5700LE, Looking for more info!

[bodomite]

Hi, im one of the few that dont have an AGP slot on my MOBO, thanks to emachines. I got this comp for christmas and relized i couldnt put my Radeon 9600 in this comp, so i decided to get the 5700LE. I just wanted to know which company makes the best one. I have a choice of Apollo, Jaton, or Inno3d. I was looking for the 256mb version but couldnt find it ANYWHERE, so im settling for the 128 version. Thanks.

[Daneel Olivaw]

I had a Jaton GF4 MX440... passive cooling. Still runs. Played well. So, I guess Jaton isn't the worst company out there.

[Baracade980]

Actually, I own the Jaton version. I found it at Newegg.com for around $115. It came with 128 bits and 128 memory. There is a version made by Inno3D I believe for about $40 more that does have 256mb. I bought the Jaton over Apollo because the package came with more stuff, and Jaton over Inno3D because the company that was selling the Inno -256mb version btw- didn't have good reviews and looked to not be entirely trustworthy.

And good choice for being limited to a PCI (I assume). I run HL2 very well on it (stuttering aside) and Halo runs great, both at generally normal size resolutions. Enjoy your card man!

[Slyder]

I have used a few Inno3D cards. They never went bad on me so they get my vote.

[bodomite]

Alright, thank you guys so much. Im going with the Inno3D version.But what i want to know is if i should go for the 5200 256mb? Or just do the 5700LE 128? they are around the same price, so which in your opinions is better in the long run.

[JamesDax]

Go with the 5700LE. You won't need 256mb because you will most likely won't be running at very high resolutions anyway. The 5700LE is the best PCI card on the market right now. btw, Joytech/Apollo also makes a PCI 5700LE. Thats the one I put in my wifes eMachine.

[bodomite]

Thanks, its good to know theres some helping people out here, i also have a emachines. Thanks, ill be ordering the inno3d i believe.

[ekloot1978]

Bodomite,
Be careful with which inno3d 5700LE you get though. One of my friends has the same problem as you with having no agp slot so I did a fair amount of research for him...and the one thing I found was that it looked like the Inno3d 5700LE 128MB model had only a 64bit memory bus even though their website doesn't say that. However the more expensive Inno3d 5700LE 256MB model had a 128bit memory bus but it costed more and you really don't need 256MB of memory...but you really don't want to get stuck with the 64bit memory bus that the 128MB model has. There is a 5700LE from Jaton on new egg (the same one Baracade980 got) that for sure has the good 128bit memory bus though and since it only has 128MB of memory then you save some cash...this is the one I recommended my friend to buy. So I would either go with that or the more expensive 256MB model from Inno3d to make sure you have the faster 128bit memory bus. Whatever you end up buying...just make sure you get a card with a 128bit memory bus...that's the moral to this story I guess.

[tvlad]

The money payied for a 256mb version would really be for nothing, what you are planning on buying isn't going to benefit from the extra memory, it doesn't practically run at all with the settings that would require that amount of memory, and a 5700 is far, far better than a 5200.

I'm not sure which cards are on the pci bus atm, though maybe if you would find a 9600 or 9550 on PCI, i'd say those would be better than a 5700le, the whole fx generation, had very dissapointing performance in dx9 games, at least when compared to ati.

[ekloot1978]

Tvlad is right about the fx series of geforce cards being poor in comparison to ati cards for directx 9 games...the only problem is that as far as I know, no one has seen any pci 9550 or 9600 ati cards out there (I could be wrong though). There are just lower end ati pci cards which in general won't be as fast as a geforce 5700LE pci anyways...and those pci ati cards are directx 8 hardware so they don't have any of the directx 9 features anyways. The only pci ati card that I've heard had pretty good performance was the pci 9100 card...but I also heard that the driver support isn't all that great with those cards...but I don't know if that is true or not. Either way, I think those are pretty hard to find in comparison to a 5700LE which is pretty much on the same level of performance...or maybe better. The bottom line is that there is not a really all around great pci graphics card out there so you just have to weigh the pro against the cons. I still think with whats available out there that the 5700LE is probably still the way to go...as long as it has the 128bit memory bus.

[ragejg]

...seconded.

R2XX driver support is fading fast...

[bodomite]

Wow, so much info! I decided to not go with the inno3d because of the post that loot made. Ill probably be going with either the Apollo Bloody Monster or the Jaton. But all i could find on newegg was the Jaton Low Profile one. is there a difference in performance for the low profiled jaton?

[bodomite]

I think newegg is down...

[bodomite]

Before i get this card i also wanted to know how good this card will be for how long. Will i be wanting to get rid of this card within a few months and buy a new mobo?

[ekloot1978]

Bodomite,
As far as I know the low profile 5700le from Jaton has the same performance as all the other 5700le pci cards. The core and memory clock speeds are all the same...and it is based around the same nvidia chip. I think the board shape and design is just slightly different Also, I read a lot of good things about that bloody monster pci 5700le on the dell forums (there are a lot of dell people stuck without agp slots...including that friend of mine). The only reason I told my friend to go with the jaton one is because it specifically says it has the 128bit memory bus where the bloody monster one does not say this in its description. However, I do believe the bloody monster one probably does have a 128bit memory bus because everyone who has it seems to say it has great performance...and the agp versions of the same card from bloody monster also for sure have a 128bit memory bus...so I would assume the pci version is basically the same...just pci. So I think that you should be able to go with the jaton one or the bloody monster one.

And with respect to your question about how good this card is and if you will want to get rid of it in the near future...well I guess that all depends on what games you are playing and what settings you expect to play those games at. It would also depend on how powerful the rest of the computer is. The 5700LE should be able to play any game out there now even doom...the only thing is that you might have to keep the resolution at 800X600 and bump down the graphics settings some on certain games that are graphic card hungry. So depending on your system and the games you are playing...this might be a good card for you. For example...my brother just has a Pentium 4 1.8GHZ computer with 512MB of memory so it didn't matter if he got a faster graphics card...the rest of the computer would limit him. And he is playing mostly battlefield 1942 and battlefield vietnam which seem to be much more cpu bound...so he got a 5700LE AGP card because it was cheap and all he really needed. If you could provide us with the rest of your system specs and what games you are playing or hope to play then maybe myself or some others here could provide you with some more information on whether this card would be a good purchase for you. Obviously if money were no factor then the best option would of course to buy a decent agp or pci-express motherboard and at least a good midrange video card...but money usually is a big factor for all of us of course.

[bodomite]

Yeah, the money is set to the under 100 level.
My specs are as follows:
2.8GHZ Intel CeleronD
512 MB RAM
Windows XP
80 gigs
I have the Emachines t2958.

As far as the games im going to be playing...
Warcraft 3 TFT
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike Source
Half life 2
Guild Wars
Halo
Doom 3 ( maybe )
and other HL mods like DoD and TF
I run all HL based mods and HL2 in a window at 800x600, but i would like to use full screen 1024x768

[bodomite]

How much would a decent MOBO be and would it be hard for me to switch all my gear onto that mobo. Im not to keen on building computers. I pretty can deal with anything BUT the mobo.

[adpr 02]

my friend is selling his 5700le AGP for 140$ canadian. It is new, he didn't even get to put it in his case because the PSU stopped working before it got delivered. we put it in my pc, and it works. if you are interested in it, mail me at adpr_02@hotmail.com.

I didn't read the whole topic, just that you want one. btw. this is NVIDIA manufactured I think. it overclocks A LOT.

[bodomite]

Well, i just downloaded my self some benchmarks to see the before and after parts of this card. On 3dmark01 i got a 1403 and on the 3dmark03 i got 75!

[ekloot1978]

Bodomite,
Those 3dmark benchmarks are some pretty horrible results...were those run with an integrated motherboard video card?...if so, that would explain the low benchmark scores. Also, at first when I saw that you had a celeron I was kind of worried because in the past celerons were pretty weak...but fortunately you have a celeron D which I found out are half way decent...check the following article to see how your celeron D 2.8ghz chip stacks up against other processors: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2093
From the benchmarks it looks to fall somewhere around the performance of an AMD athlon 2500XP processor which is decent if you don't have a ton of cash lying around to upgrade. So for this system I would think a 5700LE would be a decent match. I don't know if all those games you listed will be able to be played at 1024X768 though...a few of them you might have to play at 800X600 full screen still but I could be wrong and you still might be able to get away with 1024X768.

However if you can get the extra money then of course a new motherboard with a agp or pci-express slot would be better. The only problem is that I don't know what power supply you have and if it will be enough to stabily support a newer powerful system with a good video card...so you might have to get a new powersupply depending on what you have. Also, you'd of course be buying a new motherboard so there is a fair amount of cost there as well. And depending on the case design on that emachines...a new motherboard may go in easily or hard...or you might have to get a new case...not sure about this one. Plus, if you want to keep the same processor then you have to make sure you get a motherboard that supports that processor for sure. And then after all that you hastill have to fork out the cash for a better video card and you'll probably want to spend at least $150 to $200 on that to get at least something middle of the road. So things can start to get complicated and costly, but it all depends on various factors of course. The best thing would be to have someone who builds computer at least look at your situation and help you out and maybe they could give you some more exact advice. Hopefully I'm not bombarding you with too much info here...but when cash is tight I figure its better to have too much information when making a tough decision.

[bodomite]

Yeah, thank you so much loot. I agree about the too much info. I dont have the cash right now to upgrade the mobo and everything else, but in the future i will be looking to upgrading it.
The bench marks are on the integrated card. Yeah, the celeron D isnt too bad. It'll do for now.
I'm ordering the 5700LE. THank you all for your support.

[bodomite]

Umm, P.S. I dont know if this makes a difference but i have the Intel 330, is this what you thought, because on the site this processor scored pretty high.

[ekloot1978]

Oh, I thought you had the intel 335 which is the 2.8GHZ chip...the intel 330 is the 2.66GHZ chip...it doesn't really matter which one though...they both almost score identical to each other because they are almost the same clock speed as each other and they are both celeron D's...either way it looks like these new celerons aren't too bad at all...especially compared to the old celerons.

And your 3dmark benchmarks should go up a ton after you upgrade to the 5700LE...I mean the 5700LE is no powerhouse in comparison to the new higher end nvidia or ati cards but it should be able to play any game out there and it is a ton better than any integrated graphics card. I'm glad I can be of help though.

[ekloot1978]

Oh, and one more thing...be sure to check your bios to make sure there is an option to disable the integrated video card (or sometimes there is an option that doesn't really disable it but but does makes the computer look for pci video cards first). Sometimes if the bios doesn't have these options then a bios update will add it. And sometimes after disabling the integrated card in the bios it will still show up in the device manager in windows and will have to be disabled there too in order to get the new pci card to work. That's how my friend's dell was and it took a lot of tinkering and reading through dell forums to figure this out so maybe this will spare you some trouble.

[bodomite]

Yeah, thanks for the heads up. Im pretty new to this whole BIOs and OC'ing deal. So how would i get into my bios? isnt it hold f8 at startup?