Inno3D's Tornado GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
For gamers on a budget, the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra should be a pretty appealing option. Like most other GeForce FX 5200 Ultra cards, Inno3D's rendition appears to follow NVIDIA's reference design, so the Tornado will have to rely on bundled extras and low prices in order to compete.
Memory heat sinks have been used on a number of graphics cards from various manufacturers in the past few years, but quite honestly I've yet to see a graphics card whose memory cooling solution made a huge difference in even overclocking performance.
Rear-mounted memory heat sinks can also create clearance problems with some motherboards, so Inno3D isn't missing out by leaving the Tornado GeForce FX 5200 Ultra's memory chips bare.
The card's 128MB of memory is mounted on both sides of the board without any extra cooling. The Tornado GeForce FX 5200 Ultra uses Hynix BGA chips rated up to 350MHz (700MHz DDR).
One factor that could aid in any overclocking endeavors is the Tornado's auxiliary power connector, which helps feed the board with juice. The card uses a standard 4-pin MOLEX connector. Inno3D doesn't, however, include a MOLEX splitter cable with the Tornado. Some users, especially owners of small-form-factor systems, may have trouble finding a spare power connector.
Like many other manufacturers, Inno3D is essentially re-badging NVIDIA's reference cooler. Although the non-Ultra GeForce FX 5200 can get away with only passive cooling, the Ultra's higher clock speeds necessitate active cooling. Fortunately, the Tornado's fan is no louder than an average graphics card fan; processor or power supply fan noise easily drowns it out.
Like just about everyone else, Inno3D equips the Tornado with VGA, DVI, and S-Video outputs. A DVI-to-VGA adapter is also included in the box for those who want to take advantage of NVIDIA's nView software running dual CRT monitors. For those looking to hook up the Tornado to a TV or home theater, Inno3D throws in an S-Video-to-composite video cable, but curiously no standalone S-Video cable. Included in the box but completely useless with the card is a VIVO adapter cable; the Tornado GeForce FX 5200 Ultra doesn't support video input at all.
Inno3D includes a number of different software titles and games with the Tornado. In addition to the requisite driver CD and a disc full of game demos, there are also copies of 3DMark03 (standard version), Comanche 4, WinDVD 4, and WinDVD Creator. Honestly, I'd far rather see brand new graphics cards bundled with recent games rather than older titles. Graphics card manufacturers seem to have no problem getting the latest versions of software like WinDVD into the box, but I've yet to see anyone bundle a game that's not at least a year old.
Now, don't get me wrong—I'm a big fan of freebies in game bundles. However, I wonder if leaving out a copy of an older game like Comanche 4 might allow Inno3D to drop the price of the Tornado GeForce FX 5200 Ultra a little, or perhaps even to bundle in something more useful, like an S-Video cable.
