PNY Verto nVidia GeForce FX5700LE 128Mb TVout/DVI - The Lowdown!

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Day before yesterday, i overhauled my sisters computer. What was an ageing machine (that stopped working because the hard drive blew up, see my post about that box on the wall in her room) is now a speedy little computer that will stand a chance at running todays latest games at high settings.​

In this thread, i will be reviewing specifically the PNY Verto FX5700LE 128Mb availiable from eBuyer at a tad under £51 including VAT.

Test rig:

Abit KV7 (Via KT600) Socket A
AMD Athlon 2000 (Overclocked to 1718MHz)
256Mb Hynix DDR266 PC2100 RAM
80Gb Seagate Barracuda 7 SATA (7200rpm 8Mb)
PNY Verto GeForce FX5700LE 128Mb AGP8x
Arianet 430w PSU
Samsung CD-RW/DVD Combo
Floppy Drive
Keyboard... ok ok i'll stop now ;)

Righto, We shall begin.


First impressions? Nice box! Colourful, lots of information, pretty good. Well made cardboard and well constructed design.

Lets take a look at the inside:




Oh dear. Not best impressed - PNY supply a tacky plastic tray to hold the card and accessories and the CD and documentation are under, laying loose in the bottom of the box.​

Dissapointing? yes. Do i care? no. At the end of the day, who cares how it's packaged. Just as long as everything arrives in good condition.​

What do we get in the box then?​


As you can see, we get the card, manual, CD but also a DVI 2 VGA converter and a couple of cables for using the TV out function - Composite and S-Video.​

Lets have a look at the actual card then:​


Well from all the reviews i read on 5700LE's on the web before buying this, i wasn't actually expecting a fan. Good move by PNY to install active cooling on their product (all be it a very small fan, but better than passive cooling) because i have heard that these cards overclock phenomenally! More on that later.​

The card is also very small - i read that it is small than some GeForce 4 MX cards. This is good because it will not get in the way of any 3.5" devices you install internally. It requires no external power.​


The card fits nicely into the AGP slot. No issues there. Note that i moved the PCI exhaust fan DOWN one slot, so it does not get in the way of the cards onboard fan but would still draw warm air away from all the memory and capacitors and also take away some of the warm air that the fan chucks out.​


And to reiterate what i said earlier, the card is not long so as you can see it will not get in the way of anything. Note that the Abit KV7 is a VERY narrow board, most are nearly 1.5 times wider. Still the card is not overhanging the IDE ports. Impressed.​

Overclocking...

This is what i had been waiting to do. I read extreme reviews of 150MHz overclocks on the cores. Rubbish i thought...​

The stock speeds given by the nVidia overclock facility provided with the latest Omega drivers showed that the card runs at 225MHz Core and 400MHz Memory

Stock Speeds


Up it went...

285MHz Core 419MHz Memory


300MHz Core 450MHz Memory


325MHz Core 475MHz Memory


And that's where i ran out of time. Even on the highest overclock, there was NO artifacting visible in 3DMark03, and there was nothing to stop me pushing the clock speeds higher, apart from the nVidia overclocking facilty telling me it wouldnt work, even 1MHz higher. Rubbish... I want to SEE that it wont work. I'll dig out riva tuner at some point and see at what speeds it starts to artifact and become unstable.


The point, However, Is made. This card is an amazing overclocker!


I don't know what speeds a standard 5700 runs at but i'm sure this is somewhere near it and its under half the price. The cards are essentially the same also - they both use the same core, the LE is just underclocked, hence the large overclock achieved.


In my opinion? A good card, for the money. Of course if you have shd loads of cash, go get yourself an X800 or 6800GT, but if your strapped for cash and cant decide between an FX5200, a 9200 or a 9600SE, choose neither, get one of these.

8.5 out of 10 PostillMark04 Marks
 

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Ian if you could possibly make all the images except the 3DMark scores thumbnails please?

That would be awesome.

Hope you like it, cheers
 
I read it and thought it was great :)

I'll make a post on the front page with it along with a few other good forum posts once I've sorted out a problem with the news system!
 
i read every review i can get my hands on :D

a quick question...the PCI fan thingy...is it worth while? i was going too buy one but i found out that they were made like 3 years ago...and hence might be naff in a modern comp.

has anyone done a review on a Enermax noisetaker yet?

thats if yall do PSU reviews :D
 
Thanks Guys...

Kye in response to your question, i thought they would be useless and worthwhile. Was ordering some stuff from ebuyer the other day, saw they were a quid each, added a couple to the basket and when i used them i was actually quite suprised because the air that they chuck out is usually really warm, so in my opinion they are doing a good job.

ESPECIALLY good for fanless video cards, put one below my nans 5200, and when in 3D intensive stuff, the air would heat up the grill on the back so much it would almost burn your hands. Top piece of kit as you never see fan bays below the agp slot as thats where PCI cards go.

Good invention and a steal at £1.18 inc VAT.

Ian:

Would be awesome if you could advertise this review on the front page! cheers!
 
Good review CHris! i was planning on building a cheap computer for kicks, i guess i will get this card.
 
I reccomend it.

Speaking of building a cheap computer for kicks, thats exactly what i have just done!
 
Ok. Scrap that last post, And look at the following picture. look at the core speed!

attachment.php


and still, 3DMark03 was totally artifact free, all the way through.

The only reason i couldnt push it more was because the program would not let me. Simple as that.

I have more than doubled the speed of the core, to MORE that standard 5700 speeds, infact more than 5700 ULTRA speeds i think, all with standard cooling, all artifact free.

Pretty amazing.

3DMark03 Scores now in excess of 2280.
 

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nope not a lucky card...i just found one at a local pc world with£50 knocked off....
and yes I just did exactly what the review above states, even got the benchmarks shown.......this card overclocks like absolute stink !

BTY......extreamly good review.....have a gold star...excellent :thumb:
 
iv tried my 5700LE at 335, 486 core, memory resp and its been fine. The "danger" part of the dial on the Expertool program has scared me a little but I may try it at something like these speeds.... :)
Thanks Chris :)

Tho maybe I should save the thanks till after I know it`ll b stable... :)
 
Well.... after last night.... core 450! memory 475(x2) OW!!! Apart from some very silly temperatures it was fine! Boosted my 3DMark03 scores by over 200. And all the benchmarks looked much better than normal. Once i get the cooling sorted out, i`ll try `05.

Cheers Chris :)
 
Just tried 3DMark03 at a core of 500. Failed at the sound test DAMMIT! Had an extra fan blowing over the card as well. 3DMark05 did the same thing during a CPU test. Water-cooling with my Xmas money, methinks :)

(After the Athlon 64 upgrade) so... maybe march :):)
 
OK... if u insist :) Got my eye on the Arctic Cooling HSF for the `5700... That might do it! plus its cheaper than The Zalman Juggernauts...

Will get back on here with me results later
 
i got mine running fine on 380 and 500 on memory

with a 2600+ Barton
512mb ram

runs fine
 
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