Customer Reviews

EVGA (256-A8-N313-LX) GeForce FX5500 256MB TV/DVI

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I received the City of Heroes DVD Edition for my birthday and had to get a video card so that my computer could run the game. This little card offers a lot of bang for the buck!

It is AGP 3 (8x) compliant, but was completely backward compatable with my AGP 2 slot. Even though it's working at the lower AGP 2 (4x) standard, graphics are still crisp and fast. It would be even more so in an AGP 3 slot.

Even though it's labeled "System Builder Version", the install was a breeze as well. My computer was up and running again in just a few minutes.

I would highly recommend this card to anyone on a budget who needs a graphics upgrade to play the newest games.

We got this card for our new HP, because there were certain games I wanted to play like HL2, and Doom3. The preformance upgrade was like night and day over my MX400. It isn't top of the line, but running Doom 3 on 1024*768, 8x AA, and high video settings, I was able to score 23 fps on the time demo. When I overclocked this card to 320/450 opposed to hte standard 270/400, I saw on average, a 5-10 fps jump in all my games. After that, the only time HL2 lagged was when I was near water, and even then I could still score 25fps. Doom 3 shot up from 23fps to 28, which makes a large difference in gameplay smoothness. Overall, not the best card if your going to be gaming a lot, unless you plan to overclock. But still can handle todays generation of games very nicely, with room to spare. All together, 8 out of 10 stars.


My other specs-
AMD ATHLON 64 3300+ running at 2.4GHz
512MB COrsair PC3200
Maxtor 160GB 7200rpm hd
1024*768 16 inch LCD

I recently purchased a new 21" LCD Samsung monitor (wide screen format), hoping to use the extra real estate on the screen. To my surprise, when using the DVI output of the FX 5500, the maximum screen resolution that you can select is 1280 x 1024. Since the native resolution of the monitor is 1680 x 1050, you either have to settle for very large characters or distorted, elongated characters.

Fortunately, if you use the Analog (VGA) output, the card will support resolutions up to 2048 x 1536 - which supports the monitor just fine. Unfortunately, this means that you are going from a digital image in the computer to a digital display through an analog connection, losing a little of the crispness that is possible.

So, if you plan to use a digital connection to your monitor, I would recommend a different video card.

Please don't listen to the guy complaining obout gray lines on his nVidia video card. The card he was using was a RIVA TNT card that came out in 1998. Get a life.

I have owned nVidia products for years with no problem. I have a PNY geforce2-ti-4200 now and have had no problems whatsoever period.

The problem is most likely a cheap manufacturer, since nVidia licenses its tech to 3rd parties for production. Buy the card from a reputable manufacturer like eVGA, ASUS, LeadTek, Chaintech, or MSI.

By the way, if you're looking for the best framerate, look elswhere, the 5200-5600 series were meant for a value market, not top-end gaming framerate. If you want to play Doom-3, and Halflife-2 best info I have is to buy at least a fx5900 ultra 256mb.

This is a 'budget/economy' NVidia GeForce card. For 56 dollars (I realize it has gone up several dollars now) you are getting a great deal.

The graphics are smooth on most games at high resolution. The previous reviewer had a fan issue. Your fan should be running 100 percent of the time - if it doesn't you will have performance problems and ultimately a 'meltdown' issue. There is *no* temperature sensor on the fan/processor which is why the fan runs all the time. It's not such a bad thing really. (read below if you want to slow it down or turn it off). You need to be sure that 1. the card is completely in the slot - push down hard and 2. make sure that the power cord connecting the fan to the card is, in fact, connected. If you do 1 & 2 you will be good. If your fan doesn't work you will end up having 1. poor graphic quality and speed and 2. your card will suffer an early 'death'. Very early.

The perfomance is good and you can make it better. Get 'RivaTuner' from, say, guru3d.com downloads section. You'll be able to 'overclock' (safely) the core clock from 270Mhz to 320Mhz (it's just software - you can set it back after you're done playing - no hardware/permanent issues) and to 330-340Mhz for 2d. The memory clock (ie the clock for the 256mb) runs at 405Mhz and can be overclocked to 432.5 Mhz. RivaTuner will also let you 'play' with the fan settings. You can actually turn them off or have it run 25 percent of normal speed etc. You'd do this if you wanted to cut down on noise/weren't playing a game or movie. The program is the most user friendly out there, but you need to 1. go to the bottom section, not the top, click on the graphic that 'expands' all the other graphics, click on the image that looks like a video card, and then you change the most important settings there. I am only putting this here because I realize it's not the most intuitive interface.

It's a pretty big perfomance boost and it is well known that all NVidia cards are built so that they can be overclocked.

The fan is noisy, but so are most of the other ones.

The performance, in my opinion, is great for the price. I believe I ended up getting a great deal on this - some of the other sites charge 120 and up, so take advantage of the discount.

If, however, you are a serious 'gamer' and want every feature you can get, you would probably want another, more expensive, card.

I bought this video card because I couldn't play the games I wanted to on the one that came with my computer. I had heard from my friends that this probably wouldn't be the best choice, but the price was right and I bought it. Once installed, I was very impressed. Installation was very easy, and my games run so much better and smoother. The most recent games I've used it for are "Star Wars Battlefront" and "Silent Hunter III" In both games, when there are explosions and soforth, the graphics slow down a little bit, but really not too much, and I turned the graphics options of the games all the way up. For a budget video card, an excellent buy.

Graphics quality is very high, FPS are good but not great. Very easy to install and rather cheap. Lacking anything interesting in the bundle but that is acceptable. Over all its a excellent card at a very good price. Comparativly on my system it is out performing my now-dead 9800 Pro by a significant amount. Runs much cooler, as well.

I am amazed at the clarity of the streaming video and even the still images appear sharper. I am not a gamer by any means, but the real arcade flight sim game (Master of the Skies: Red Ace) is incredibly vivid compared to the 128 MB GeForce 5200 I relaced. For the low cost I would not hesitate for a second. Buy this card!

Upgraded from MX400 and was instantly impressed by improvement. The price is right. The performance is there.

I bought this and some other items and had a person build me a system. The card works great. The only problem I had was when I got a new monitor, I had to find a graphics drive update so I could configure it properly. I've seen no problems with any images yet. I'm not a big gamer but I do a lot of photo editing and movies look great on the monitor.