Chaintech SA5900X

Chaintech is probably best known among gamers and hardware enthusiasts for their line of high-end Zenith motherboards, but they also have quite a few NVIDIA-based graphics cards in their product lineup also. Earlier this year we took a look at their flagship Personal Cinema card, the Zenith FM6P/N, which was the first Personal Cinema card to hit the market based on NVIDIA’s GeForce FX 5600 core. We found that the FM6P/N was a nice card that was only held back by the limitations of NVIDIA’s Personal Cinema software (and the capabilities of its GeForce FX 5600 core), so we were eager to see what Chaintech could accomplish when given NVIDIA’s GeForce FX 5900 XT as a foundation.

Chaintech SA5900X

Back of the card

Their GeForce FX 5900 XT card goes by the name SA5900X. Chaintech clocks the graphics core at 390MHz, while its 128MB of memory operates at 700MHz.

Looking over the SA5900X’s board design, you’ll see that Chaintech closely follows NVIDIA’s reference specifications. The only addition we saw were two additional MOSFETs that weren’t present on other 5900 XT cards in the lower right corner of the board.

Gold cooler and RAMsinks

Extra MOSFETs here

Cooling and memory

The board itself has a rather elaborate cooling system. A copper base plate is responsible for pulling heat off the NV35 graphics core. Copper fins are used on two sides of the base plate to further increase surface area. This copper cooling system is then mated to a gold-colored enclosure for added panache, which essentially acts as a duct, blowing cool air over the graphics core. Looking closely at the card’s fan, it appears Chaintech has also outfitted the board with a blue LED, which is intended to shine underneath, lighting the entire enclosure and the company logo, but unfortunately the LED on our review sample was dead.

In operation, the SA5900X was the loudest of the cards in this roundup, although we should add that the noise levels weren’t unbearable. Interestingly enough, our card’s fan was configured to operate at full speed at all times, typically GeForce FX 5900 boards are designed to operate in two modes: 2D and 3D. When the board is in “2D” mode, the core clock frequency is lowered to 300MHz and the fan spins at a reduced level. In the case of the SA5900X however, the fan’s RPMs never wavered, even when running in 2D mode. When you couple this with the copper cooling we mentioned, it’s fairly obvious that Chaintech was very concerned about combating heat.

While it isn’t called for by NVIDIA’s reference specifications, Chaintech goes the extra mile by cooling the SA5900X’s memory as well. Aluminum heatsinks are placed above both banks of memory. The heatsinks are painted gold to match the cooler above the NV35 graphics core. The modules themselves (part number K4D263238E-GC2A) come from Samsung and are rated for exactly 700MHz.

Chaintech’s bundle

In addition to the SA5900X card, Chaintech includes a very thorough 50 page manual, DVI-to-VGA adapter, S-Video cable, S-Video-to-Composite adapter and an additional power adapter. Software included includes a copy of 3Deep, MDK2, WinDVD, WinDVD Creator, WinRip, and a 5-in-1 bundle of game demos (Age of Wonders 2, Serious Sam 2, Rally Trophy, Max Payne, and Tropico).