the speed that ABIT chooses to run it at on this FX 5600 Siluro. That's a 350MHz core and 700MHz memory, perfectly in line with a revision 1 FX 5600 Ultra.
The card features the same LEDs as found on the 256MB model. The photograph should highlight just what a pleasant glow the emits into the case. However, any card placed into a the first PCI slot will obscure its appeal.
The bundle's extremely similar to the FX 5600 256MB's. The only obvious difference is in the supplied MOLEX extender. A quirky aspect of the supplied Siluro IQ software was its refusal to run on this card. Launching the program presented a pop-up box that stated the only card its compatible with is the Siluro Ti4200 DOTH. A case of having a CD for all Siluro cards, perhaps ?. ABIT's Graphics Max2, an overclocking tool, allowed the card to be overclocked to 375/875 levels. A little more scope would have been nice and preferable, because this card managed to hit 375MHz+ core with ease. A few games, however old, would have been nice, too.
So, in summary, a card with half the on-board RAM but with a 25MHz GPU speed advantage and, more crucially, another 4.8GB/s of memory bandwidth on tap. We've often lamented the inclusion of 256MB memory on cards that are ill equipped to make meaningful use of it. Let's now see how both cards pan out in our benchmark run.
