Jumping ship from nVidia - need some advice

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sb

I've been using nVidia cards exclusively since the Riva 128 and now I think
it's time to switch to ATI - at least for the time being. I'm thinking of
getting the Radeon 9800 128MB - non pro. First question is, what is the SE
version that I see all over pricewatch. I've done a little research but did
not find a truely clear answer. It looks as though it is a slightly scaled
down version of the card. Is this true? How scaled down is it? Also, what is
deal with the 9800XT? Is it out already? Any other advice from maybe some
other long time nVidia users who also switched?

Thanks!
SB
 
The SE has only 4-pixel pipelines where as the regular 9800 and 9800 Pro
have 8-pixel pipelines. I believe some SE versions only have 128 bit memory
interface as well compared to the normal 256 bit interface. This is
obviously going to reduce performance rather dramatically.

The XT I believe is simply a higher clocked version of the 9800 Pro 256MB
memory. Probably not worth the price, but should be the top performer on the
market at the moment.

The best bang for the buck IMO is the regular 9800 or the 9800 Pro 128MB.
I've seen plenty of posts about people being able to clock the regular 9800
to Pro speeds or even flashing the BIOS to the Pro one. I myself managed to
obtain a 9800 Pro 128 on ebay for $250 and have been quite happy with it.
Good luck!
 
JT said:
The SE has only 4-pixel pipelines where as the regular 9800 and 9800
Pro have 8-pixel pipelines. I believe some SE versions only have 128
bit memory interface as well compared to the normal 256 bit
interface. This is obviously going to reduce performance rather
dramatically.
Click to expand...

according to my sources, all the 9800se cards are 128-bit memory interfaced
(true or not)
Still, this is the annoying part with graphics cards, ATI & nVidia, the same
product from two different manufacturers will likely have different
clocks/mem speeds/bus width etc, so you have to do your research.
 
Yeah, I think you are correct about the 128 bit. I thought I saw somewhere
that some may have the 256, but that may have been in error. The point is
that the SE is certainly an inferior card performance wise compared to the
regular 9800's.
 
the 9800 non pro is as fast as a 9700 pro but it overclocks better because
of the newer core. The 9800 xt is a slightly overclocked version of a 9800
pro. My 9800 pro overclocks higher than the default speed of the 9800 xt. I
have a sapphire 9800 pro with stock cooling
 
JT said:
Yeah, I think you are correct about the 128 bit. I thought I saw
somewhere that some may have the 256, but that may have been in
error. The point is that the SE is certainly an inferior card
performance wise compared to the regular 9800's.
Click to expand...

at least with the last few gen ATI cards, when they make a lite version and
cripple the specs they put a SE or a LE on the end of the name.
 
I've been using nVidia cards exclusively since the Riva 128 and now I
think it's time to switch to ATI - at least for the time being. I'm thinking of
getting the Radeon 9800 128MB - non pro. First question is, what is the
SE version that I see all over pricewatch. I've done a little research but
did not find a truely clear answer. It looks as though it is a slightly scaled
down version of the card. Is this true? How scaled down is it? Also, >what
Click to expand...
is deal with the 9800XT? Is it out already? Any other advice from >maybe
some other long time nVidia users who also switched?
Thanks!
SB
Click to expand...

From what I've seen, I'd agree that the SE is a little more of a "dumbed
down" version. You can visit
http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9800/radeon9800pro/compare.html to do an
official comparison of the cards, but it looks like the main difference
between the 9800 (which I personally have) and the 9800 pro is the memory
and clock speeds. For the 9800 you will have a 325 MHz core clock with a 580
MHz memory clock. The 9800 Pro is running a 380 MHz core with 680 MHz
memory. The XT jumps even higher than that! From the diagram, it looks like
the slower cards basically give you a lower fillrate and less triangles per
second, stuff you will definitely need every last bit of when Doom III and
Half Life 2 come out, if they ever do... I have an Athlon XP1900+ with an
older ASUS A7A266 motherboard and it will handle almost everything I throw
at it right now and run it pretty decent (including Halo), so it really
depends on how long you want your card to last before you buy another one.
They're all great cards. Good luck!
 
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