THUS FAR, the performance of NVIDIA's GeForce FX line has left something to be desired. The GeForce FX 5800 Ultra is a noisy alternative to ATI's Radeon 9800 Pro, and the GeForce FX 5200 is a slower performer in real-world games and applications than the Radeon 9000 Pro. For enthusiasts, however, the GeForce FX 5600 may be the most interesting card in the GeForce FX line. Powered by NVIDIA's NV31 graphics chip, the GeForce FX 5600 is a mid-range graphics card aimed at ATI's Radeon 9500 and 9600 lines. Like other members of the GeForce FX family, the GeForce FX 5600 is dressed up with enough DirectX 9 goodies to give users a "cinematic" experience, although features alone don't guarantee performance.

Today we'll be looking at NV31 as implemented in BFG Technologies' Asylum GeForce FX 5600 256MB card. As its name implies, the Asylum GeForce FX 5600 256MB packs 256MB of memory, but the card also has a few other tricks up it´s sleeve

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