Gigabyte GV-N595U-GT (NVIDIA FX 5950 Ultra)
Gigabyte GV-N595U-GT Video Card Features
Retail bundle
Inside the nice-looking glossy Gigabyte-styled box made specially for NVIDIA produce, we found the following contents:
- The video card itself;
- A VIVO splitter adapter;
- DVI-to-D-Sub adapter;
- User's guide;
- 2 CDs with drivers and software;
- 3 CDs with full versions of games: Arx Fatalis, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness and Rainbow Six3: Raven Shield.
The package bundle is up to the mark, however, what's missing is some sort of a "spice" that every manufacturer tries to put inside not only Hi-end product boxes, but to the boxes of regular Middle-end products shipped to the retail. What's a bit disappointing is that Gigabyte offers quite a standard package bundle that doesn't stand out among the others. They might have added some more bonus items for a card of such price tag!
Design and layout
The first glance at Gigabyte GV-N595U-GT gives us a clear idea that we deal with a complete replica of NVIDIA's reference design. This is not only about the PCB of the video card, but the cooling system as well which was completely copied from NVIDIA. There aren't any differences in either the component layout nor even in the positioning of capacitors. The cooling system, as we already noted above, is also reference-based; only the engraved GT logo makes us aware that it's not just a reference board by NVIDIA.
The board itself proved to be quite massive. This is certainly because of the very heavy cooling system (for more details, read below). This makes you recall the NV30 with its cooling system, however, the anxiety is unfounded - NV38 uses a different operating principle for the reference cooling system.
The board takes up not only the AGP slot, but the adjoining PCI as well.
The video card is made in Gigabyte's characteristic blue PCB, offers 256 MB DDR onboard with a 256-bit data transmission bus (eight 32-bit chips positioned over the front and rear sides of the PCB). The video card offers the AGP 2x/4x/8x interface and a standard set of outputs: one DVI-I, one analogous, and one VIVO.
The signal for digital monitors is formed by the Sil164CT64 TMDS-transmitter made by Silicon Image.
The board also offers a SAA7108AE VIVO-chip made by Philips.
Besides, on the front side of the PCB you can see a connector for additional power necessary for video cards built on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950. Additional power doesn't have to be applied, but in this case the card would run at reduced speeds, of which it will earnestly report upon the very first boot-up of Windows. The shortcoming of the additional power connector on Gigabyte GV-N595U-GT, like that on MSI GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, is its vertical positioning. First, it's quite difficult to apply power with an AGP video card already fitted in place. Secondly, the fastening of the connector leaves much to be desired.
 There is an advanced BGA-packaging for memory chips made by Hynix (HY5DU283222). The access time of memory chips is 2 ns, which is equivalent to 500 MHz (1000 MHz), but the memory runs at the specified 475 MHz (950) which is prescribed by NVIDIA for GeForce FX 5950 Ultra. In other words, the card offers a small margin of memory overclocking. The GPU operating frequency has been overstated and amounts to 520(!) MHz.
If we once dismantled the whole cooling system of the board, it would be unfair not to look inside NV38 itself. The chip was manufactured on the 38th week of the year 2003 and has revision A1.
Of course we can't pass over the cooling system of the Gigabyte GV-N595U-GT in silence. At first glance, it may seem we have come back to the FlowFX again. In fact, it's not the way it seems. Yes, the system looks clumsy and awkward, but the operating principle is already different. The air for cooling the radiator that covers the NV38 graphic chip is sucked from outside through the grid in the fastening plane of the video card.
The air entrapped from outside is directed to the massive radiator that tightly covers the graphic chip. After the radiator is cooled by the air applied from outside falls inside the housing (already heated from the radiators). Of course this will not effect positively on the overall temperature inside the CPU unit, but the video card will always be blown about by the external cool air. The RPM rate is quite high, which makes much noise, but the noise level is much lower than that of FlowFX, so you can easily put up with it.
As the thermal interface, the regular so-called "chewing-gum" is used.
Software
Of all the bundled software, we'd like to note Gigabyte's proprietary utility for hardware monitoring and overclocking, the Vtuner.
Along with the overclocking, the utility also does hardware monitoring of the board's condition: the GPU temperature, the ambient temperature, and the fan's rotational speed.
After the installation, the program is hidden into the tray thus giving the user an opportunity to change a number of parameters which were possible to reach only through NVIDIA's control panel.
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