When a new OEM
emerges in PC Hardware, their products are initially
gawked at from afar, as most end users are reluctant to
take the plunge into uncharted waters. As soon as a
few end users claim good experiences with new hardware,
word spreads and the bandwagon jumping begins. It's
safe to say that
Albatron has become one of these companies as of late.
Since Albatron came onto the scene only a short time ago,
they have become target of exploration for some in the
hardware enthusiast community. Their products boast
innovative features and designs, seemingly without
compromising quality and performance. That is only
part of the reason for Albatron's growing popularity,
however. They have also managed to partner with some
already well established companies like Intel, NVIDIA and
VIA, driving the chip level technologies for their end
products.
Over the past
year or so, Albatron has pushed out a myriad of products,
most notably, motherboards and graphics cards. In
terms of NVIDIA based products, whether it be in the form
of the latest nForce chipset or the NV3X GPU's, Albatron
has most likely has an offering. Albatron currently
has a card with each of the latest GPU's from NVIDIA.
Since much of the end user market cannot afford the latest
and greatest high end graphics card technology, Albatron
is happy to oblige of course, in the low end as well.
Today in the HotHardware labs, we have Albatron's
mainstream graphics card sporting NVIDIA's NV34 graphics
processor. While you won't get top notch pixel
pushing power from this card, you may find it is an
adequately performing budget or "entry level" product.
CLICK ANY IMAGE FOR AN
ENLARGED VIEW
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Specifications & Features of the
Albatron GeForce FX 5200 Ultra |
NVIDIA's Mainstream GPU |
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NV34 and GeForce FX
5200 Ultra:
- .15u Manufacturing
Process
- 128-Bit GPU -
325MHz Clock Speed
- Flip-Chip BGA
Package with copper interconnects
- 128-bit Memory
Architecture
- CineFX 2.0 for
Cinematic Special Effects
- 128MB of DDR
- AGP 4X/8x
- DVI + VGA + TV /
VIVO
- Full DirectX 9.0 &
OpenGL Support
Features:
- CineFX 2.0 for
Cinematic Special Effects
- High Precision
Graphics
- Full DX9 Compliance
- 64-Bit
Floating-Point Color
- 128-Bit
Floating-Point Color
- 350MHz Internal
RAMDACs
- Unified Vertex and
Pixel Shading instruction set
- Unified Driver
Architecture
- nView 2.0 -
Multi-Display Technology
- Digital Vibrance
Control 3.0
- Integrated TV
Encoder
- Integrated Full
Hardware MPEG-2 Decoder
- New 64-phase Video
Scaler
- DVI Support
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Memory:
CLICK TO ENLARGE
THE
GEFORCE FX 5200 ULTRA
CORE CLOCK: 325MHz
MEMORY CLOCK: 650MHz
FILLRATE: 1.3 GP/s
MEMORY BANDWIDTH: 10.4 GB/s
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The bundle
that shipped with the Albatron 5200 Ultra graphics card
was a bit on the slim side. Intervideo's WinDVD
Creator and a driver CD were the only pieces of software
included in this package. The other goodies found in
the bundle were an S-Video to AV adaptor, along with an AV
cable. Finally an Albatron case badge was thrown in
for good measure. While this bundle gets you up and
running, new games are out of the question. It would
have been nice to see Albatron throw in a game title or
two to test out that new, shiny graphics card.
Next Up - A Closer
Look & Some Visuals
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