9500, 9700, 9800, Some Interesting Questions

[sheik124]

ok here's the deal
from a friend, i can get a Radeon 9500 NP with the L-Shaped Memory (256bit) for $110, a Sapphire 9700 Pro for $135, a PowerColor Evil Commando 2 9700 Pro for $138, a refurbished PowerColor Radeon 9800SE for $143, a refurbished Sapphire 9800 (non-pro/non-se) for $145, or a Powercolor Radeon 9800SE for $154 (the diff between this and the other powercolor besides refurb is that this has a molex connector, the other is like 9500 with a floppy connecter and an adapter gadget thing). now really, whats the best option here? i could get the 9500, go 9700 Pro, then use those hacked files for 9800 Pro functionality (the Smartshader 2.1, and all that crap) or get the 9700 Pro and go 9800 Pro, get a 9800SE and go 9800 Pro, or get a 9800 and OC to 9800 Pro (unless its a 128bit)
WHAT DO I DO!?!? what looks best to me, is the PowerColor 9700 Pro (heard too much shit about sapphire's inferior cooler, although no matter what i get im slapping an arctic cooling vga silencer on that shit) cause its the only "guaranteed" performance i can buy, there's always the chance that your 9800SE will checkerboard, or your 9800 won't go that far, and this is only temporary because 1. my geforce fx 5700 will go into an older pc, 2. soon a 3rd pc will be bought, off this goes and in comes a 6800 GT

 

[Reznor007]

Get the Sapphire 9700 pro. Sapphire makes ATI's cards(the Built by ATI cards), so they are essentially the same card. The SE versions are 1/2 the speed of the non-SE versions, and I'm not fond of buying repaired products.

 

[sheik124]

aye but you can softmod the SE's to Pro just like that, unless your stuck with a chip that had 4 BAD pipelines, and i know sapphire makes the ati cards, they are essentially the same PCB, but as far as cooling goes, Sapphire likes to use those puny little heatsinks

EDIT: whoa! the powercolor 9700pro (new) just flew from 154 to 188 on newegg and is out of stock till sunday, odd, well, most people with that PowerColor 9800SE and a VGA Silencer got good results, i guess i can only pray, unless that 9700 Pro comes back down in price, or my dad agrees to a 9800 Pro (200)