Radeon 9550se vs. 9250

[spoonfedTbear]

Hi,

I've been given a choice of these two cards for the same price (both 128MB, both 64bit, the 9250 is a sapphire and the 9550se a Celestica), was wondering which is technically better. Also, the 9250 does not have a fan which is a bonus (trying to build as silent a pc as possible)... dya reckon I could stick a heatsink on the 9550se and get away with no fan? I don't play games but would still like to get the best i can for my buck.

Have just read a few posts about flashing the card, if I was gonna try that what can I reach up to with each card?

Cheers,

STB

[zAAm]

Both will easily work with only a passive heatsink, even if mildly overclocked... I have only a passive crappy heatsink on mine and it already has decent performance.

The 9550se would probably be better than the 9250 since it's based on the RV350 core instead of the RV280 for the 9250. You should actually try to get a normal 128bit 9550 non SE if possible or if your budget allows it (only a bit extra), but if you don't play games you'll likely not notice much difference.

As for flashing, I think the 9550SE can be flashed to a 9600 and then overclocked. My 9550 went up to 410MHz core and 265MHz memory (Default 250/200MHz). The 9250's stock speeds are 240/200MHz but I don't think you'll be flashing it to anything or overclocking it close as much as the 9550SE.

Hope this helps.

[spoonfedTbear]

Thanks zAAm,

Seems that there is little advantage in flashing a 64bit card with a 128bit card's bios, so OCing is probably the way to go. Just spoke to the shop, pratt as gone and changed his mind again, looks like the options are:

£25 9250
£30 9600SE (he's run out of 9550se's apparently)
£50 9600 Pro

Reckon I probably go with the 9250 in the end.

Thanks again,

STB

[Jimmy 2004]

£50 for a 9600pro? Go for that. They normally cost around £70 for a cheaper one. Or try to get a proper 9550 and OC it to 9600 speeds.

[ATijbaroli]

My Sapphire 9550 ocs to 450/550 with standard active cooling, and Samsung TC40 memory chips.
Does somebody know about a MEMORY vmod, because I found core vmod but I´m not interested in it.

[wazzledoozle]

Go for the 9600SE, the 9250 64 bit wont have good enough performance to do much on anything.

[kRaZeD]

My Sapphire 9550 ocs to 450/550 with standard active cooling, and Samsung TC40 memory chips.
Does somebody know about a MEMORY vmod, because I found core vmod but I´m not interested in it.TC40 isnt bad RAM. I had it on my 9200SE and it could clock from stock speed of 200mhz (400 effective) up to 270mhz (540mhz effective) without artifacts.

As for a vmod for the RAM... ill ask a mate of mine :)