Alright im purchasing a new card and ive been un-happy with my nivida cards id had 1 blow up and this one only works with q3 engine. So is it better to buy the Radeon 9600se or xt (199)



Or swallow the cost and go for the 9800 pro (299)

the best value for money ati card around atm is the 9600xt

You do realize the "SE" means lower performance than the normal 9600 (which = suck). Did you mean the 9800SE instead of 9600SE?

See this thread:

Video Card Thread

Might help you shop.  I just bit the bullet and got a 9800 Pro myself (after 2 Nvidia cards) - haven't put it in yet though.

Depends if you overclock or not. The 9600pro will overclock better, but 9600xt will give you better stock performance.
You do get a much better performance out of the 9800pro/xt though.

9700pro is pretty cheap if you can find any on the market, and they're nearly as good as a 9800pro.

You could also get a 9800SE (much cheaper) and softmod it to unlock the 4 extra pixel pipelines which gives you almost the same performance as a 9800pro, but afaik it's quite an unreliable process. Only worth it if you're going to buy a 9800SE anyway.

from what ive heard im prolly going to go with 9600xt because theres just no way i can aford the 9800 and the 9600 comes ith a free reserved hl2  

the 9600 non-pro can be soft modded to a 9700 non-pro and can be overclocked quite well

i think if u are saving money u should buy is the All-in-Wonder 9600

9800 Non-Pro if you can still find one. They go for about $250, some can be unlocked to 9800Pros. But all of them should OC to near Pro speeds.

Be careful with the 9800SE's, some have only 4 pipes, while others only 128bit memory bus. Some will softmod, others won't. Do your research.