"SE" means its a "value" card. Much like the Celeron is to the Pentium 4. You won't see near the kind of performance out of a 9800 SE as you would a 9800 Pro.
Stay away from 9800 SE. They truncated most of the hardware stuff on it (number of pipelines, transistors, speed of memory etc...) They are playing with numbers is all. Get the 9600 PRO or XT or even better, the 9800 PRO or XT.
I know that a 9800 Pro or xt is WAY better. But I've already said- I can't afford those. So for my price range, what would be better? And is there just a plain 9800?? And even if the 9800se is bad- would it still be better than the 9600 pro?? If so- in what ways?
Okay- Right now I am looking at a 140 dollar Radeon 9600xt that is 128mb. Is this link good? http://www.nt-micro.com/ntik/details.asp?item=sp9600xt128
What does OEM mean? Will that card work good? Or where else can I buy this card at that price? Also- what about the fan? Is that too small? Or would I have to put another on there? Thanks!
get the 9600 xt.. blows a 9800 se out of the roof and into space.. like the other said, never go for any se series, even if its a x800 se (if there even is one, lol)