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Leadtek WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO Review August 12, 2003 Brandon Bell |
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Summary: Leadtek's WinFast A350 Ultra TDH is designed to appeal to the guy (or gal) who just isn't satisfied with stock hardware. For starters let's talk about cooling. Leadtek has implemented a unique system that sports a copper heatsink with dual fans -- one for intake, and one for exhaust! But it doesn't stop there, Leadtek has also made some other improvements. We've gathered up eight graphics cards and NVIDIA's Detonator 45.23s that are being released tomorrow. You'll have to read the review for the full scoop!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 15 ) |
For some discriminating consumers, stock just isn’t good enough. In the automotive industry you have custom tuners like Saleen, Ligenfelter, and RUF. These companies take factory cars and tune them into supercars with price tags that are usually the cost of the car itself, if not more. Engines will be bored out, turbo and superchargers installed, transmissions swapped, while the suspension and brakes will be tuned for superior handling and performance. Cost is literally no object. Fortunately for these tuners, their customers have the bank to afford these modifications. After all, if you have to ask how much it costs, chances are you can’t afford it right?Just below these companies are the factory tuners. AMG, SVT, SLP, BMW’s “M” division, and Toyota Racing Development (TRD) are some of the most famous examples. Cost is definitely a factor to these guys, but increasing performance is still the primary objective. These tradeoffs of price and performance must be weighed heavily into the final product so their ultimate creations can be successful for the company’s balance sheet and at the racetrack.
In the computing world we have our own factory tuners. Companies like Alienware, Falcon Northwest, and VoodooPC have made a name for themselves building custom gaming rigs, while in the motherboard market names like ABIT, Epox, and Soyo have done quite well. On the 3D video side of things custom manufacturers have also thrived, despite the cutthroat nature of the market, and more recently, the strict manufacturing restrictions ATI and NVIDIA have implemented on their high-end products.
Leadtek: Paving the way for better 2D?
Leadtek is one of the oldest of these companies; with products dating all the way back to NVIDIA’s original RIVA 128, making them one of NVIDIA’s senior board partners. Leadtek has come up with all kinds of ways to enhance their products in the past. For instance, back in the TNT2/GeForce days, NVIDIA-based cards from third-party manufacturers were often criticized for their poor 2D display quality. While NVIDIA’s reference boards utilized high quality components and filters, third-party manufacturers utilized cheaper parts in order to cut costs. Consequently, as the screen resolution increased, signal strength decreased, resulting in blurry text and images.
This was less of a problem in the TNT and TNT2 days, when 14” and 15” monitors were most common, 17” was considered high-end and 640x480 and 800x600 were common desktop resolutions. But as technology progressed, CRTs became cheaper, 17” became mainstream, while 19” and 21” monitors could be found at good prices if you looked hard enough. Gamers and enthusiasts began to crank up their screen resolution only to discover that their shiny new GeForce or GeForce2 card didn’t look so good. ATI and Matrox cards provided excellent 2D output, even Voodoo3 and S3 Virge cards delivered better 2D displays than many NVIDIA-based cards!
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In came Leadtek with its TDH series of GeForce cards. Not only did they resolve the problem, Tuan found that their 2D quality was superior to that of Matrox’s G550 in the WinFast Titanium 500 TDH.
So what advantage does Leadtek have in store for us with its GeForce FX 5900 Ultra card? For starters, it’s plain to see that Leadtek has placed an emphasis on cooling, a tradition they’ve upheld for all of their GeForce cards we’ve reviewed. But they have a few other tricks up their sleeve as well. Let’s take a closer look at the hardware underneath its daunting cooler.
SIDEBAR: ATI ALL-IN-WONDER 9800 Pro Product Webpage
| Features | Page:: ( 2 / 15 ) |
Since we’ve already covered the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra core powering the Leadtek WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO at length in previous graphics cards reviews, we won’t rehash all the details here. Please refer back to our preview article from May. But just in case you need a quick refresher, here’s a quick list of the essentials:
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra core
256-bit Memory Interface with 256MB DDR memory
2nd-Generation Intellisample high-resolution compression technology
2nd-Generation NVIDIA CineFX 2.0 engine with 128-bit precision processing
UltraShadow Technology
3.6 billion texels/sec fill rate
338 million vertices/sec
27.2GB/sec memory bandwidth
nView Multi-display Technology
Integrated Full hardware MPEG-2 decoder
Dual 400MHz RAMDACs supports QXGA displays with ultra-high ergonomic refresh rates
DVI Support up to 1600x1200 resolution
Integrated Video Encoder
Onboard TV-out support up to 1024x768 resolution
Video capture function supports S-Video and Composite video devices
0.13-micron technology with 130 million transistors
Software bundle includes Ulead Video Studio 7 SE, Cool 3D SE, DVD Movie Factory 2 SE, WinFast PVR, WinFastDVD, WinFox II, Cult 3D, Coloreal Embedded/Visual/Bright, Big Mutha Truckas, and Gun Metal.
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Leadtek follows NVIDIA’s clock frequencies to the letter. eVGA is the only manufacturer we’re aware of to deviate from NVIDIA’s specifications so far. Their e-GeForce FX 5900 Ultra operates at 500MHz core/900MHz memory.
Like the reference 5900 Ultra cards manufactured directly by NVIDIA, the WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO supports video input/output, hence the “MyVIVO” designation in the product’s name. The card supports this functionality through Philips popular SAA7108AE video encoder/decoder chip internally, while a VIVO cable (the MyVIVO cable) is used to interface with your video device.
Leadtek includes an extensive selection of software with the card. Enthusiasts will probably be most interested in WinFox 2. This hardware utility provides built-in overclocking to the WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO with adjustable sliders for the memory clock frequency and core clock frequency. Unfortunately, the copy of WinFox 2.0 included with the card only had settings for adjusting the 2D clocks in its current form, but we’re sure this will be resolved shortly if it hasn’t already. WinFox 2.0 also has built-in hardware monitoring support. Temperatures monitored include the card itself, as well as both the edge and the surface of the graphics core.
WinFast PVR is used to capture video; this software supports MPEG1/MPEG2, AVI, Windows Media, VCD and DVD video formats as well as the ability to burn videos directly to DVD. Leadtek also boasts picture-in-picture and timeshifting support, but this simply refers to WinFast PVR’s ability to display live video while recording in PIP mode and the ability to view, rewind, or stop the playback of recorded video while recording.
Ulead’s VideoStudio 7 SE is used for video editing, while DVD MoveFactory 2 SE is used for burning home movies onto DVDs or CDs. Full retail copies of Big Mutha Truckas and the recently released DX9 game Gun Metal are also included in the software bundle, which is valued at over $260.
SIDEBAR: The hardware monitor has a histogram feature, so you can monitor temperatures over time.
| Board analysis | Page:: ( 3 / 15 ) |
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Twin Turbo-II cooling
The first (and most obvious) part that stands out on Leadtek’s A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO is the extreme cooling system Leadtek has implemented for this card, which Leadtek has appropriately named Twin Turbo-II. The Twin Turbo-II cooling system starts with the copper heatsink Leadtek uses to cool the NV35 core the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra is based on. Leadtek uses one large copper heatsink that not only covers the core, it extends all the way to the top of the video card for increased surface area. This copper heatsink is flanked by an aluminum heatsink, which is located above the memory modules. As you can see in the picture above, the aluminum heatsink is no slouch in size either. This two-piece cooling design forms a formidable 1-2 punch to draw heat off the GPU and its memory.
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From here, Leadtek has integrated an ingenious dual fan design for cooling the GPU. See the fan on the left, near the DVI and VGA connectors? That fan is the intake fan. It draws in cool outside air which is then brought inside the enclosure Leadtek has grafted. The fan on the right is the exhaust fan. It grabs the hot air off the GPU and memory heatsinks, and blows it outside at an angle opposite of the intake fan. This cycle is repeated constantly with one fan supplying the cool air, while another fan ejects the hot air. Think of it as a poor man’s heat pipe.
Leadtek claims Twin Turbo-II is the result of extensive wind tunnel testing borrowed from the aerospace industry. Whether it really is or not, we don’t know, but we certainly saw that it works. Core temperature readings on our card were about four degrees Celsius cooler than NVIDIA reference (measured by the hardware monitoring built in to the NVIDIA display driver) although the card itself would get hot to the touch after extended testing while the card was overclocked. Clearly Twin Turbo-II was working overtime though, as the exhaust fan was cranking out more hot air than a politician during re-election. We actually wish Leadtek offered an “extreme cooling” setting for end users who wouldn’t mind really cranking up the RPMs for added cooling. Acoustically the WinFast A350 Ultra TDH was a little bit louder than the other dual fan solutions we’ve tested from ASUS and MSI, but it was still nowhere close to the unbearable levels of GeForce FX 5800 Ultra. We’d rank it a hair below NVIDIA reference when both cards are operating at full tilt during overclocking.
As an added bonus, Leadtek even includes dust covers for the fans for easier cleaning!
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Improved filters
Besides the added cooling, Leadtek also uses better AGP bus filters for increased motherboard compatibility (although it should be noted that we’re not aware of any compatibility issues with 5900 Ultra) and overclocking as well as higher quality video filters. This results in cleaner video signals. Finally, Leadtek has done something we wish every 5900 manufacturer would do: they’ve mounted the Molex power connector parallel to the edge of the card rather than perpendicular. This makes installation so much easier, as you don’t need as much cable to feed your card with juice.
SIDEBAR: Apparently a few examples of Leadtek’s GeForce FX 5900 Ultra card are also floating out there without the Twin Turbo-II cooling. Be on the lookout for Twin Turbo if you’re shopping for this card online.
| Test Systems | Page:: ( 4 / 15 ) |
System Setup
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz
ASUS P4C800 Deluxe
512MB OCZ EL PC3200 (DDR400) SDRAM
ATI RADEON 9800 PRO – 256MB
ATI RADEON 9800 PRO – 128MB
ATI RADEON 9700 PRO
Driver version CATALYST 3.6
ASUS V9950 Ultra
eVGA e-GeForce FX 5600 Ultra
Leadtek A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO
MSI NBox N5900 Ultra
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600
Driver version Detonator 45.23
30GB IBM Deskstar DTLA 307030 ATA/100 Hard Drive
Windows XP Professional
DirectX 9.0
Benchmarks
NASCAR Racing 2003 Season (Bristol custom demo)
Quake III: Arena version 1.32 (fscrusher demo)
Unreal Tournament 2003 (T2 custom demo)
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles (The Black Death track)
Splinter Cell (FS custom demo)
SIDEBAR: The WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO still consumes one PCI slot.
| NASCAR Racing 2003 Season | Page:: ( 5 / 15 ) |
Nascar 2003
SIDEBAR: Leadtek was founded in 1986.
| IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles | Page:: ( 6 / 15 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: FB
SIDEBAR: Leadtek also makes a very popular TV encoder card, the WinFast TV2000 series.
| Quake III | Page:: ( 7 / 15 ) |
Quake III - OpenGL
SIDEBAR: Leadtek actually offers dust covers on many of its GeForce cards.
| Unreal Tournament 2003 | Page:: ( 8 / 15 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2003 – Direct3D
SIDEBAR: We use the highest quality video settings for testing with UT2K3.
| Splinter Cell | Page:: ( 9 / 15 ) |
Splinter Cell – Direct3D
SIDEBAR: NVIDIA will be posting the new driver we’re using tomorrow.
| Splinter Cell (cont’d) | Page:: ( 10 / 15 ) |
Splinter Cell – Direct3D
Notes
The following numbers were taken using Reverend’s custom Chinese Embassy demo. Rev and Dave have been using this demo in their reviews on Beyond3D and it is not the Oil Refinery demo that was released to the public earlier this summer.
SIDEBAR: Check out Dave’s in-depth GeForce FX 5900 Ultra preview here.
| IL2:FB 4xAA, 8xAF | Page:: ( 11 / 15 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: FB
SIDEBAR: We didn’t have the same problems changing resolutions with CATALYST 3.5 as we do with CATALYST 3.6. It can take five tries just to get the resolution to display correctly once.
| UT 2003 4xAA 8xAF | Page:: ( 12 / 15 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2003
Notes
Unfortunately, the latest Detonator driver still performs the same quasi-trilinear filtering we mentioned in our ASUS V9950 Ultra review. We’re not so much upset that it’s there (as ATI also selectively uses trilinear filtering in Unreal Tournament 2003) as we are that this mode is forced on us, even when we use the “Quality” and “Application” settings in the display driver. After all, what’s the point of having an application setting in the control panel if the driver will override it anyway? In the future we may just stick to testing with AA only.
SIDEBAR: Football season is only a few weeks away!!
| Overclocking | Page:: ( 13 / 15 ) |
Quake 3
Unreal Tournament 2003
SIDEBAR: 525/955 is the maximum the driver would allow us to go. The “test settings” feature just wouldn’t allow anything higher.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 14 / 15 ) |
Pros
Performance: NVIDIA’s GeForce FX 5900 Ultra core powering the Leadtek WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO is one of the fastest graphics chips on the planet, sharing the high end of the market with ATI’s RADEON 9800 PRO. It’s difficult to declare an overall winner, as both have their apps they run well with. Fortunately, they’re both more than capable of sustaining high frame rates with today’s latest games, even with features such as anti-aliasing and aniostropic filtering turned on.
As we’ve said before, if you want the visuals you see on the back of the box of your favorite game, you’ll need a card from the RADEON 9800 or GeForce FX 5900 family for playable performance.
Cooling: The Twin Turbo-II cooling system Leadtek has implemented on the WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO is the most impressive GeForce FX 5900 Ultra cooler we’ve seen. Leadtek starts with a copper heatsink, which is responsible for cooling the NV35 core. NVIDIA’s reference cards rely on an aluminum heatsink with massive fins that protrude so long they occupy the PCI slot adjacent to the AGP interface. In contrast, the copper heatsink is fairly low profile, with multiple rolled fins for greater surface area. Leadtek then supplants the copper heatsink with an aluminum heatsink which is responsible for the memory modules and the PCB immediately surrounding the GPU.
The finishing touch is the enclosure, which has two fans mounted at the top. One fan is for intake, supplying the card with fresh air from within your case. This works really well for those of you who leave your case cover off, or have a case fan near this area. The second fan is for exhaust, blowing hot air out and away from the graphics card. And in case you were concerned, noise isn’t an issue. The fans have a low pitch that isn’t hard on the ears, while you can ever so slightly hear the whooshing sound of the air within the enclosure. Overall noise level isn’t any higher than NVIDIA’s reference cards. In fact we wouldn’t mind if Leadtek cranked up the RPMs a bit more for even better cooling.
As temperatures on graphics cards continue to rise, card manufacturers will begin to rely on beefier coolers even more. Perhaps Twin Turbo-II is the way of the future. It certainly impressed us!
Leadtek-specific enhancements: Besides the Twin Turbo-II cooling, Leadtek has improved the AGP and video filters on its WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO. While we wouldn’t complain in either department, this modification strengthens signal quality. Perhaps Leadtek knows something NVIDIA doesn’t know! Leadtek has a history of going above and beyond the call of duty, so actually this doesn’t surprise us.
Cons
Price: The Leadtek WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO retails for $499, this is the same MSRP other board vendors charge for their GeForce FX 5900 Ultra products. $500 is a lot to pay for a graphics card. Fortunately street prices are already down to $470 but the WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO won’t be a cheap purchase for some time to come.
SIDEBAR: Also included in the WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO packaging is a DVI-to-VGA adapter, power cable, RCA video cable, and S-Video cable.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 15 / 15 ) |
FiringSquad says:
FiringSquad’s Editor’s Choice Award was conceived to reward those products that embraced ingenuity. Simply slapping your name on a reference board just won’t cut it; no matter how inexpensive the card is, how high you overclock it, or how many games and goodies you throw in the package. Synonyms like inventive, pioneering, and groundbreaking come to mind.
From a pure hardware perspective, we can’t think of another GeForce FX 5900 Ultra card that is as innovative as the Leadtek WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO. It’s Twin Turbo-II cooling is simple, yet effective. Take one fan for intake, supplying the graphics core and other components with fresh cool air, while a second fan is used for exhaust; blowing that pesky hot air away from the card. Enthusiasts have been doing this for years with their system cases. In fact most high-end cases ship with intake and exhaust fan designs out-of-the-box. The Leadtek WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO is the first graphics card we’ve encountered that takes this principle and executes it perfectly. That’s pretty pioneering if you ask us.
Leadtek has implemented a few other changes to further enhance their card over the competition. Additional AGP and video filters are used for better signal quality; this results in better video quality and enhances overclocking potential. Leadtek also orients the external power connector parallel to the WinFast A350 Ultra TDH card, so no more bending your power cord at weird angles to supply your card with power. These optimizations may not sound like much, but it’s little touches like this (and the dustcovers on the Twin Turbo fans) that go a long way to winning over hardware enthusiasts and thus, ensuring a sale, especially since the WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO retails for the same $500 price tag as every other GeForce FX 5900 Ultra card on the market.
Like the auto tuners we mentioned in the introduction, Leadtek provides all the nuts and bolts to getting the most out of NVIDIA’s GeForce FX 5900 Ultra core. Those companies fine tune stock 911s and Corvettes into fine pieces of automotive machinery (if they weren’t already), while Leadtek tunes video cards. Sure, unfortunately Leadtek doesn’t overclock from the factory, but they’ve provided all the basic essentials to ensure that you’ll be able to. With the exception of one serious heat pipe or water cooler, we doubt you’ll find a cooling solution superior to Twin Turbo-II. Air cooling just doesn’t get any better than this, unless you replace the stock fans with 7500 RPM behemoths.
We wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few of you who already have these plans in the works for your WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO. Good luck, and Godspeed!
SIDEBAR: What do you think of the WinFast A350 Ultra TDH MyVIVO? Is this a card you would consider, or do you have your eyes set on something else? Speak!