ATI Radeon 9800 SE question

[Tazdrummer]

I am considering purchasing one of the new ATI cards for two reasons... I keep hearing good things about the new ATI and the free Half Life 2 voucher.

I read on one forum about you can flash the BIOS and it will make it a 9800 Pro.

I am looking at around $150 to play with.

So, I am posting here to get some opinions. Is the 9800 SE worth the purchase?

I think the whole 8 pipeline compared to the 4 pipeline of the 9600's intrigued me and since this would be my first ATI video card, I want to get the full info before I drop some money.

Thanks

[Todd a]

The performance of the Radeon 9800SE is close to that of the Radeon 9600Pro (slighty lower than it), so the card is a good deal. I think there are drivers out there that can do the mod without flashing the BIOS, but only about 25% of the cards can do it without getting artifacts. So you'd get a good card for $150 with a chance of it being a great card.

I did not know the Radeon 9800SE came with the HL2 coucher coupon. I thought it was the Radeon 9600/9800XT and the Radeon 9600SE, but it could be that card too.

I think the whole deal with ATI and nVidia fighting over the rights to bundle HL2 with their cards as funny. At $10-15 a pop (when normal bundled software costs the card manufacturers only $5) its a big deal. The only problem is the game runs so bad on the FX cards that nVidia would have only been able to package it with the GeforceFX 5900 or faster. These cards are limited to a much smaller audiance do to their prices. ATI on the other hand could package the game with their Radeon 9600/9700/9800 cards with no trouble as HL2 runs very well on their cards. Being able to sell a card for just over $100 makes it MUCH more avaluable to the public. Valve must have realized that ATI could move about 10 times as many games this way.

[ol' man]

Originally posted by Todd a
The performance of the Radeon 9800SE is close to that of the Radeon 9600Pro (slighty lower than it), so the card is a good deal. I think there are drivers out there that can do the mod without flashing the BIOS, but only about 25% of the cards can do it without getting artifacts. So you'd get a good card for $150 with a chance of it being a great card.

No it is more like 50%. Where do you get this info?

[ol' man]

My Radeon 9800SE softmodded to a 9800,

Without artifacts.
50%

With artifacts.
33%

With artifacts but I could get rid of them.
5%

Does not even start into Windows when softmodded.
11%

votes: 1651
http://www.ocfaq.com/softmod/faq.php?vo=2

[Tazdrummer]

Artifacts? What are these artifacts that you talk of?

[Todd a]

Pixel error, snow, black dots...

It Tom's reveiw of sdomething liek 40-50 cards I got these numbers:

UT2003
Radeon 9600Pro 66.7
Radeon 9800SE 68.3
Radeon 9600 44.5

Call of Duty
Radeon 9600Pro 89.7
Radeon 9800SE 83.7
Radeon 9600 55.9

Halo
Radeon 9600Pro 28.71
Radeon 9800SE 28.07
Radeon 9600 22.17

X2
Radeon 9600Pro 43.0
Radeon 9800SE 45.9
Radeon 9600 32.6

They perform about the same (trading off who wins bewteen benchmarks). I think you are thinking about the Radeon 9600SE. Yes it sucks pretty bad. I always recommend the Radeon 9600 over the Radeon 9600SE as they cost about the same and the SE is about 20-30% slower. I was actually pretty supprised how much slower the Radeon 9600 was than the Radeon 9600Pro. The Radeon 9800SE is just fine and from what I have seen is priced pretty similar to the Radeon 9600Pro.