Isn't the LE the crippled version, only has half the memory
bandwidth of the full 5700? I thought the cheapest versions
had only 64 bit bus, regular versions 128bit. I think I'd
be more likely to get an old GF4TI4200 and o'c that, but
last time i looked for one they were getting harder to find
at decent prices. Seems like they're hardly any cheaper now
than they were (don't remember when exactly) about 12 months
ago when you could get the newegg refubs for around $50.
Yeah I dont want to give the impression its some hot card , its not
but since the LE series are generally dogs and the 5000 series is old
if it dropped to 30 bucks which is the range you only saw the 400mx
until recently , though the 9000 ATI series has been on clearance the
last few months at several places near there or lower too --- then Id
get it though I think I saw some surprisingly old ATI cards higher
than 9200 for $50-60 which might be a better deal. I havent compared
them directly with the recent new prices. .
http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/galaxy/5700le/index.php?p=11
http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/galaxy/5700le/index.php?p=10
This is from Xbit labs
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 LE. This is an even slower solution differing
from GeForce FX 5700 by much lower GPU frequency and slightly lower
graphics memory frequency. Due to low nominal frequencies, GeForce FX
5700 LE demonstrates outstanding overclocking potential: the GPU
frequency almost doubled as a result of overclocking. Unfortunately, I
do not have any statistics at hand about the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 LE
overclocking, but everything indicates that these cards will have
excellent overclockability. For instance, the card, which took part in
our today’s review after overclocking appeared just a little bit
slower than NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra.
Keeping in mind low cost of GeForce FX 5700 LE based graphics cards
and their theoretically (unfortunately, there is no statistics yet)
high overclocking potential, we would recommend these cards as an
excellent choice in the appropriate price category.
The board carries 128MB of graphics memory in chips from Hynix with a
cycle time of 5ns (Hynix HY5DU281622ET-5). The nominal frequencies are
250/400 (200DDR) MHz – in other words, we have a 40% GPU frequency
reduction compared to the GeForce FX 5700, while the graphics memory
now works only 100MHz slower. The overclockability of our card was
really astonishing: 480/600MHz. That is, the GPU clock rate nearly
doubled and exceeded the nominal frequency of the GeForce FX 5700
Ultra, while the memory frequency grew by a half.
Well, 600MHz is a really phenomenal case for memory that is rated for
400MHz, according to its model number. 480MHz for the GeForce FX 5700
LE GPU seems to be an expected result because such graphics chips
don’t principally differ from the GeForce FX 5700/5700 Ultra that work
at 425 and 475MHz. The high overclockability of the GeForce FX 5700 LE
is just the consequence of the manufacturer’s having greatly reduced
the clock rate beforehand.
