SE cards

[PmelRules]

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]

64 bit memory = bad.

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

 

[bandana163]

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]

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.

 

[nick1985]

i hope you learned a lesson....

 

[Budman]

SE
Slow Edition
Shitty Edition


take your pick.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: Budman
SE
Slow Edition
Shitty Edition


take your pick.

you left out

sucky edition
sucker edition

 

[txxxx]

Maybe Evan Lieb needs to benchmark a 9200SE himself.... as he's recommended it on a "low end" system .... :S

 

[gherald]

out of curiousity, which performs better:

9200 (normal)
9600 SE

 

[Ionizer86]

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.