NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 PCI

How It Compares

The NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 PCI occupies a peculiar position in the hardware landscape. With a 50th percentile ranking among all GPUs, it sits exactly at the median of the performance distribution—neither a compelling performer nor a complete outlier. The data shows no nearest rivals are listed, which suggests this card exists in a class of its own, defined more by its interface (PCI) and its era than by direct competitive pressure. Without benchmark scores or rival deltas to reference, the FX 5500 must be assessed on its architectural merits and its role as a legacy product.

The absence of nearestRivals data is itself informative. It indicates that, at the time of analysis, no comparable GPU was close enough in performance to warrant direct comparison. This is typical for a product from the early 2000s that has long since been eclipsed. The card's predecessor, the GeForce 4 Ti, and its successor, the GeForce 6 AGP, bracket it chronologically, but neither appears as a measured rival in the available data. The FX 5500 PCI is thus an isolated data point—a snapshot of mid-range capability from the Rankine architecture generation.

Power and Cooling

The FX 5500 PCI is remarkably undemanding in terms of power delivery. The fact pack lists no TDP figure, which is unusual but consistent with a card designed for legacy PCI slots that provided limited power. The suggested PSU is a modest 200 W, underscoring that this GPU was never intended for high-wattage systems. It draws all its power through the PCI slot itself, requiring no auxiliary power connectors whatsoever. The "None" designation for power connectors confirms that installation is straightforward—no 6-pin or 8-pin cables are needed.

Cooling is equally minimal. The card is single-slot, meaning it occupies only one expansion slot and uses a low-profile cooler sufficient for its thermal output. With a 150 nm process node and 45 million transistors on a 91 mm² die, the FX 5500 generates relatively little heat compared to modern GPUs. The transistor density of 494.5K per mm² reflects the older manufacturing technology, which inherently limited clock speeds and power consumption. For a system with a 200 W PSU, this card is a safe drop-in replacement for an older integrated or low-end discrete solution.

Benchmark Performance

The benchmark data for the FX 5500 PCI is sparse—the avgBenchmarkScore is 0, and no individual benchmark entries are listed. This absence of quantitative performance data is telling. It means the card cannot be ranked against any specific rival using measured scores, and any performance assessment must rely on its architectural specifications. The pixel rate of 1.080 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1.080 GTexel/s are the key throughput figures, and they are identical, indicating a balanced design where pixel and texture operations proceed at the same pace.

The 4 TMUs and 4 ROPs are low by modern standards but were typical for entry-level cards of this generation. The memory clock of 200 MHz, running at 400 Mbps effective (DDR), yields a bandwidth of 6.400 GB/s across a 128-bit bus. This bandwidth is sufficient for the card's compute capabilities but would bottleneck any attempt to push higher resolutions or anti-aliasing. The 50th percentile ranking suggests that, when placed in the context of all GPUs ever analyzed, it performs exactly at the midpoint—but with no rivals listed, this is a relative measure without a direct comparator. In practical terms, the FX 5500 PCI is a card for basic 2D desktop work and very light 3D gaming from its era.

FAQ

Q: What is the memory size and type of the FX 5500 PCI?

A: The card comes with 256 MB of DDR memory, operating at 200 MHz with an effective 400 Mbps data rate.

Q: Does the FX 5500 PCI require a dedicated power connector?

A: No. The power connectors field is listed as "None," and the suggested PSU is 200 W, meaning it draws power solely from the PCI slot.

Q: What APIs does the FX 5500 PCI support?

A: It supports DirectX 9.0a and OpenGL 1.5 (full) with partial OpenGL 2.0 support. No Vulkan support is listed.

Q: What is the bus interface of this GPU?

A: It uses the legacy PCI bus interface, not PCIe or AGP, which limits its compatibility to older motherboards.

Q: What display outputs are available on the FX 5500 PCI?

A: The card provides 1x DVI, 1x VGA, and 1x S-Video outputs, covering analog and digital display options.

Q: What is the production status of the FX 5500 PCI?

A: It is marked as end-of-life, with a release date of March 16, 2004, and it has been succeeded by the GeForce 6 AGP.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The FX 5500 PCI does not include any ray tracing or tensor cores—the fact pack lists both as null. This is expected for a GPU from 2004, predating dedicated RT hardware by over a decade. The architecture, Rankine, was NVIDIA's approach to DirectX 9.0a support, and the feature set reflects that era's priorities: pixel and vertex shaders (implied by the shading units being null but the architecture supporting them) and texture operations. The card has 4 TMUs and 4 ROPs, which handle texture mapping and rasterization respectively.

The API support is the defining feature here. DirectX 9.0a was the cutting-edge graphics API at the time, and the FX 5500 PCI supports it fully. OpenGL 1.5 is fully supported, with partial OpenGL 2.0 support, meaning some shader model 2.0 features were available but not the full specification. There is no Vulkan support, which is irrelevant for a card of this vintage. For modern workloads involving ray tracing, this GPU is completely incapable—it lacks the hardware and the software API support. Its feature set is firmly anchored in the early 2000s, making it unsuitable for any contemporary gaming or compute tasks beyond basic 2D acceleration.

Who Should Consider It

The FX 5500 PCI is not a card for modern gaming or productivity. Its 50th percentile ranking and lack of benchmark data suggest it was a mid-tier option in its day, but that day has long passed. The 256 MB memory and 6.400 GB/s bandwidth would struggle with even 720p gaming at low settings in modern titles, and the DirectX 9.0a support means many newer games would not run at all. The card is best suited for retro computing enthusiasts building a period-correct system, or for industrial applications that require a legacy PCI graphics card for specific software.

For 2D desktop use at 1080p or lower, the FX 5500 PCI is adequate—it will drive a display and handle basic video playback, though modern video codecs are unsupported. For 3D gaming, the data indicates it was designed for an era when 1024x768 was a common resolution and DirectX 9.0a was the standard API. The pixel rate of 1.080 GPixel/s limits fill-rate-intensive effects, and the 128-bit memory bus caps texture throughput. If the goal is to run games from 2003-2005 at moderate settings, this card could suffice, but expectations must be calibrated to its historical context. The 150 nm process and 45 million transistors define a GPU that was entry-level even at launch.

Memory Subsystem

The FX 5500 PCI is equipped with 256 MB of DDR memory, which was a standard capacity for mid-range cards in 2004. The memory type is DDR (not DDR2 or GDDR3), operating at 200 MHz with an effective data rate of 400 Mbps. This yields a bandwidth of 6.400 GB/s across a 128-bit bus. The 128-bit bus width was common for this performance class, balancing cost and throughput. In practice, this bandwidth is sufficient for the card's 4 TMUs and 4 ROPs, but it becomes a limiting factor at higher resolutions or when enabling anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing.

For high resolutions—anything above 1600x1200 in that era—the 6.400 GB/s bandwidth would be stretched thin. The pixel rate of 1.080 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1.080 GTexel/s further constrain the card's ability to handle high polygon counts and complex shaders. The 256 MB frame buffer is adequate for 32-bit color at 1024x768 or 1280x1024, but larger textures or higher color depths would quickly exhaust it. The memory subsystem is balanced for the card's intended use case: entry-level 3D gaming and 2D productivity at modest resolutions. It is not designed for heavy texture loads or multi-monitor setups, and the bandwidth would bottleneck any attempt to push the GPU beyond its designed performance envelope.