Try to search for the Quadro FX 3000.

Was thinking of buying one, but my common sense prevailed. For now 😀. Highend cards tend to run hot, are much more complex than the top midrange ones, therefore I tend to believe they are more prone to failure.

Try and search for the manufacturer model numbers...

Asus V9980

I've found a few cards just by searching for their model numbers. I picked up a MSI Geforce 4 ti4600 for £9.99 but just entering the 4 digit MSI model number as the seller had no idea what it was 😀

You may also look for an FX 5900 or FX 5900 Ultra. These were released a few months prior to the 5950 Ultra and older drivers support them (raising game compatibility quite a bit as a result!).
The difference between the 5900 Ultra and 5950 Ultra is pretty miniscule anyway and can be mitigated by overclocking a little bit.

Just out of curiosity, guys. What can do fx5950 what can't do modern cards?

Skalabala wrote:

If I search Ebay I do not see any of them for sale 😐
This is strange to me 😵

Be patient and check daily. They still pop up for sale semi-regularly and aren't priced too high.

Things are getting silly for the AGP versions of the Radeon 3850 and GeForce 7900GS. A few years ago, you could get these cards easily for about $50. Nowadays, the available supply appears to have dried up and prices have skyrocketed as a result.

F2bnp wrote:

You may also look for an FX 5900 or FX 5900 Ultra. These were released a few months prior to the 5950 Ultra and older drivers support them (raising game compatibility quite a bit as a result!).

Check this out. You can modify v45.23 drivers to work with the 5950 Ultra. I didn't know about this either. Thanks to tyuper for making this knowledge available.

anthony wrote:

Just out of curiosity, guys. What can do fx5950 what can't do modern cards?

In particular, 8-bit palletized textures and fog table support. In general, better support for older games. For Win9x, it's probably the most powerful card available that still has really excellent compatibility.

The GeForce 6800 Ultra is much faster and will work with Win9x, but you also lose a bit of compatibility. Games like European Air War and Final Fantasy 7 will have issues.

Nvidia gave the chip revision a new codename, but the 5950 and 5900 Ultra are very similar. The real difference is a voltage bump. Flashing 5900's into 5950 Ultras was common and it wasn't just the overclocking end users who did this. The chip on my Gainward 5950 Ultra says 5900U, and the PCB and memory are the same as their 5900 Ultra Golden Sample product.

I own a 5950 ultra, I was wondering what they go for on ebay.
Saw one once and it was more than $200 made me feel good about my nostalgia 😁

Skalabala wrote:

I own a 5950 ultra, I was wondering what they go for on ebay.
Saw one once and it was more than $200 made me feel good about my nostalgia 😁

I had a lot of fx 5950 ultras. There not worth anything close to 200$. People can ask whatever that want.

Get an FX 5900XT they are cheap, and easily flashed to FX5950 Ultra, just lower the memory clock

Jade Falcon wrote:

Skalabala wrote:

I own a 5950 ultra, I was wondering what they go for on ebay.
Saw one once and it was more than $200 made me feel good about my nostalgia 😁

I had a lot of fx 5950 ultras. There not worth anything close to 200$. People can ask whatever that want.

One of which I now own. Specifically the ASUS varient with an ArcticNV cooler on it.

So... uh.... you mean to tell me you had more than one FX5950?

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Jade Falcon wrote:

Skalabala wrote:

I own a 5950 ultra, I was wondering what they go for on ebay.
Saw one once and it was more than $200 made me feel good about my nostalgia 😁

I had a lot of fx 5950 ultras. There not worth anything close to 200$. People can ask whatever that want.

One of which I now own. Specifically the ASUS varient with an ArcticNV cooler on it.

So... uh.... you mean to tell me you had more than one FX5950?

At the time you bought my asus 5950 ultra I only had one but over the years I had a lot of them. They tend to go around $50 tops when I sell them.
Just stay away form the EVGA ones, they tend to have problems. Or so that is the case with most of the evga fx5950 ultras I owned.

EDIT:
Also two and 3 fan cards like BFG and gainward's cards tend to have fan problems. The fans lock up and fail and your better off with a OEM blower cooler or aftermarket artic cooler.

I am lucky enough to have kept my card from when I first purchased it. It is a 5800 Ultra and it seems these cards are extremely rare. When I first bought it for Doom 3 it worked okay but the noise drove me nuts. I was not too happy, but now that they are rare and even rare to find on E-Bay I am now much happier with it. It is very compatable with old games, yet still very powerful for more demanding titles - if you can put up with the noise.

Tommaso

I always liked the LeadTek design. Big beefy heatsink on both sides of the card with a single, large, easily-replaced fan. There's no need to modify this one with an aftermarket cooler.

I've also got an XFX model with the same cooler, but I can't find any records of XFX ever producing or selling such a card. The card is a legit FX 5950 Ultra, but it's weird that I cannot find any information about it online whatsoever. Here's a pic of what it looks like. I bought it BNIB from an eBay seller a little over a year ago.

The MSI models had an even better design with nice heatsinks and fans on both sides of the card, but those are quite difficult to find. I think that MSI design may even be a single-slot solution.

I have this one 😀
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/79/geforce-fx-5950-ultra

KT7AGuy, you and I bought the same XFX card from the same dealer. After I tested mine, I kinda wanted to get a second one, but he had sold out. Its a great little card. Currently have it packed up, but its going in a special build later this year. If I remember, that card was not for sale in North America or Europe. I think it was only sold in Asia and was put out at the end of life (aka EOL: after Nvidia had stopped producing the chips) to clear stock. Thats probably why you cant find any information on it. Lots of companies back in the late 90's and early 2000's marketed EOL products to places like China and Tiwan as the general consumer had less disposable income than consumers in the west. Times have changed, and the middle class market has shot through the roof over there, so now these products are pretty much released world wide at about the same time.

XFX used to only sell Nvidia based cards and only their top tier GPU's. Infact, they took the contract that BFG had to had pick the best of the best chips for their cards. Then Nvidia pulled the plug some how and pissed off XFX so much that they swore they would never sell an Nvidia card again. I hated that, as I really like XFX and only use Nvidia GPU's in my main game rigs. Oh well, at least I have a box of old XFX cards for retro builds.

Kodai,

Thanks for the info! I laughed when I read your comments because I did the exact same thing as you: tested it and put it back in the box, then wished I could buy another, but the seller had sold out all his remaining stock. Those sold very quickly.

I'm keeping mine as a spare in case my old LeadTek card ever dies.

If it matters at all, XFX is the company that showed me that Radeon cards aren't complete crap. My XFX 5770 just keeps on kicking ass in my Win7 HTPC system. Very nice! Supposedly, they are quite good for use in legacy XP systems as well.

I still have several 4x3 inch metal case badges from XFX back when they were giving them out for their "Black Edition" video cards. I had them on the front of my tri-sli 9800GTX rig. It was housed in a black Cooler Master CM 810 tower. I had them evenly placed going down the front of that full tower beast. That was the most complex rig I've ever built, and will NEVER do that again. Major pain in the ass! I had to cut the 5 1/2" holes up top for a triple 120mm radiator, mod the whole drive cage system to fit in a another triple 120mm rad, then tie those two together for the triple SLI setup. Then I had to toss a dual 120mm radiator in the back for the CPU and mobo chipset. Couple all that with a monster 1250 watt PSU and the cable management was a total nightmare with all the water tubes. On top of that, I had to add in UV lighting (just because) and UV reactant cable sleeves for the PSU, and SATA cables. That thing took about a month to build. Looked great with those huge XFX case badges on the front and glowing green.

Kodai, got any pictures of that triple 9800 GTX rig? It sounds awesome 😀

Skalabaia, I see an FX 5950 Ultra pop up on eBay every few months. They usually don't cost too much. I got one a few years ago for $16.50. As others have mentioned, if you don't want to wait, FX 5900s are a lot more common and almost as fast. Good luck!

I did have some a few years ago, but forgot to back them up before a HDD format. I really wish I still had them, because it was the best looking rig I had ever built.