5900 SE or 5700 Ultra?

[Venesectrix]

I've been thinking of buying a new video card, and I've narrowed it down to two options: the FX 5900 SE (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-130-179&depa=1&section=1) and the FX 5700 Ultra (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-047&catalog=48&depa=1). The 5900 SE is $20 more expensive, and the 5700 Ultra has DDR II (which the 5900 SE does not). Does the newer card version outweigh both the benefits of DDR II and the extra $20? I'm going to be doing mostly gaming, so I'm looking for a nice cheap card that'll play Half-Life 2 and Doom3 well. If I made a bad choice, feel free to suggest other nvidia cards in my price range (under $200).

Also, could someone tell me what the versions on the nvidia cards mean? What's the difference between regular, SE, XT, and Ultra?

[football]

Anything 5900 is better than 5700, just because of the bus frequency being at 256 for even the slower clocked 5900's.

There is a link on this page of a 5900 that is clocked higher than the one you pictured for $155, didn't see it?

Just to be clear on the 256 thang.

57's have a 128-bit memory interface, and the 59's 256-bit

So a slower clocked 59 should still be faster than a faster clocked 57. But as I said, there is a BFG 5900 here that is clocked higher than the one you posted.

[Venesectrix]

I can't seem to find the higher clocked BFG 5900 for $155, I've looked in newegg's video card section and I've searched... link please :)

[football]

http://guru3d.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=1443659/search=geforce%2520fx/ut=44618ac77d0fb70f

[blurry]

5900 SE.

[larva]

I believe the 5700 is a four-pipeline GPU, making the differences in memory rather inconsequential. Anything 5900 is better than anything 5700, and the price difference is very minimal. I wanted VIVO and bought the Albatron 5900EPV for $207 from the egg, and it is dynamite. Here's the basic 5900 varieties:

5900xt (also called SE)
core-390MHz
memory-2.8ns clocked at 700MHz

Some xt's come on the full size pcb like the normal 5900, and others have the new reduced-size xt specific version. xt's that use the normal PCB (like the Leadtek) can be flashed with the 5950 bios... and run at least 950MHz on the memory in spite of the rather tame 2.8ns chips. I don't know if anyone has tried the 5950 bios on the newer PCB layout.

Albatron 5900EPV (odball 5900nu variant)
core-405MHz
memory-2.5ns Hynix clocked at 810MHz
mine oc'ed to 475/995 with the orignal bios, 520/995 with the 5950 bios. Great card.

Normal 5900nu
core-400MHz
memory 2.2ns Hynix clocked at 850MHz
oc varies a bit on these cards, as does cooling. Cooling is essentially the limiting factor for most 5900s. With a volt mod you can get most cards well over 500/1000MHz, but the heat generated must be considered.

5900u
core-450MHz
mem 2.2ns Hynix at 850MHz
very little point to these, as the standard 5900 caries the same ram and the cores clock to 450MHz bout 6 out of 5 times.

5950u
core-475MHz
mem-2.0ns Hynix(?) at 950MHz
great card to rob the bios from to flash to a big-PCB xt or essentially any 5900nu.