Reviews for Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Strengths: Excellent performance for the price , extra 4 pipes unlocked successfully and was able to overclock to 9800 pro speeds.

Weakness: Heatsink could be better , in order to run at 9800 pro speeds I would deffinatly upgrade it.

Id also like to note that there is a compatability issue with the VIA KT133A chipset. I learned this after I purchased the card , getting it to work with my Abit KT7A requires me to leave the side of my case open. I have to unplugg the radeon and boot the system about 5 times before the red screen comes up informing you of the power cable , I then hold the reset button on the front of the case while attaching the radeon power cable then it will boot up fine. Im stuck doing this until I upgrade my mobo.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Strengths: Can Softmod!!! Price! Good Brand!

Weakness: Not all, but have a good chance.

I bought this card from newegg a month ago. I have no problem to softmod. It still runs very stable. Also, the manufacturer offers 2 years full warranty.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Strengths: With Omega drivers it performes like a Pro version. Note this is the only 9800SE with 256Bit memory (128MB)

Weakness: Does not make coffee... otherwise perfect!

1) Download the Omega drivers 2.5.22.
2) When you start install the driver, you should pick the option "Soft-Mod 9800SE Omega Driver 9800SE -> 9800 NP/Pro/XT".
3) Actually, it is already unlock the other 4 pipelines when the driver finish installed. However, you cannot really tell from video properties. You should download "riva tuner software".

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Strengths: Stable, Fast, Easy Install. Softmod drivers!

Weakness: Softmod may result in visual artifacts

I installed this card with the factory drivers and it worked flawlessly. Then installed the softmod drivers and had mixed results.

I bought two of these cards (14 serial #'s apart) and tested them both. One of the cards worked flawlessly with the mod drivers and one had some minor artifacts. However, the artifacts didn't affect game play, it just looked a little odd. Restarting the games cleared up the problem. The artifacts would sometimes be there and other times not.

Both benchmarked as a 9800pro (@ 8 pipes). Even as a 9800SE gameplay was acceptable even at high res.

Definitely recommend!

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Strengths: easy softmod

I softmodded this and now I ahve a 9800 pro for an awesome price. My friends are jealous that they missed this great buy. The graphics are really awesome.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Strengths: The speed of a 9800 Pro for much lower cost.

Weakness: There is risk that you won't get the extra speed.

I was one of the fortunate ones that was able to unlock the extra four pipes. As a result, this card is performing at a 9800 Pro level for me. I have read that many are not able to unlock the pipes, so there is risk. Without the pipes unlocked, it is an average card for the money, with the pipes unlocked, it is a great card for a great price.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Strengths: Potential to soft-mod into a 9800 Pro, 256-bit memory bus

Weakness: Standard cooling, 1-year warrenty

This is a great card for the price if you can successfully use the 4 locked pipelines. The cooling on this card leaves something to be desired with the stock ATI GPU fan and no heatsinks on the RAM, but I've had no stability problems so far. I wish the card came with a better software bundle, but that's just being picky.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Strengths: Fast chips, cheaper than 9800Pro

This is a quality product in the 9800 line. With a little work, you can enable the 4 pipelines and make it perform similar to 9800Pro. Good benchmark from the gamers. I'm very happy with the purchase.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Strengths: With the Omega Drivers you can open all 8 pipes and it runs as a 9800 Pro.

Weakness: There is a risk that the mod wont work with your card.

I have tested this card with the Omega drivers and it worked great and runs as a 9800pro. I have heard some people have had problems but I have had none. This is the second card I have soft moded, these Radon based cards that can be modified via drivers to run like cards twice the price are wonderful.

86% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Strengths: Great value Great performance for today's games

Weakness: Not top of the line Loud

This card has the best value for this price. At $200 it is a mid range card, performs like a 9600Pro. The 9600XT can best it slightly in GPU inteensive tasks due its clock speed of 525Mhz, but this card still performs well due to the better architechture. It uses the 9800 gpu but it has 4 pipelines disabled. If you can succesfully reenable the other 4 pipelines (with a softmod driver hack) then you will have the equivalent of a 9800Pro for half the price! however, this operation only works about 50% of the time. Nevertheless, it is still a great card without the softmod.

86% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Power Color Radeon 9800 SE Video Card

Strengths: Awesome Card for an awesome price (if you can unlock the 4 addtl pipes).

Weakness: The 4-pin power connector & power consumption. Had some trouble getting it to work at first but just reset my BIOS/CMOS and it was fine.

Got this card at a sweet price and the 4 pipes on it were able to unlock. I've heard it's a 50/50 on unlocking the pipes and it doesn't always work. Regardless, I've always wanted to pickup a Radeon ever since hearing about it, so I'm happy now.

75% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?