FX 5900 Ultra
 

Hey, I just wanted to let everyone know that buying this card is a gamble at the moment. NVIDIA representatives have been quoted saying that a bunch of faulty 5900 Ultras were released to PNY, BFG, eVGA, and Gainward. Well, I bought a new PC from NewEgg with a GeForce FX 5900 Ultra. Yep, I got one of the faulty ones. It makes a terrible buzzing sound when you scroll on a webpage or play games/benchmark tests. On top of that, the screen flickers spontaneously very often.

The rumor is that NVIDIA will NOT be releasing a fix for these two issues, but releasing a FX 5900 Ultra SE that has both issues solved. Those with the older card will not be refunded unless they contact the reseller or store they bought it from.

I've went through TWO of these FX 5900 Ultras and finally decided to RMA my entire PC back to NewEgg because of it. If I'm gonna buy a $500.00 video card, I want performance, not annoying sounds, glitches, and bugs. Either go Radeon 9800 Pro right now, or wait until a fix/solution has been made on the 5900 Ultras. Or you can take a chance and try to get a working FX.

Either way, just wanted to give the heads up before you spend $$$ on RMA costs with the new FX. Good luck!

PS: This card is fucking amazing, even if it does have issues right now. I got about 6,000 on 3d Mark 2003 and about 16,500 on 3d Mark 2001 SE. I know I would have got higher with better RAM, but the 3d Mark 2003 scores really blew me away.

-Lasereth

This juat makes me feel even better when I buy a new vid card in a month or two... ATI of course. :D

Lasereth,

nVidia has some really good people in their PR team. Call them (not tech support) and they might issue a replacement board for ya.

I would, but I've already sent back both of the FX's I ordered. :( You're right though, all of the NVIDIA reps I've talked to have been awesome. They're actually asking people in the Bay area to bring their PCs to the NVIDIA HQ if their FX's are making the weird noise and flickering. If I were near, I'd haul ass on over there to help'em out.

-Lasereth

I just ordered a Leadtek GeForce FX 5900 128MB, did Leadtek fall under the faulty card lot? The card comes in tomorrow.

I do believe LeadTek is in with those also. But don't get down yet -- it's not every card that is messed up, only about 1/3 of them as far as I've seen. That's still a huge amount though; 33% of everyone that buys one gets a bad one.

-Lasereth

Re: FX 5900 Ultra
 

I just purchased one from Newegg as well, and my vid card has been issue free. When used it has given me nothing but the highest performance possible. So while this issue may be true for some cards (although it sounds a bit like an urban legend), it's not true for all of them.

Veritas en Lux!
Jimmy The Hutt

Thanks for the info. Love Nvidia, I'll wait for the fixed ones. I heard HL2 is going to be bundled too. Also gives me more time to save up. Expensive hobbie gaming is.

Re: Re: FX 5900 Ultra
 

Oh, it's not urban legend, trust me. On eVGA's forums ALONE there are over ONE THOUSAND replies on the "fucked up 5900 ultra" thread. These are single post responses, too. If at least 1,000 people have reported having bad eVGA 5900's, imagine how many of the other companies have them, and then factor in the people that never go to forums. I think bad cards that are in the thousands is a bit more than urban legend. Way to go on that FX, though. You're lucky! It's one kick ass card.

-Lasereth

Re: Re: Re: FX 5900 Ultra
 

I've never seen my stuff look better. I guess I got lucky in getting one that did not freak out on me. Its been rock solid from the get go. After looking around, it's pretty obvious that a ton of bad cards got out there. Damn shame about that, and anyone who got one has my sympathy. I'll feel bad for them while playing all of my games at 1600X1200 with all the options turned on :) . Seriously though, I feel bad for having opened my mouth before I knew all the facts.

Veritas en Lux!
Jimmy The Hutt

It's all good. And you definitely picked up the right card for high resolutions and AA. Crank it up and see the wonders. :)

-Lasereth

Just got mine, well a couple of hours ago (guess what I was doing ;)) and I am pleased to say that there is NOTHING wrong with it, it's absolutely fantastic! Quite a large card though.

Run 3dMark2k3 on it, amazing shit.

Way to go! Yeah, that card really kicked ass on 3d Mark 2003. My current PC got 1,350 with a GeForce 4 TI4200 while the FX got 6,000. I really enjoyed how it actually rendered Battle of Proxycon at nearly 30 frames per second average.

-Lasereth

Ha ha, yeah. I took some pictures of mine before I sent it back. Here it is, compared to my old GeForce 4 TI4200:

http://www.appstate.edu/~bt52438/comparison1.jpg


And here it is again so you can see how high it is as well:

http://www.appstate.edu/~bt52438/huge1.jpg

It came less than an inch from touching my brother's hard drive while in his PC:

http://www.appstate.edu/~bt52438/incomputer1.jpg

On top of that, the heatsink on the back of it is huge as well:

http://www.appstate.edu/~bt52438/back1.jpg


It's heavy as hell, too. Requires two PCI slots because the fan and sink are so huge.

-Lasereth

Haha, that's nothing compared to mine (the Leadtek):

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardwa.../images/04.JPG

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardwa.../images/03.JPG

FRONT
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardwa.../images/05.JPG

BACK
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardwa.../images/06.JPG

Notice the little indentation where the card is exposed on the last pic? That's so your RAM slots don't get in the way!

Some big cards. Can't wait to get one. $$ gotta save.