SE cards

PmelRules

Member
Mar 11, 2004
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I posted a message about 3 days ago about my system I was building, and since I am on a budget I bought 9600 se card. A couple people said that was junk. If some one could explain to me why it is such a bad card I would appreciate it, and I should have decent performance out of it when I get it right???
 

Todd33

Diamond Member
Oct 16, 2003
7,842
2
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64 bit memory = bad.

SE on the Nvidia 5900 line is not a bad card, just the ATI lines.
 

bandana163

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2003
4,170
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SE cards - except the 5900SE - have 64bit memory instead of having 128bit memory.
The memory bandwidth is cut in half, the performance is decreased by 40-50%. 64bit DDR memory was only good on the GF2MX cards, as a rival solution of 128bit SDR. SE cards also tend to have lower memory/core speeds, so they significantly slower than the standard non-se cards.
64bit memory makes a 9600SE or 5600XT a lot slower, even slower than some much older cars like the GeForce3.

The SE/XT designation is truly confusing, everyone uses SE to show that the card is a slower version, but nVidia uses ATI's XT designation instead of the SE sometimes. 5600XT cards have 64bit memory, 5900XT cards are, however, full 5900s running at lower core/memory speeds. They have 256bit memory as well, they're still high-end cards. 5900SE=5900XT.
ATI uses the XT designation on its 9600XT and 9800XT cards to show that they are faster than their normal/pro models.

A brief summary:
ATI: SE (slowest) - normal - pro - XT (fastest)
nVidia: SE/XT (slowest) - normal - ultra (fastest)
 

modedepe

Diamond Member
May 11, 2003
3,474
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The card is complete crap. Basically any ati card that has "SE" attached to the name is going to be crap. 9200se/9600se both have a 64 bit memory bus instead of a 128 bit bus. 9800SE has 4 pipelines instead of 8.
 

txxxx

Golden Member
Feb 13, 2003
1,700
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Maybe Evan Lieb needs to benchmark a 9200SE himself.... as he's recommended it on a "low end" system .... :S
 

Ionizer86

Diamond Member
Jun 20, 2001
5,292
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Usually the 9200 normal, but in some cases, the 9600se. Benchmarks. BTW PMELrules, don't buy till you're sure what you're getting. I also hope the 9600se didn't cost more than like $50 since around that price you can get much faster 8500/9100 cards, or even a 4200 card for a tad more.