first things first wat is the differeence between this and the 9800 NP second which of these 4 is the best deal http://store.yahoo.com/hoct12/1017.html http://www.pcrapids.com/home.asp?pw=y&pwl=search/productdesc.asp?lsskuid=VidATI128M02062 http://www.fticomputer.com/cgis/detail.cgi?product=VB-PC-ATI-RX98SE-C3&ses=&cat=VB http://www.fticomputer.com/cgis/detail.cgi?product=VB-PC-ATI-R98SE-C3&ses=&cat=VB
The first three are ATI 9800 SE's, stay away from them if possible. The have only 4 pixel pipelines and hence four pixel shaders. Also some of the ATI 9800 SE cards only have a 128 bit memory controllers, not the proper 256 bit controllers. The forth card is much better, it is a proper ATI 9800 non pro so it has the full 8 pipelines/pixel shaders and a 256 bit memory controller.
Here's the thing with 9800SE's, they are, by very essence, a Non-Pro. If you check with ATI's site you will notice that there are 4 flavors of the 9800, the XT, two Pros, and the NP. The SE falls into the catagory of the NP with the underclocked core, however, as mentioned, only has 4 pipes, and not 8 (in fact, I have NEVER seen a non pro with 8 pipes by default, although apparently Dell has one). NOW, that being said, that 4th card you mention is still an SE. Check with PowerColor's site and cross reference the product number. As for your links, the first one has no picture, so I don't know about it. The next two both have memory in the straight line configuration (T.S.O.P.) which means that they are indeed 128bit on the memory interface and are, basically, POS's. The last one however, the PowerColor SE card, has the L shaped memory configuration. THis means that it has a 256bit memory interface and 8 pipelines (with four turned off). What this means, is that with a BIOS flash or driver tweaking, you can actually modify the core on the PowerColor card so it adjusts the voltage management and opens the other 4 pipes making it into a 9800Pro, which Windows will recognize as such. It will also perfom as one, not as an overclocked card trying to be a Pro. This mod has around a 50% full success rate. The PowerColor cards are good for this because you are almost guaranteed to get 2.8ns Hynix RAM on the card. The reason for this is that the SE cores are believed (by some) to be rejected 9800Pro cores. But that doesn't mean they aren't good. Think about CPU's that can get a 500MHz overclock out of with everything still stock. It still foiled to test properly to be rated at the spped you can easily overclock to. It's all about tolerances. Back to the straight line memory cards for a moment, those can be modded as well, but due to the 128bit interface, can only be turned into a 9500Pro, not a 9800Pro.
wellp(yeha only now saw that silver pretty much wrote most of what i did) in the SE cards (256 bit that is ) its quite a bet first off you dont need to go through all the bios flashing such process, beside i think it takes out warrenty no? so why bother.. just use the omega drivers they open the remaining 4 pipelines and still have the warrenty on the card (this is thier site www.omegacorner.com ) BUT i know some ppl who tryed it, some says it worked superb and acts as a R9800 P and even broke the 6900 scores with it on 3dmark03 and some sayed they ended up with waves (Artifacts) on thier screen or no picture at all (and had to reinstall the ATI drivers using other card) so i guess its a 50 50 chance
All standard ATI 9800's are "non pro" cards which have 8 pixel pipelines. http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9800/radeon9800pro/compare.html My Sapphire Atlantis ATI 9800 has 8 pixel pipelines. ATI 9800 SE are "non pro" cards with four pipes and some have a crippled 128 bit memory controllers some have 256 bit memory contoller.
