NVIDIA Puts Its (New) Cards on the Table

NVIDIA's New Upper Class: The GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, Continued

The quirky name may seem odd at first, although it sounds much better when pronounced out lout: "fifty-nine fifty". NVIDIA on purpose chose not to call this part the "FX 6000" - a name that may seem more logical, but would have implied a new product. And that is exactly what the FX 5950 is not. Hence the "in-between" name.

The new card is absolutely identical to the FX 5900 feature wise, inheriting its 8-pipeline (Color+Z) design and the Cine FX 2.0 shader engine. As mentioned above, the only difference between these to parts is their clock speeds, so NVIDIA probably hadn't judged the new card as meriting a full-fledged FX 6000 nomenclature, and called it the FX 5950 instead.

Simple math, really. As a side note, don't expect to see any "non-Ultra" versions of the 5950 as the existing 5900 line will serve that segment. Incidentally, those cards should see some price cuts in the very near future to accommodate the newcomer.