The idea behind the "WiseFan II" system is that two fans are always running, with one as a backup. If one fan fails, the third kicks in as a backup. With the second generation we find on the Albatron FX5700U, the system now adapts to temperatures by starting the third fan up if GPU temperatures rise above 56 degrees Celsius.

The large aluminum heatsink not only cools the NV36 core, but four adjacent Samsung DDR-II BGA DRAM modules. The memory on the rear of the card is cooled by two smaller aluminum heatsinks. It should be noted that even with all three fans spinning, the Albatron GeForceFX 5700 Ultra remained very quiet. Albatron a noise level of just 25dB, which is less noisy than an 80mm Sunon 40 cfm case fan as one example.

Albatron's GeForceFX 5700 Ultra package includes an S-Video cable, composite cable, and S-Video to Composite adaptor. A full version of Duke Nukem MP, a five game demo CD and a full copy of WinDVD are also thrown in for good measure.

With the trend among manufacturers to include better software bundles, it's a shame to see a more impressive gaming bundle wasn't offered. No DVI-to-Analog adaptor was included, which means you'll have to buy one of your own if you intend to use this card in a dual CRT configuration.

Unlike previous GeForceFX class videocards to have come across PCstats' test bench, the NV36 GPU uses no heatspreader.

Allowing the GeForceFX 5700 Ultra core to come in direct contact with the heatsink is a better idea when it comes down to raw thermals, but if you're in the habit of swapping out the stock cooling systems for an after market cooler please be very careful.

The small components soldered to the FCPGA package can get knocked off very easily, which would be disastrous.

The NV36 core is built on 0.13 micron manufacturing technology and has a whopping 82 million transistors packed into that small slice of silicon. While the FX5700 Ultra is technically based on the GeForceFX5900/5950 core, it really only uses half the rendering pipelines like the FX5600U. The FX5700 Ultra core runs at a very speedy 475 MHz, while the non-Ultra GPU clocks in slightly slower, at 425 MHz.

The 128MB of Samsung K4N26323AE-GC22 DDR_II DRAM runs at its maximum speed of 900 MHz (450 MHz DDR). The 128 bit memory controller on the GeForceFX 5700 Ultra has 14.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This is up slightly from the 12.8 GB/s of the GeForceFX 5600 Ultra, and much more than the Radeon 9600XT which only uses a paltry 9.6 GB/s.