JoeX111

I'm trying to decide whether upgrading my video card to an PNY GeForce FX 5700 VE 256MB DDR AGP would be worth my time (its on sale at BestBuy right now and I'm on the low end of the money spectrum at the moment). At the moment I'm using an Asylum GeForce FX 5200 256Mb PCI card, which has been serving me quite well for a while now. I haven't tried upgrading to an AGP card at the moment because my motherboard only has an AGP 4X slot (it's an ASUS P4B533 if you are wondering) and I'm not sure how much of a bottleneck would be. Does anyone know if this would be a significant upgrade for me or not?

At the moment, I'm also using a P4 2.8 Gig processor and have a little over a Gig of DDR ram installed.

The other concern I had was that I heard rumor that the card I currently have is the only GeForce FX card that supports Pixel Shading 2.0 in games, meaning a lot of the more recent games that require it (Such as Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and Half-Life 2) would not run for me any longer.

Thanks for any and all advice you can give me.

jasonbourne

with so many new games comming out i wouldn't recommend nothing below a geforce 6600gt!, save some money and get yourself a geforce 6600gt or a ati radeon 9800xt.otherwise u gonna regret it afterwards.

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Matth

All the FX models are Pixel shader 2.0 (or is it 3.0) - The PCI FX5200 is about the only PCI card than can do PS 2.0

AGP 4x would not be a massive drop from 8x - it might limit the absolute top of the range cards a bit, but they are not saturating 8x yet.

It depends if you expect to carry the card to a new system with AGP 8x or expect to keep the setup as it stands until there is a far more revolutionary performance increase - in which case, you should be looking at a better card.

The 5700 - whatever (I'm always scared of unknown letter codes after the number, as they often mean a weaker version of), on AGP, would be a considerable step up from a 5200 - the weediest PS 2.0 solution - on PCI. If that's all you can justify spending, then it's certainly a step up, as well as not eating up the PCI bandwidth for graphics.

If you have an AGP slot, you should be using it...

Now was someone around these parts looking for as powerful a card as you can get on PCI?

Just looked up, typical clock speed for the "VE" version:
250 core, 400 RAM - same as for the "LE" version

The "full" versions tend to be 450/400 or 425/400 - so it's an uncomfortably "Lite Edition", though it's still going to be more powerful than a FX5200, but not by a huge margin.

It needs to be VERY cheap, and find some reviews of the "LE" first.

nitrousoxide52

Save your money until fall, then you will be able to get a great new card for an extremely reasonable price, and with that extra saved money you will be able to probably get an 8x board as well.

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>GSXR<mrbusa

you didnt really say what you were spending but i ahve a 9800pro r360 core with zalman vf700 hs/f with as5 applied carefully and zalman ramsinks that pulls 7000+ in 3dmark03 when flashed to xt.the card is a little over a year old and is mint.it includes retail box with all but the svideo cable and i am including the stock hs/f.it is listed in buy and sell here at DH and has links to actual photos in gallery format of all angles of the card.it still has 2 years left on warranty if everything is put back to stock including bios if you flash.i am including a floppy with stock bios and everything you need to flash to an xt and instuction written out on paper.it is 160.00+shipping OBO.i can accept all payment methods through paypal and i will accept moneyorder or certified check.will ship when funds are verified.this card would run in 4x just fine then if you upgraded your mobo to 8x agp you would already have a rocken card.later

somebody misimformed you about your 5200.that card is not very good.also i would not even get with ten feet of a 5700le

MiDKnYtE

An ATI 9600 would smoke the 5700LE and should be in the same price range.

Tipstaff

I have to agree with Jason on this one. If money is tight, but you want the best card you can afford, either of the 2 Jason mentioned would be my choices. If you pick ATI I would at the very least try to get a 9700/9800 Pro if you can get it cheaper than the 9800XT.

One thing I should mention: Even though most manufacturers don't say it, cards such as the X800XT AGP will work on in AGP4x slot. So, if you were concerend about it working in your system, and that was the reason for picking a lower end card, don't be. It will. Although, I can't say if the 6800GT or Ultra will work, I don't see why it shouldn't.

-Tip

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Son_of_Thunder

i know that the vanilla 6800 works, i installed it in a friends system.

you can get a new 9800pro for around 170 really, so that or a 6600gt would be great...but that's already been said :P

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