What's the deal with the Radeon 9800SE?

edln9000

Junior Member
Aug 25, 2003
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I was going to get a Radeon 9700 from my local guy but he came back with an offer to get a Radeon 9800SE for $10 more than the 9700.

Does anyone know where the 9800SE stacks up vs a 9700 or 9800np?

X-bit labs has this to say

We managed to find out some details concerning the mysterious RADEON 9800 SE graphics cards firstly mentioned in CATALYST 3.5 release notes. Apparently, there will be two versions of the RADEON 9800 SE, one of them will be pretty low-cost and will more resemble RADEON 9600, another will be more advanced and will probably become a successor of the legendary RADEON 9500 128MB that was easily transformed into more expensive RADEON 9700.

The first version of the RADEON 9800 SE will be made on simplified 6-layer PCB and feature 128-bit memory bus for 128MB of DDR SDRAM. The RADEON 9800 SE graphics chip will have only four active rendering pipelines. ATI Technologies again simply disables half of the VPU?s pixel pipelines and probably end-users should have a chance to re-enable them using tweaks in drivers or simply by re-soldering some resistors on the chip.

The second version of the RADEON 9800 SE graphics card will be made on 8-layer PCB and will boast with 256-bit bus for 128MB of DDR SDRAM memory. The chip will also feature only four pipelines, however, this is not an obstacle for brave overclockers and modders, is it? After certain tweaks some lucky users will probably get a fully-functional RADEON 9800 from a lower-cost RADEON 9800 SE solution.

Core and memory clocks of the RADEON 9800 SE graphics cards are to be determined, but in general I expect speeds of the RADEON 9800 SE with 128-bit memory bus to be lower compared to its brother with 256-bit bus.

As far as I understood, RADEON 9800 SE graphics cards are designed for OEMs?, some System Integrators, Asian markets and other price-conscious customers. In Europe ATI signed a deal with Media Markt to exclusively sell such cards into retail channel, whereas it is very likely that there will be almost no RADEON 9800 SE products in the US. All in all, RADEON 9800 SE graphics cards are not supposed to become massive. Though, market always places everything straight and hopefully there will be some RADEON 9800 SE products in Russia and Eastern Europe.
(http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20030717153234.html)

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What does this mean? Keep in mind I don't overclock.

Thanks,

edln
 

robcy

Senior member
Jun 8, 2003
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It should be a little faster than a 9500np, and a lot slower than a 9700np. Save the 10, and get the 9700.
 

justagamer

Junior Member
Feb 24, 2003
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i bought myself a 9800se, and was very dissappointed, firstly, because it's a little slower than a 9700 non pro, and also cos i was told it's the second edition of the 9800non-pro, which clearly it turned out not to be. Also, the box it came in said it had 8 pipelines, it only actually had 4. then i read up about it and found out about the mod to enable all 8 pipelines, unfortunately this did not work with my card, i could enable them but then every 3d app i ran would freeze up immediately.
i returned it, mainly saying it's false advertising, being that what was written on the box was not what was inside. i swapped it out for a 9500 non-pro. This i knew only had 4 (active)pipelines, but was half the price (9800se = R3000, 9500np=R1500... live in south africa). i then modded this card (enabled all eight pipelines) and this card is now getting a score 4200 in 3dmark2003, where as the 9800se got a score of 3500, remember.., this is for half the price..., yet more score!?!?!?!theoretically , the 128bit 9500np can be modded to a 9500 pro, and a 256bit 9500np can be modded to a 9700pro......,
 

Regs

Lifer
Aug 9, 2002
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I really don't get the 9800SE. With all the extra memory bandwidth the 9800 comes with, 4 pipelines is jsut not going to cut it. No point even making a SE.

And I'm not sure, but I think the 9800SE has 4 vertix shaders instead of 2 which the 9600 pro contains.
 

Regs

Lifer
Aug 9, 2002
16,665
21
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Originally posted by: Tabb
Isnt the 9800SE just a higher clocked 9600?

Just about. 9800SE has a 256-Bit Memory Interface though. But 4 pipelines hardly takes advantage of it.