The BFG 5700 Ultra is an excellently performing card for it’s price range. Had this card come out at the beginning of the year instead of the 5600 Ultra and 5600 Ultra Flip Chip, Nvidia might be in a better position than they are in today. Despite all the controversy surrounding Nvidia’s cheating, that still doesn’t mean that the BFG 5700 Ultra is a bad card. The lifetime warranty and toll-free technical support is an added bonus.

The 9600XT also performs in this same performance class and a similar price. Asus has made an excellent first ATI product. I can’t wait to see what their 9800XT will offer, if they let me. ASUS’s bundle is superior, with 3 full version games and a demo sampler. The fact that you get Half Life 2 in the future can only be a good thing. Further, ASUS includes a Digital VCR program that allows you to record TV programs and other useful programs.

So what do I dislike about the BFG 5700 Ultra? I wish BFG included full version retail games and demos like ASUS did. The fact that the controversy regarding Nvidia based video cards hasn’t died down, and in fact, Futuremark released a patch that cut down performance in Nvidia based cards dramatically (340), leaves me to wonder how often optimizations are present in games that affect image quality. In the games I played with the card, it was hard to spot differences between the cards.

So what do I dislike about the ASUS 9600XT? The driver updates aren’t as frequent as I would like on ASUS’s side. The drivers on ASUS’s website indicate that they’re based upon Catalyst 3.7s (7.93) which was over 3 months ago. Thankfully, ATI’s driver team is up to the challenge. The latest ATI drivers are based upon 3.9 drivers (7.95 based) (actually there’s a 3.10 beta to fix issues with Call Of Duty with the 3.9s that I mentioned in the review). The other thing is availability. At the moment it’s hard to find a ASUS 9600XT.

All in all, if I had to choose one of the two cards, it would be the ASUS 9600XT. The bundle and the improved image quality when antialiasing is turned on, makes this card the overall winner between the two, assuming a similar price. As of this writing, the two cards are similarly priced on Pricewatch falling in the $199 range. On the other hand, the support that BFG offers with their 5700 Ultra is excellent, and the two cards are close enough in regular performance that those that want an Nvidia based card won’t be disappointed. Truth be told, performance on both these cards with antialiasing turned on in games probably means you won’t be doing much high resolution gaming with AA turned on.