Why does the 5600 FX still clock throttle?

[skoprowski]

I have been playing with a new BFG 5600 Geforce FX 256meg the last few days. I just took it back this evening. It was a good card, but was noticably slower than my Geforce 4 4600 Ti- especially in UnrealT2003 and Unreal2. I'll be waiting for the Nv35.

The strange thing is that the card still had a temp sensor on it and clock throttled down in 2d mode. The card has no external power connector and the fan is no larger and bigger than what is found on a Radeon 9700pro. So why does Nvidia not run the card at the highest clock all the time? I understood the 5800 Ultra because of the fan noise, but it doesn't make sense for the plain jane 5600. Seems strange to me.

Scott

[Lunar]

To keep it from burning up. Why worry about it. It's a nice little feature IMO.

[Ratchet]

I've never seen anyone mention temps on the 5600u... does it get that hot then? To require a clock throttle?

Maybe it was one of the holdovers from the NV30 - sort of an "it was there, so why not use it" type thing.

[Typedef Enum]

I find it amazing that a new generation product that doesn't cost under $100 could actually be slower than the one from 12 months ago!

[Chalnoth]

Originally posted by skoprowski
I have been playing with a new BFG 5600 Geforce FX 256meg the last few days. I just took it back this evening. It was a good card, but was noticably slower than my Geforce 4 4600 Ti- especially in UnrealT2003 and Unreal2. I'll be waiting for the Nv35.
Were you playing with FSAA and anisotropic enabled?

Anyway, as for the clock throttling, why not? nVidia already had the hardware...this will just save you a little bit of power, and keep the rest of the case just that much cooler when the 3D card's not needed.

[Dazz]

Full speed is not needed if you are pushing 2D games as it's all CPU battlenecked. Why run at 350MHz when 200MHz is good enough? This is the standard GeforceFX 5600 so it will be noticably slower then the Ti4200.