I have the choice of those two cards

Powercolor 9800SE $428 (NZD)
ATI 9600pro $450 (NZD)

What one would be a better choice?
O/C and out of the box wise.

Ur joking right heh, Get a 9800 Pro

First of all why the 9600pro is expensive then the 9800SE? If the listed price is true, then go for 9800 ofcause. 9800 is the world finest GPU (for now). I own the 9600pro, the speed of this card is much like the Geforce 4 ti4200, but with DX9 supported. I have not own any 9800 yet, but i known 9600pro just can't compare with 9800, the 9800 is way too fast then the 9600pro. :wink:

garikfox, hey its ony a 9800 not the pro version which makes the diff the reason they are the same price is because one is 3months older (9800) eg used, but i can get a new one for about 480ish so dont know the 9800SE cards seam to be cheep wich makes me worried... is hl2 going to be sold in a pack with a new ATI vid card? i have heard that is that true?

Ive Just bought a 9600 Pro after years of useing Nvidia cards, i bought a GF FX 5600 first but took it back cause it was a pile of S**T, crap performance and noisy as hell, the card i have replaced is a GF4 TI 4800 se and the 9600 Pro wipes the floor with both the 4800 & the 5600 FX, game scan now be played at 1024x768 with all the quality settings up at max (8x AA and 16x Antistropic) with no frame rate loss.

3DMark 03
4800se = 1549
FX 5600 = 2649
9600 Pro = 3DMark Score 3389 3DMarks
GT1 - Wings of Fury 122.9 fps
GT2 - Battle of Proxycon 21.2 fps
GT3 - Troll's Lair 19.6 fps
GT4 - Mother Nature 20.4 fps
CPU Score 487 CPUMarks
CPU Test 1 50.7 fps
CPU Test 2 9.3 fps
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 909366028.0 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 1548356689.0 MTexels/s
Vertex Shader 10.6 fps
Pixel Shader 2.0 29.5 fps
Ragtroll 13.9 fps
No sounds 32.5 fps
24 sounds 29.4 fps
60 sounds 27.5 fps

so the moral is if your on a budget dont be shy buy ATI.

the 9800SE is a low budget version of the 9800. it was up some time ago when it was launched.. the SE is crap
i'd go with the 9600 pro over the 9800SE any day

even with the soft mod?

Sorry loser cause i misunderstanding your question it is Radeon 9800 SE. Well all i need to say that this card has two different version one have 4 pipelines and the other have 8 pipelines. Which one is the one you target ?
By judging the price i would say it is the 4 pipelines version. If it is, then go for the Radeon 9600pro. Some of the Card manufacture that produce Radeon 9600pro that i like are , Gigabyte and Sapphire.

9800SE sucks ..... I got one bot was not able to soft-mod it ....
if I OC my Ti4200 it is faster then 9800SE ... the 4pipes make damn big difference ... if you wanna get a good card look out for 9800SE which is able to be softmodded ... thats kinda nice deal

lol i thought you called the guy an actual loser but thats his nickname :o

oh well buy the 9600 since it seems to be the better card, and dont just take a card because it has 9800, some 9800 non pro's and SE's are well under par

Cool sounds like most people are saying the 9800SE is a bit of a dog unless u are very lucky and get a good one. but that still seams to dodgy for me as i cant upgrade all the time as u can tell as i have a FX420 atm that i have ran close for 2 years now. I have heard ATI9600pro can be overclocked with out to much hassel to the speed of a stock 9800 (nonPro) is that true? or is that just as dodgy as the 9800SE mod?

Video Card Chart/Comparison check here for the detailed specs on the cards, the 9800SE has a faster memory bandwidth and is 128 or 256-bit versions, basically if your softmod work fine it will be one fast card, but if not then the 9600Pro is the way to go
9800SE has 8pipelines which 4 are disabled and can be enabled through softmod just like 9500 -> 9800 softmod works

if you want to know what type of card to buy for softmodding look here

OK now choice would be 9700pro or the 9800SE with the softmod what would perform better and age better. both are really the same price with the 9700pro (3months old) for about 25-50(NZD) more

Oh yeah i nearly got got does the powercolor 9800SE have the right layout to do the softmod?

the new omega did include powercolor/club 3d 9800se but not sure if it will work... anyway the 9700pro is almost like a 9800pro, lets just say the 9800 is a perfected version of the 9700, the 9700 is a great card, the only difference is probably faster clock and slightly higher memory bandwidth

9700pro vs 9800se go for the 9700pro, yeah you may be able to softmod the 9800se, but dont rely on that too much or better yet dont buy hardware based on that because if it doesnt work you will be stuck with a card slower than a card you couldve have gotten

also if you save up a little more you can get a better card, i myself is saving up for a 9800pro and just need a little more cash to get there, then i can be insured for hl2 and all my current games on full blast