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Albatron is
known for taking NVIDIA's reference designs and dressing
them up a
bit. The Gigi FX 5200 Ultra card is no exception.
For all those that may have seen, or own, Albatron's Ti4200
card, their FX 5200U card has strikingly similar appearance, as
shown in the pictures below.
This FX 5200
Ultra's blue PCB is a nice touch. With modding becoming extremely popular among the enthusiast
community, having a flashy card such as this Albatron FX 5200
Ultra inside the case is a nice touch. While all
the pretty colors will do nothing for performance, the heatsink and
RAM-sinks chosen by Albatron may do the trick.
The all copper heatsink and fan combination over the GPU is
a nice touch and definitely adds increased cooling
capabilities compared to the run of the mill solutions. The heatsink
is affixed to the GPU with a white thermal paste. Given the size of
the fan and heatsink on this card, some may think it would
tend to be a bit on the noisy side, but we could not hear it
above the sound of the CPU fan. The 128MB of RAM this
card comes equipped with is cooled with copper RAM-sinks and
thermal paste. The RAM-sinks are held in place with
spring retention pins. Upon removal,
we noticed the amount of thermal paste used was a bit on the
skimpy side. It would have been nice to see the entire
RAM chip covered with paste rather than just a dot at the
center. In any event, the RAM-sinks not only aid in the
overclocking potential of this card, but also make the card
attractive. The power adaptor is located at the end of
the PCB which makes it easily reachable from the PSU.
The back I/O
plate of the FX 5200 Ultra shows its dual monitor
capabilities. The card is equipped with both Analog and DVI
outputs. Also on the back plate
is the S-Video jack for the TV-OUT feature of this
card. Overall, we all agreed that the Albatron
FX 5200 Ultra is a quality product and is a well thought out
design by Albatron.
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Screenshots with Antialiasing Enabled |
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Say
Bye Bye to the Jaggies |
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800x600
NO AA |
800x600
2X AA |
800x600
Quincunx AA |
800x600
4X AA |
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800x600
4XS AA |
We took the
liberty of capturing a few screen shots from Massive
Development's Aquamark 3. The above screen shots are
taken to show the quality of the 5200 Ultra's Antialiasing
modes. The exact same frame was captured during each
run for comparison purposes. In the images above pay
special attention to the vehicle traveling across the ocean
floor. Notice how the jagged edges on the vehicle
disappear as we raise the AA setting. The best way to
compare the images is to open a few at the same time and
quickly switch back and forth between them. While
there is noticeable improvements between the setting with no
AA and 2X AA, it's very hard to distinguish any changes
between 2X AA and the higher settings. Since this card
isn't blazingly fast, the setting for the best
quality/performance ratio is at 2X AA. Also notice the
4XS setting which enables 4X AA only in Direct3d games.
The 4XS mode shows some noticeable improvement over the
standard 4X AA setting.
Let's See Some Numbers
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