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BFG Nvidia FX 5950 Ultra Build

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First post, by cyclone3d

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Just finished replacing the stock cooler on my newly acquired BFG FX 5950 Ultra. Boy was that nerve racking. They used double sided tape for the backplate as well as the heatsink for the RAM chips. Was so scared I was going to pop one off.

After determining that there was double sided tape, I ended up using a hair dryer to heat up the backplate to make the tape less adhesive. It heated up the front as well so it also helped remove the heatsink.

For the GPU thermal compound they used that crap pink bubblegum like substance Had to heat that up as well to get the rest of it off of the GPU.

Tested the card and it still works. Yay! Need to do actual load testing on it now.

Anyway... I want some input for this build.

1. Should I just do Win98SE build or do dual boot 98SE / XP ?
2. What CPU should I use? Sky is the limit. I could definitely go up to quad core with Intel or up to dual core with AMD. Yes I know multiple cores will only be useful if do a dual boot XP setup.

I'll add more questions later if I need to.

Anyway, pics of the card:

The attachment BFG_FX_5950U.jpg is no longer available
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Reply 1 of 13, by Baoran

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I would put one in Athlon64 and win9x since the FX series is the last to support 8 bit paletted textures that some win9x games use. With winxp there are a lot of newer better gpu options that do directx 9 better while FX series was quite slow with directx 9. Just make sure you get Athlon64 motherboard that has win9x drivers.

Reply 2 of 13, by wiretap

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Back in the day, I bought a XFX GeForce FX 5950 Ultra on release day and paired it with my new AMD Athlon 64 Clawhammer build. (Socket 754) This was running Windows XP. Socket 939 is also an option and gives you better motherboards and faster processors. The FX-57 will give you the fastest native single core performance.

I basically recreated that Socket 754 build just recently, and also installed XP on it. But if you don't have a lot of machines and want to dual boot Windows 98 SE or ME, that would be a good idea for a fast Win9x system. I'm just saying for period correctness, by 2003 there were few people running Win9x for gaming since Windows XP was pretty well established.

Just be aware that with Windows 98/ME, you'll have to implement OS fixes with high amounts of RAM and a fast processor.

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Reply 3 of 13, by Shagittarius

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Didn't the 5950 drop palettized texture support? I thought the 5900 Ultra was the last to support this, is that incorrect?

Reply 4 of 13, by Baoran

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Shagittarius wrote on 2020-02-26, 15:10:

Didn't the 5950 drop palettized texture support? I thought the 5900 Ultra was the last to support this, is that incorrect?

I have had no problems with 8 bit paletted textures myself with my card and detonator 45.23 drivers in win98se.

Reply 5 of 13, by wiretap

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Correct, it will work with 8-bit palletized textures. For the 45.23 drivers, you just have to add the 5950 Ultra hardware ID to the ini file.

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Reply 6 of 13, by cyclone3d

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Ok, I will do a S939 build as that seems to be the general consensus.

Not sure what the fastest CPU I have for that platform is.. I'll have to check.

Actually, what about an AM2 setup with an FX-62? I do have the ASRock nForce3 250 socket 754 board and the AM2 upgrade card. Sure it is dual core, but still a base clock of 2.8Ghz with 1MB L2 cache per core.

Or would clockspeed be better? Pretty sure I have a 5600+ which is 2.9Ghz stock clock.. but also rated at 65w instead of 125w. Only 512KB L2 cache per core though.

Pretty sure I don't have a S939 FX chip and no way I am going to spend stupid money to get one.

I really just need to go through all my AMD chips (I bought a huge lot of CPUs quite a while ago) and see exactly what I have.

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Reply 7 of 13, by Baoran

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cyclone3d wrote on 2020-02-26, 17:37:
Ok, I will do a S939 build as that seems to be the general consensus. […]
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Ok, I will do a S939 build as that seems to be the general consensus.

Not sure what the fastest CPU I have for that platform is.. I'll have to check.

Actually, what about an AM2 setup with an FX-62? I do have the ASRock nForce3 250 socket 754 board and the AM2 upgrade card. Sure it is dual core, but still a base clock of 2.8Ghz with 1MB L2 cache per core.

Or would clockspeed be better? Pretty sure I have a 5600+ which is 2.9Ghz stock clock.. but also rated at 65w instead of 125w. Only 512KB L2 cache per core though.

Pretty sure I don't have a S939 FX chip and no way I am going to spend stupid money to get one.

I really just need to go through all my AMD chips (I bought a huge lot of CPUs quite a while ago) and see exactly what I have.

If you have a AM2 motherboard that has win9x drivers. I have not seen one yet because not even all S939 have the drivers.
Even though I think you will be able to take full advantage of FX 5950 ultra even if you didn't use the fastest possible cpu.

Reply 8 of 13, by kolderman

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You really only want to use the FX series with Win98 and DX8. FX blows hard with DX9...which is the XP era. XP is better off with something far more powerful like a GTX560.

Personally I have a 5950U in a P4 3.4ghz machine running Win98 and DX8....was playing Star Trek Elite Force on it last night in fact.

Reply 9 of 13, by cyclone3d

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Baoran wrote on 2020-02-26, 18:28:
cyclone3d wrote on 2020-02-26, 17:37:
Ok, I will do a S939 build as that seems to be the general consensus. […]
Show full quote

Ok, I will do a S939 build as that seems to be the general consensus.

Not sure what the fastest CPU I have for that platform is.. I'll have to check.

Actually, what about an AM2 setup with an FX-62? I do have the ASRock nForce3 250 socket 754 board and the AM2 upgrade card. Sure it is dual core, but still a base clock of 2.8Ghz with 1MB L2 cache per core.

Or would clockspeed be better? Pretty sure I have a 5600+ which is 2.9Ghz stock clock.. but also rated at 65w instead of 125w. Only 512KB L2 cache per core though.

Pretty sure I don't have a S939 FX chip and no way I am going to spend stupid money to get one.

I really just need to go through all my AMD chips (I bought a huge lot of CPUs quite a while ago) and see exactly what I have.

If you have a AM2 motherboard that has win9x drivers. I have not seen one yet because not even all S939 have the drivers.
Even though I think you will be able to take full advantage of FX 5950 ultra even if you didn't use the fastest possible cpu.

Yep, I already double checked and nVidia has Win98 drivers for the chipset so it should be good.

I have a S939 board I was planning on using for a Win98 build as well. Really could do either..

The crazy ASRock board has just been begging to be used for something though.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 10 of 13, by matze79

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Radeon 9600 gives FX5950 a hard time in Shader 2.0.

i remember how bad Oblivion was running on the 5950...
The 5950 cost a fortune.. and did not perform at all.

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Reply 11 of 13, by Baoran

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matze79 wrote on 2020-02-26, 20:05:

Radeon 9600 gives FX5950 a hard time in Shader 2.0.

i remember how bad Oblivion was running on the 5950...
The 5950 cost a fortune.. and did not perform at all.

Main thing about FX5950 isn't the performance. It is the support for older games. It has the 8 bit paletted textures support for win9x games and it has better compatibility for dos games than radeons. That makes it a very good win9x card.

Reply 12 of 13, by Baoran

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A 3dmark2001 benchmark on my Athlon64 2.6Ghz system that my card resides in. It is FX-60, but should be the same in any similar clockspeed Athlon64.

The attachment 3dmark01.jpg is no longer available

I did test the card with other cpus about a year ago and I think this is the best it can do. I did get about 15k with P4 3.2Ghz and about 10k with Tualatin 1.4Ghz using the same 3dmark01.
I think it can run any win9x game very well.

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