5200 or 5700LE PCI?

[Bubba]

I'm helping a friend through an upgrade on an Intel 845GL board that has no AGP slot. PCI is the only option for upgrading the video which is horrible right now with the onboard Intel graphics. I took a look around for available PCI cards, and I see some 5200s, 5700LEs, and even some mx4000 (I must've missed that one) and mx440s. What do you guys reccomend? Should I even consider an ATI 9250? I don't know squat about these low-end chipsets.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
-b

[zoomy942]

ati 9250 is out. it doesnt support dx9. thats not to say that the 520 or 5700 will be great performers with dx9, but they do support it. if anything, get the 5700le, mainly cause the 5200 is a lost soul in the graphics card industry.

those mx-anythings are horrible. some are the geforce 2 core modified. i can remember which mx's those are but aviod those as well.

[ekloot1978]

Get the 5700LE pci but do not get the apollo brand because it appears to only have 64bit memory even though the specs do not say whether it does or not. Coincidentally enough I'm on the phone with a friend at this very moment who unfortunately bought the apollo 5700LE which is how we found out it only has 64 bit memory (he only has pci slots as well). He is returning that brand and ordering the Jaton 5700LE pci from newegg now because it specifically says that it has 128bit memory. Here's the link to the Jaton version: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...139-166&depa=0

The graphics card companies really need to stop confusing people with all the different variants of the same cards...there are LE, SE, XT, Ultra, GT, and various other versions of the same cards and then on the lower end you can easily get tricked and end up with a 64bit version card instead of a 128bit one because its either not specified or basicially in the fine print. So the average person has no idea what's better or not.

[Bubba]

very good! Thanks for the help, guys. Just ordered that Jaton 5700LE today.
-b

[ragejg]

you won't be disappointed, OC it right off the bat tho....

[superklye]

Originally Posted by zoomy942

ati 9250 is out. it doesnt support dx9. thats not to say that the 520 or 5700 will be great performers with dx9, but they do support it. if anything, get the 5700le, mainly cause the 5200 is a lost soul in the graphics card industry.

those mx-anythings are horrible. some are the geforce 2 core modified. i can remember which mx's those are but aviod those as well.

I think ALL the MX cards are GeFORCE 2s.

*ka-shudder*

[lichen]

5700le???put so much money on a graphics only for pci?you will waste more money on your
next upgrade.mx440 is enough!

[ragejg]

Sure, go ahead and look at it that way... but maybe this guy won't be able to upgrade again in a while... and if so, a 5700LE absolutely dusts any MX card in games.

[zoomy942]

Originally Posted by ragejg

Sure, go ahead and look at it that way... but maybe this guy won't be able to upgrade again in a while... and if so, a 5700LE absolutely dusts any MX card in games.

if i was to gues... i would bet that there are a few onboard video chips that beat up on the MX

[ragejg]

with any TRUE GF4mx's being hard to find, that's certainly the case.... The original Geforce 4 MX440 and 460 were actually quite capable, with decent core and memory speeds, and performance of a GF3... sadly, the true models have pretty much vanished, leaving all the cut-down (64 bit) versions with low clock and memory speeds, giving everybody a bad taste in their mouth about GF4MX...

Even last year, I didn't mind that level of performance in my HTPC, as I ran games @ 6x4 and 8x6... and heck, I didn't even have a GF4MX, I had a GF2ti, which performed about the same but was smacked harder when it came to AA...

But getting back to the subject, even the 5700LE with 128 bit memory interface would definitely outperform even a true 128 bit memory interface GF4 MX440 PCI... FX5700 is probably the pinnacle of PCI performance... I don't see a 6200 PCI coming any time soon...

[Bubba]

Great help, all. Thanks for the feedback. The upgrade options were limited due to the situation, so doing a mobo replacement right away was not an option. That would have been my first choice, really. Get an i865 or i875 in there now to set them up for more flexibility down the road......but that's not happening. I'm actually looking forward to seeing what this card can do.

[Copper214]

You can easily o\k the 5700le to standed speeds, I put the Jaton 5700le from newegg in my sons pc and it comes clocked at 250mgz core and 400 ram and I o\ced it to 450\450 I could have gone higher but I wanted low heat and stability, Heres a article on the 5700s.
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...?cid=3&id=1292