The first glimpse of NV36 came during Computex 2003 in
Taipei this past fall. Though the cards were only showed to media behind
closed doors, it was easy to see nVidia and its partner companies were eager to
reveal something to counter ATI. For its part, nVidia have seen many of its
previously exclusive manufacturing partners yield to consumer demand, and adopt
a full line-up of ATI Radeon based parts.
The NV36 GPU on the other hand was
set to compete where past Nvidia GPUs had proved to generate little demand.... and
to its credit Albatron have certainly brought together an enticing
assortment of specs and stats to dwell over.
The Albatron FX5700U spits out fast graphics care of its 475MHz GPU and
128MB of 900MHz DDR-II memory. Coupled with a host of nVidia software such as
CineFX, Intellisample HCT, and Ultrashadow, makes this DX9 compatible card
an easy contender against the popular Radeon 9800XT.
With competition for our spending dollars at an all time high,
there are really only three area's left where videocard manufacturers can
influence gammers decisions. The first and most important is obviously
pricing, but after that a mix of software and feature bundles kicks in. Last,
and what might seem least important is the cooling system. As nVidia's
chips tend to run hotter than ATI's graphics processors, it has
been a source of contention for many gamers to have a little vacuum
cleaner whirling away inside their PC...