Softmod difference?

[Quasimodo]

I've been looking for a new video card for a while, Everquest and Doom3 being a killer on my old clunky Nvidia Geforce4 card.

As the wife has given me a pretty limited upgrade budget I have settled on getting a Powercolor 9800SE and softmoding it up to the 9800.

I see the best price is at newegg at about $144

Lo and behold along comes a 1 day sale for this. Is there a big deal of difference in the ability to soft mod this card -- Linky --

vs.

this one.

-- Linky --

Final question. Does using the softmod drivers affect the warranty, (looked thru the archives and didnt see anything on it)
Sorry if its a noobish ques.. still way new at this OC thing

Thanks in advance for the help

 

[kylebisme]

The first one is a 9600pro and wont softmod into anything.

 

[Lonyo]

If you play Everquest and Doom 3, I would seriously look at the 5800NU thread for $109 retail.
It's supposedly a killer at Doom 3 (for its price), I don't know about Everquest, but I would expect it to do fairly well (the rest of your system might be an issue there as well, not just graphics card, RAM especially)

 

[Quasimodo]

I have a Dell Dimension 4550
P4 2.5 / 1gb ram (pc2700 crucial ram)
60bg Seagate avalanche.

Its been coming for a while that I need to upgrade. Why would you recommend the 5800NU vs the 9600 se?

 

[Rage187]

I'd just wait for the 6600 for $150.

 

[kylebisme]

That is going to be a good two months yet.

 

[Quasimodo]

KK thank you, in regards to my second ques does the softmod affect manf warranty and what about refurbished items?

And I'm getting way confused as to the diff between the Pro, Se, Ez versions of all the Radeon 9600 cards. I had no idea when I started looking for a video card I needed to enroll in an electrical engineering class to understand clock speeds, bit types and data channels..

 

[five40]

Go with the 6600. It's a great card. I've already used one for a system build.

 

[PunkRocKEVin]

Originally posted by: Quasimodo
KK thank you, in regards to my second ques does the softmod affect manf warranty and what about refurbished items?

And I'm getting way confused as to the diff between the Pro, Se, Ez versions of all the Radeon 9600 cards. I had no idea when I started looking for a video card I needed to enroll in an electrical engineering class to understand clock speeds, bit types and data channels..

*the 9600SE is only a 64-bit card (waste of money).
*the 9600nonpro is 128-bit, and so is the 9600Pro, but the Pro has higher core/memory speeds than the 9600nonpro (9600pro: 400/600 | 9600: 325/400).
*the 9600XT is also 128-bit, but uses the RV360 core and, thus, a higher core speed (500/600).

 

[Quasimodo]

So I've pretty much come full circle.

I need to bite the bullet and just order the PowerColor Radeon 9800 SE C3 card for the soft mod. Or is there a better model to mod.
And why does the softmod only work 1/2 the time. I would think that if the cards come with the same architure from the same company all the cards would respond in the same manner to the soft mod.

they also show on newegg REFURBISHED: ATI AIW RADEON 9600XT Video Card, 128MB DDR, 128-bit

for $144.90


I tried diligently to find answers to these questions in the past posts but there is so much information my head began to spin.

Thanks for the help btw.

 

[PunkRocKEVin]

whats your price range?

 

[Avalon]

Softmodding the card will not void your warranty. It's reversible, and requires no physical modification of your card. If your card artifacts, though, you're out of luck. The GPU is the same core that the 9800 pro is, but some chips don't work correctly when they are produced, ie, pipelines are defective. So, they lock some of them and sell the card as a cheaper card so they don't have to toss it. The powercolor C3 is the only card I think people should choose when trying to softmod a 9800Se. Hopefully yours will work.

 

[Quasimodo]

I'm probably looking at top end $150 for my card. with that price range there are so many different varieties from ATI and Nvidia that I am utterly lost.

 

[PunkRocKEVin]

on newegg the best cards i see for $150 are the ASUS FX5700 (which i almost bought) and the Sapphire 9600XT.
i swear by ASUS, so i'm partial to their 5700, but the 9600XT may get the edge in a few benchmarks.

from what i've read of softmodding, it more than likely can end up as a giant waste of money, which i cant
recommend, especially if you're strapped to a budget.
i've also heard terrible things about powercolor cards in general.

if you're tight on cash, get the most bang for your buck and get a 9600xt. then overclock it and see what
you can do with stock cooling.

if for some reason you find another $50 dollars, just get an 9800pro

 

[PrayForDeath]

Softmod doesn't void your warranty, but overclocking does.
Newegg have 3 different versions of PowerColor 9800SE: C3, C3L, and C3G, both C3 and C3G have 256bit memory and they have a high chance to softmod to 9800 Pro, but the C3L is cheaper, has 128bit memory and a small chance to softmod only to a 9500Pro, so you better be off with a C3 or a C3G for softmoding.
But I don't recommend these cards anymore since many other options are available these days for that price range, you can wait for the 6600 AGP to hit retail at 150$, you can get a used 9800 Pro for 150ish, or you can go for that 5800 NU deal for 109$, it's a steal IMO.
Good luck

edit: PunkRocKEVin, the 9600XT is ALWAYS faster than the 5700 NU. But I don't recommend any of these two, both are a waste of money because the 9800SE C3/C3G outperforms both if NOT softmoded, because it has 256bit memory and the Pro's stock clockspeeds. And PowerColor's cards aren't "Terrible", I am using one, and it ran flawlessly since the day I bought it. But I still don't recommend getting an SE while the 5800 NU deal is available at newegg.

 

[Delorian]

I'm with Avalon and Prayfordeath on this one, the 9800 SE is the better deal out of the two you picked, but there are better deals out there than either. I wouldn't buy one of these right now for $144. I'd go with the 5800NU for $109 or maybe save an extra 20-30 bucks and get a 9800 pro for $179.99 (no need to gamble on a good softmod) at outpost.com

You asked why "1/2" of the time the softmod doesn't work. Well basically these "se" cards had chips that would've been used in 9800 pro/xt models (R350 and R360) but didn't perfectly meet the quality control standards. These chips were then tested, had half of their pipes disabled (through software) and put in cards which were rebadged as 9800 "SE" cards. The actual % for the powercolor C3 card softmod is much higher than 50%, I think it's somewhere around 75-80%. Take a look at newegg's reviews and tally up the people who were successful w/o artifacts and who wasn't successful and that will tell you it's definitely more than half. My powercolor 9800 se c3 softmodded fine and reaches right up to xt speeds while OCed and will beat any 9600 any day. Powercolor is a fine brand, no worse than any other.

Prayfordeath - the 9600XT is actually a bit faster on average than a 9800 SE (a small percentage) Usually when using heavy shaders. Though pretty much all 9600s are better than a 5700.

 

[Quasimodo]

I've looked at newegg and can't see th 5800NU that you are referring to @ $109.

 

[Delorian]

sorry man, you're too late, they had 17 about a week or two ago. link to old deal

Here's a good price you may be interested in though

Crucial 9700 pro refurbed for $129

That will kill any 5800

 

[Quasimodo]

Only thing I worry about w refurb is the lack of a long term warranty. On the crucial site if memory serves me correctly you get like 15 days refund and 1 yr exchange. How safe would you feel with that short of a warranty?

 

[kylebisme]

If hardware is going to fail prematurely it tends to do it quickly, so if the card makes it though the first 15 days it will most likely live a long life.

 

[Delorian]

Crucial gives a 30 day time period for refund, then exchange after that. I agree with snowman about failure of hardware. I've been running on a refurbed WD 100GB hard drive thats been constantly run and moved around (switched in/out of cases) and it's still treating me well. I think if you go with this and OC the card/play around with it a lot for a week or so and can't find any problems, you should definitely be good for the remainder of the cards usefulness, but I understand your concern with refurbs.

If you must have a new product w/ a warranty I'd go for this 9800 and slap an arctic cooling VGA silencer on top to OC it some.


9800

 

[Rio Rebel]

Originally posted by: Delorian
sorry man, you're too late, they had 17 about a week or two ago. link to old deal

Here's a good price you may be interested in though

Crucial 9700 pro refurbed for $129

That will kill any 5800

Listen to this man. The Crucial refurbed 9700pro is the deal you want. You are taking MUCH more of a risk trying to softmod your card (and paying more, AND voiding your warranty anyway when you overclock and mod it.)

I wouldn't suggest just anybody's refurbs, but I'd take a Crucial refurb over some company's new items.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Quasimodo
I've been looking for a new video card for a while, Everquest and Doom3 being a killer on my old clunky Nvidia Geforce4 card.

As the wife has given me a pretty limited upgrade budget I have settled on getting a Powercolor 9800SE and softmoding it up to the 9800.

I see the best price is at newegg at about $144

Lo and behold along comes a 1 day sale for this. Is there a big deal of difference in the ability to soft mod this card -- Linky --

vs.

this one.

-- Linky --

Final question. Does using the softmod drivers affect the warranty, (looked thru the archives and didnt see anything on it)
Sorry if its a noobish ques.. still way new at this OC thing

Thanks in advance for the help

Tell you wife, "Last I checked, I'm a free man who earns a living and is a good husband. I don't care if $150 sounds like the right amount of money to you, I'm going to spend up to $50 more than that and buy a new 9800Pro. "

You can thank me later.

 

[iversonyin]

haha, go home and say

"Wife, i need money for ________ and _________" (food, pants, water, shelter, bullcrap...etc)

before i suggest you doing that, i assume that you work and you do not depend on your wife for living

if you don't work and just sit home and play games. shame on u.

if you do work, i don see how $150-200 become a problem. women would never get the idea of spending $200 on a piece of cicuit board....

 

[Quasimodo]

It's more a matter of $$ being a bit tight and having to budget accordingly. The wifey has always been awesome at letting me purchase/upgrade when needed but it would hardly be fair to take money from the pot that need to go to things like bills/food or the ever important beer fund :beer:

So going off of some previous posts would the performance gain between

128MB Crucial RADEON 9800 Pro (refurbished)

and

128MB Crucial Radeon 9700 Pro (refurbished)

be noticable at all. On Toms it shows a diff of approx 8-9 fps in most benchmarks

-- Linky --