Radeon 9600xt or 9800se?

[subucni]

Which would you choose? I'm only looking at spending about £110 so 9800pro is too expensive. So now i'm looking at something like the 9600xt or the 9800se but which is best? i haven't got a clue. thanks for the help

[Rod911]

If you want guaranteed performance, get a 9600XT. If you're a bit of a gambler, get a 9800SE with 256-bit memory (ie. memory if configured is an L-shape and also has a power connector) and try to softmod to a 9800Pro. Without the softmod, a 9800SE will perform weaker than a 9600XT.

[LayZeh]

Yes but only by a very small margin, personally i'd buy it local so you can take a good look at the card and almost guarentee yourself a modable one cheeky but heh, who cares.

[Alkan]

i had this dilema about 6 months ago and opted for the 9800se.
At stock I obtained 3844 on 3dmark03. This was a higher mark than what i could find from 9600xt owners.

I softmodded and obtained a score of 5200. However, i had artefacts. Damm!

The difference in performance between the two cards is minimal so i would take the small risk and go for a 9800se.

[subucni]

thanks, for the advice guys, i'm not really looking at clocking the card in anyway. The pc i'm building is going to be for me to edit video on so all i'm looking for is a good quality gfx card and wasn't sure if the 9800se would run better straight out of the box then the 9600xt. from the sounds of it though, it will. If i'm wrong let me know. cheers

[loki]

if you look in the bargain hunt forum, i believe someone has found a 9800pro for 125 inc delivery. THis would be a much better choice than either if you were looking to spend 110. The extra 15 pounds is a small difference for a superior card.

[blockers]

.....or if you can hold on until next month when the next generation of card is coming out the prices of the current ones are expected to drop so you may be in for some real bargins not tha £125 isnt!!!

Will

[stncttr908]

I'd just go for the safe bet and get the 9600XT. If you do find one of the 256-bit memory 9800SE's and the mod fails, then you have nothing.

[ninjastyle]

I'd save a little more money and get a 9800 Pro. I know you don't wanna stretch to this amount (about £150), but £40 ain't that difficult to save, surely? Again, wait for the new cards and we'll no doubt be seeing price drops.

[Skeps]

You can get a 9800pro for £120 as mentioned above, 10 quid over your budget cant be that hard to find. LINKY HERE

[Spunkey]

checkout bit-tech - i was reading an article earlier, the 9800XT vs 9800SE vs 9600XT Bravo (all PowerColor) and the 9600XT was a fair bit better than the SE, and the best fps per £ overall.

[ninjastyle]

Skeps, thanks a lot for that link! That card is mine!

One thing though, is the site trustworthy? Just that I never heard of it and I very nearly got ripped off for £150 recently (specialtech.co.uk -- don't even think about going there), so I gotta be extra cautious these days.

[subucni]

the only problem is that my budget has to take into account that i need to buy new hard drive, dvd rw, floppy drive, + more so i was looking to go finance through scan, and the 9800pro on there is £145inc vat so i guess i've got a bit more deciding to do. damn, i wish i wasn't a poor student. haha

[cm_uk]

9600xt all the way....

[bigZ]

the 9600XT is a faster card than the 128-bit 9800SE, it's almost neck and neck between the 256-bit 9800SE and the 9600XT. I would still go with the 9600XT tho. I did a roundup @ bit-tech a couple of days ago

[Alkan]

If the two cards are priced similar and with similar performance, why would you want to buy a 9600XT ?

Surely the possibility of opening the 9800se to a full 8 pipelines is worth the risk. After all if it does not work, as in my case, you still have a decent card.