radeon 9800???

[amazon_sephy]

Hi,

Ive been looking at the radeon 9800 series for abit and know that there are supposed to be 3 varients, the non pro, the pro 128mb, and the pro 256mb. However, looking on pricewatch i see there is one listed called the 9800 se. Is this an even more stripped down version of the 9800 non pro or just some mix up?? The price of all the se's is around $190 where as all the 9800 non pro non se's are around $250.... Any clearification on this would be great. Thx.

 

[StormBringer]

From X-Bit Labs

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.

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.

 

[PreservedSwine]

Avoid the R9800SE...it has only 4 pipes...unlike the R9800P and R9800np that each have 8 pipes...

 

[stilup]

Makes me happy to get a real card before they
got the next affordable version that's half equipped for the real fragging world.