I first wanted to mod a 9800SE to PRO
so I went for 2 9800SE which both worked great but had pixel errors modded to 9800 PRO ... which is not Powercolors fault for sure ...
but since both cards worked great and powercolor was the cheapest card
I got the real 9800PRO from powercolor
up to now it works great ... the noise is normal and the cooler can be put down to 7V providing enough cooling but at much lowernoise

so I do recommend powercolor which does not mean that other card are bad ...
also now with watercooling it no problem, too
see case modding pics

go for x800 :)

go and spend money for a x800

the 9800pro has enough power for todays games and with a good cpu u can play everything in max

so why buy a x800?
no need today

Cheers for the info Mertsch

Erm only silly people buy the fastest cards going, when a cheaper card can do the same. And if im honest, i can find alot of other things to waste 400 quid on.

Its all just a " my cards faster than yours ", " my dads harder than yours " thing.

The Radeon 9800Pro will play all the games i play at good fps and decent quality, everything i need from a gfx card atm. Oh and its only 124 Quid

Peav

I first wanted to mod a 9800SE to PRO
so I went for 2 9800SE which both worked great but had pixel errors modded to 9800 PRO ... which is not Powercolors fault for sure ...
but since both cards worked great and powercolor was the cheapest card
I got the real 9800PRO from powercolor
up to now it works great ... the noise is normal and the cooler can be put down to 7V providing enough cooling but at much lowernoise

so I do recommend powercolor which does not mean that other card are bad ...
also now with watercooling it no problem, too
see case modding pics

2 days ago I got brand new Club3D Radeon 9800SE (256 bit of course), installed Cats 4.7 later moded it to 9800PRO version (with 8 pipes), run 3dmark03 for a couple of times (7+), played for a couple of hours UT2004, FarCry, Americas Army... and experienced NO artifacts

Club3D 9800SE @ PRO God bless you :hail:

3Dmark03 score with 4 pipes was 3561 marks, with 8 pipes was (and still is 5092 marks (result could be a little higher, but my CPU and motherboard are bottleneck of my computer).

Will the artifacts appear after time - I do not know (hope it wont).

My 9800 card is kinda newer type (first versions had floppy type power connector, mine has HDD type power connector).

My humble oppinion is that TMSC (factory that produces graphic chips for ATI) got better yields nowdays (makes less defective graphic chips, those defective chips go to SE models, fully functional chips go to PRO models), demand for 9800SE cards is higher than number of defective chips, so ATI intentionally gives some fully functional 9800pro chips to go to SE cards (disables 4 pipelines, and sets a bit lower core/memory speeds).

Another thing is - X800 pro & XT cards are out there - ATI wants to push them to the market; what will ATI do with those stocked chips? Sell them ASAP maybe? Or wait for a few moths and don't sell them at all?

Anyway, that is my oppinion - it does not have to be true.

Bye


PS
in ati desktop it says memory type is 400mhz, and my 9800se@pro has memory speed 337.5mhz (ati underclocked it). Memory is Hynix 2.8

I had 2 types of artifacts ...
1st was an unaceptable one


the second card did not have this, I was hapy then but
after playing some games also HALO it came up that some games had white dots around textures ... it was not thaaaaaat bad ... and mostly in HALO ... WC3 was totally error free
but there was some and that was too much for me ... so I said to myselfe ... 9800PRO is a great card ...
you really want it or not ... no half done thingy ... so I logged into ebay and bought one ... and I am very happy with it
the good thing on a 9800PRO was/is ... you did not need to think about "will game run at good speed" ... it just runs ....
hell I was a benchmark freak and benched any damn shit ... but since I had the card it stopped ... because it was equal if the system runs @ 100% or 95% because it just runs

9800pro is excellent card out there, and maybe is the bottom end of card someone should buy (do not buy anything slower than 9800pro - in a few months/year you will have to change it).

:beer:

Erm only silly people buy the fastest cards going, when a cheaper card can do the same
Peav

lol, that was the dumbest thing i've heard in ages
hahaha thank you for that comment

lol, that was the dumbest thing i've heard in ages
hahaha thank you for that comment

Why buy a car when you can travel on foot (each and every day)?

LOL

Yes Ok..

But A 9800Pro can still play the games of today with exceptional detail etc. There are no games out that will push the x800 or the 6800 atm, and only a few that will push a 9800pro. (doom3, hl2 maybes ) Farcry was they game that was supposed to push the gfx, yet it played fine on my ti4200 and good frames and decent quality.

I just dont need the greatest and fastest card that there is aslong as the one i have does the job.. Its just a status thing. Just like fast cars

Peav

I played FarCry until 2 days ago on my old GF4 MX440 64MB! (2 days ago I bought Radeon 9800SE and modded it to PRO).

Played on MX440 with lowest details and reduced screen size.

Now playing on Radeon (8 pipes) in 1024X768 full details possible.

Bye :beer:

Yes Ok..

But A 9800Pro can still play the games of today with exceptional detail etc. There are no games out that will push the x800 or the 6800 atm, and only a few that will push a 9800pro. (doom3, hl2 maybes ) Farcry was they game that was supposed to push the gfx, yet it played fine on my ti4200 and good frames and decent quality.

I just dont need the greatest and fastest card that there is aslong as the one i have does the job.. Its just a status thing. Just like fast cars

Peav

I agree for the most part - if a card does the job for you, then there's no point getting anything more.

However, the whole purpose of the X800/6800s for today's gaming is image quality. You can't run with 8x antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering on the 9800. Of course, most people wouldn't really want to, I personally am not too fussed about image quality, but there are a lot of people who are, and they're the people the X800/6800s are aimed at right now.

Yes 9800pro can play today's games but consider that it is getting old, if you are going to buy a card why hesitating the best on your budget.

I would recommend you to get the Geforce 6800Gt/6800 consider that it is about the same price as x800pro but perform better and with ps3.0.

Don't get me wrong. I am not nVidia fan boy. I am just aiming for the best hardware i can get.

that was my point, 9800 won't be able to run everything at decent quality in a few months... that's why i would go a bit higher. 6800gt would be nice.

Yes - you are right, it is better to spare some money and buy 6800gt/ultra, but... you will also need to change most of your computer - CPU, motherboard, PSU (if buying 6800ultra), maybe RAM.

I saw a benchmark where they tested newset cards on pentium 2.8c ghz and amd 3800+ (socket 939) - same card gave more fps on 3800+ computer (at some tests, 3800+ is sooooo much faster). Hey, card is same - only CPU/motherboard are different!

Another thing - monitor. If you have 17'' monitor, and use it in 1024*768 resolution, then those x800/6800 cards will not give you too much of acceleration over 9800pro (if you use AA=0 and AF=0). But, if you have some 19'' or even 21'' monitor and use it in 1600*1200 resolution, and set AA and AF to maximum, then x800/6800 card is for you.

If you have monitor that can not display 1600*1200 resolution, then why buying just a graphics card, when you'll get nearly the same fps as 9800pro/xt? You'll have to buy a monitor too.

:beer:

i'm sorry but i have to say that in my opinion i would wait for buying something like x800 pro or 6800 simply because I think of it this way. Do you go and buy a new car because somebody says it will be the fastest and the best you have ever seen? I don't. I test it out and see for myself how well it works before i even consider it. So why would you buy a video card that promises to run unreleased games just because a few sites say that it will do it fine?

yes unless you are a AA / AF freak ... which I am not ... I hate AA and AF ... its OK but its so less of difference

with 0 and 0 the x800 is around 10% faster then 9800 ... upgrading CPU / mobo to 939 makes much more of sense here ... but upgrading from Ti or below makes much sense since you got full PS2.0 support which is hell a lot faster on 9800 or above