Little confused about all the ATI models of 9800, a little help please

[Chunkee]

If found this card
Sapphire RADEON 9800 SE ATLANTIS 128MB DDR AGP 8X DVI/TVO (OEM)
Powered by ATI 9800SE GPU
Microsoft® DirectX® 9 support
128MB DDR RAM

and there is another BY ATI a 9800 non pro - for sustantially more money.

what is the real difference? can the sapphire 9800 se be overclocked to Pro levels like some fo the others?

thanks for the help...thinking on leaving NVIDIA?

JC

 

[Robor]

I'm no expert but in reading this forum I've heard many people refer to the "SE" editions as "Sucky Edition". Something about having only 4 pipelines as opposed to 8.

I have a regular edition Sapphire 9800 non-pro (Samsung 3.3ns memory) and it's working perfect with the pro BIOS flash.

 

[Caanon]

Basically the 9800se sucks...it's like a 9500 or 9600 or whatever....

9800 non pro is just a lower clocked pro, with not as fast a ram on the board. So the core always overclocks well...memory overclocking varies....mine does Pro memory speeds...but not any higher.

 

[Chunkee]

thanks

 

[VIAN]

Acutally..

9800 Pro:
Core: 380MHz @ 8 Pipelines
Fillrate: 3.04GPps
Memory: 680MHz @ 256bit width
Bandwidth: 21.76GBps

9800:
Core: 325MHz @ 8 Pipelines
Fillrate: 2.6GPps
Memory: 580MHz @ 256bit width
Bandwidth: 18.88GBps

9800 SE

 

[JavaTenor]

So just to clarify:

9800 SE = overclocked 9600 Pro
9800 = underclocked 9800 Pro

Is that about right, or am I missing some nuances?

 

[Wedge1]

That's almost right.

The 1st 9800 SE will resemble a 9600 (128 bits on 4 pipes; probably resembles 9600 pro).
The 2nd 9800 SE will resemble the 9500 because it will use 256 bits on 4 pipes.

So, to be clear, the article is saying that there are 2 versions of the 9800 SE, which really is an excellent marketing scheme by ATI to confuse the hell out of us.

How these 2 versions will be differentiated in the card name itself is not clear. More details should emerge. At the very lease, should you encounter one and want to be certain of which of the two you are veiwing, just check to see if it is 128 bit or 256 bit.

Finally,
the 9800np is an underclocked 9800pro (at least that's what i've read dozens of times. I don't actually own any of these cards, yet).

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: VIAN
Acutally..

9800 Pro:
Core: 380MHz @ 8 Pipelines
Fillrate: 3.04GPps
Memory: 680MHz @ 256bit width
Bandwidth: 21.76GBps

9800:
Core: 325MHz @ 8 Pipelines
Fillrate: 2.6GPps
Memory: 580MHz @ 256bit width
Bandwidth: 18.88GBps

9800 SE

from the link you posted

"The RADEON 9800 SE graphics chip will have only four active rendering pipelines"

 

[Wedge1]

Here is a Radeon 9800 SE (the second "version" of SE, with the 256 bit interface) for $220. Speeds are 380/680; made by PowerColor.

Also, supports dual VGA.

Probably a good card; just remember its only 4 pipelines though, so it would probably be worth paying a bit more to get a 9800np that has 8 pipelines.