GeForce FX 5700 LE is desirable with Retro Gamers

When the GeForce FX 5700 LE launched it was nothing special. It had a rather low clock speed and a narrow 64-Bit memory bus. To make matters worse, the GeForce FX series became famous for poor DirectX 9 performance, however it has many benefits that make it a desirable GPU for Retro PC Gaming!

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0:00 Introduction
0:18 GeForce FX issues
0:39 GeForce FX for Retro Gaming
1:02 Look at the card
2:26 Cleanup
3:01 Test system
5:35 Monitor tips
6:57 Benchmarks
9:49 Retro features of the FX
10:18 nGlide
12:11 Playing Expendable
16:02 Playing GLQuake
17:52 Summary and thoughts

[vintagegamingrepublic]

I had several 5000 series cards. They were terrible. But actually pretty good on win98 machines. Greets from Portugal

[MeALot]

Got a quadro fx 3000G that came in today for $50. Based on a fx 5900 ultra but with a load of extra connections. Its great you're giving old hardware more attention!

[dfxvoodoocards]

Nice video. What is interesting about the 5700LE is that is uses the same core as the 5700 but downclocked at (usually) 250 mhz instead of the 425 mhz of the 5700. That’s why the GPU of the 5700LE can be easily clocked at 400-470 mhz, increasing it’s performance significantly.

[lemagreengreen]

It's nice that the GeforceFX series finally found something it is good at :)

"You can't be too picky" rings so true... the amount of high end 90s/early 00's gaming hardware I (and everyone else) threw away that people would actually want these days...

[ruxandy]

Great video, Phil. Keep them coming! 😁
This is one of the 'bad' GeForce 5700LE cards. There are actually many that had the full 128 bit memory bus, and those are miles better (and they overclock like crazy, since the core is heavily 'factory underclocked').

[ThBeowulf]

I have several FX 5200s that I've kept because they were low-profile PCI cards that supported dual monitor with a high density breakout cable.

I've always run older 3D games (such as Unreal Tournament) and 2D stuff with them without too many limitations. To me, they never seemed to be obnoxiously slow until I started really discovering (and being able to afford) faster parts.

It's refreshing to see that there is still a perfectly adequate use for these cards and that their undesirablities make them cheaper options for retro computers.

Thank you Phil!

[mtunayucer]

6:23 this tip legit made my vga lcd monitor perfect. thanks so much

[cade]

I learned a lot from this video.I'm currently collecting parts to make a W98SE dedicated PC.The scene where you remove the heat sink push pin with the tip of a ballpoint pen was also a great experience for me.The information provided in the comments section was also helpful.

[mattpierce]

I like FX cards for Slot 1 builds - good feature set and the performance is more in line with the CPU's capabilities

[qbertguy]

Hey Phil I just wanted to say thanks for your website! It has been a huge help for my retro builds!

[saxxonpike]

GeForce FX is my "one size fits all" retro GPU these days. My main build has a Quadro FX 1100, roughly equivalent to a GeForce FX 5700. Even these have almost disappeared from the affordable market (except the GeForce FX 5200, lol). But sometimes, a cheap non-5200 shows up on auction. The faster FX cards however run just about anything that you would need Windows 98 for, plus Glide wrapper support.

[mysterion]

Greetings to Phil from germany. I've left this entire generation out, jumped from a Gainward 4200 Ti GS to a WinFast 6800 GT. Unfortunately the card broke after a few weeks and I took an ATI Radeon X800XT.

[MarcoGPUtuber]

3:51 when you come back to Taipei, i'll get you the wraith prism for that board.

[michaelluong]

Always a good Friday when Phil uploads

[MarcoGPUtuber]

Some of the worst GPUs ever released are turning into retro gems!

[provugab]

Amazing memories! I still got that Sound Blaster and it still works.

[erikmerchant]

Multi-color Bic pen??? Been a long time since I've seen one of those. Retro pens... who knew? Terrific video sir!

[Almarracing]

3:11 I love the fact you used an AMD AM3 cooler for that socket 754 CPU! i'm currently building a retro PC based on a 754 Socket Foxconn motherboard and i'm planning to get a Wraith Prism for my CPU, also i have this AM3 Cooler as a backup option.
In the GPU side, it's difficult to even try to get a FX 5500, here in latin america the market is flooded with only low-end AGP GPU (mostly ATi or FX 5200)

[mesterak]

Happy Friday Phil! Thank you for sharing on the 5700 LE. Might be cool to see you look at the ATI side with the SE cards for comparison.

[xBruceLeex]

I remember back in the day we always kept a pci fx 5200 around as a spare. It was capable of playing painkiller and medal of honor airborne reasonably well with modest settings.