Albatron’s FX5600EQ comes in an eye catching package, much like many of their other products, hopefully trying to separate itself from other graphics cards on retail shelves. The cover is graced by a stylized version of nVidia’s “Dawn” (it looks much better than the computer rendered version if you ask me). The graphics card comes with the standard issue “Albatron teal” PCB complete with brushed gold accents found on the heatsinks. The GPU seems to be well cooled by a standard sized copper heatsink which evokes images of an extremely low profile Aruka heatsink. The memory, arranged in a 32×8 configuration using the old TSOP packages, is also covered in aluminum heatsinks with fins that seem to grow outwards like the fur on your average Chia Pet.
The EQ also comes with quite a nice bundle including drivers, documentation, composite video cable, s-video cable, s-video to composite video adapter and one rather outdated game – Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project. Vivo support is available with the addition of an adapter, so the manual claims. One glaring omission is the lack of a DVI/VGA adapter.
Looking at the current statistics for this graphics card, there are some clear advantages and major disadvantages. On the plus side, the board is equipped with 256MB of memory, plenty of memory for today’s and tomorrow’s games; and a 10 bit 400MHz RAMDAC, great for people with monitors capable of utilizing it. However, the FX5600EQ comes with a very low clockrate for both the GPU and the memory. Running at 325/400MHz, this card will not be blazing fast. If you happen to do the math, the 400MHz memory only provides 6.4GB/sec bandwidth (128/8 x 400MHz), comparable to the current FX5200 Ultra. Labeling this card under the 5600 badge seems a misnomer at this point considering the much higher clock speeds available on other FX5600 based products.
Although the 5600EQ should be tested against its main rival – ATi’s 9600 Pro – since we do not have one present in the labs, a Leadtek Geforce4 Ti4400 should suffice in the meantime. As always, all benchmarks were run a total of three times, with outliers discarded, and the results averaged.
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.66B
Motherboard: Albatron PX845PE Pro II (Intel 845PE)
Memory: 2 x 256MB Crucial PC2700
Graphics: Albatron FX5600EQ + Leadtek A250 Ti4400
Sound: Soundblaster Audigy Gamer
Hard Drive: Western Digital 800JB
Optical Drive: Pioneer 16x Slot DVDROM + LiteOn 522452S
Power Supply: Enermax EG465PVE
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP1
Drivers: nVidia 44.03, Intel INF 5.00.1012
Although prior Albatron products have yielded good overclocking success, the FX5600EQ did not live up to this reputation. The core topped out at 355MHz (up from 325MHz) and the memory reached an artifact free 425MHz. The performance increase did not amount to a noticeable performance difference.
