NVIDIA's Mainstream GPU – NV31

The entire NVIDIA GeForce FX graphics family is made up of the value-mainstream segment, FX 5200 series, the performance-mainstream segment, FX 5600 series and the high-end enthusiast segment, FX 5900 series. We have touched upon the value and high-end series through some of our graphics card reviews, but today we will examine the more interesting performance-mainstream segment. The FX 5600 series GPU has been codenamed as NV31 and were directly derived from the now defunct FX 5800 series that utilized the heavily hyped NV30 GPU. When the GeForce FX (the 5800 series) was first launched, the mainstream-performance segment then belonged to the GeForce4 Titanium series. However, NVIDIA and everybody else found the GeForce FX 5800 and FX 5800 Ultra to be overly priced for the performance it offered. Since NVIDIA’s vision was to offer DirectX 9 compliant graphics cards throughout their entire line-up, the NV30 GPU was modified into the more affordable NV31 and NV34 cores that would then go on to replace the GeForce4 Titanium and GeForce4 MX products respectively. Meanwhile, NV35 came about as the FX 5900 series to retake the high-end enthusiast segment.

So, how different is the FX 5600 series from that of the original FX 5800? Apart from the reduction in rendering pipelines, the use of mainstream 128-bit DDR interface and the reduced operating clock speeds, the core features are similar to its elder brother. As with NVIDIA’s other product series, there are the GeForce FX 5600 and the FX 5600 Ultra variants. Here, we would like to highlight to readers that the there are actually two versions of the FX 5600 Ultra GPU.

The originally debuted FX 5600 Ultra GPU was manufactured in a traditional all ceramic packaging (just like the FX 5200 series) and had a GPU/memory clock speed of 350MHz/700MHz. Few months after, NVIDIA repackaged the FX 5600 Ultra version in a flip-chip packaging and topping it with a heat spreader lid. This allowed the core to be more efficiently cooled and NVIDIA ramped the GPU/memory clock speeds to 400MHz/800MHz. This new variant is a direct replacement to the former version, but up till this day, there are old FX 5600 Ultra graphics cards lurking on the retail shelf bearing the older GPU. Without ripping off the graphics card’s cooler to ascertain which version is the core, one simple but inaccurate way to differentiate them is the price factor. On average the newer flip-chip FX 5600 Ultra graphics cards would retail close to S$400 or more, whereas the older FX 5600 Ultra would be tagged below the S$350 mark. However, there are always exception to such rules and that would be PNY’s FX 5600 Ultra graphics cards with the flip-chip variant of the GPU which now retails close to S$300.


Chaintech is one of the vendors who manufactured both versions of the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra graphics cards, but since the older GPU is replaced by the flip-chip version, we will be concentrating only on the later version. Interestingly, Chaintech has evolved their graphics card line-up with eye-catching products and bundles akin to their motherboard products. This can be seen with the extension of the Apogee series to encompass graphics cards too. These complement the regular versions, but we were lucky to have obtained the Chaintech Apogee FX71, which is a high-end variant of the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra (flip-chip) graphics card. Check out the product specifications below:-