Video card upgrade, yup another post about that subject

[Solune]

Greetings everybody,

I just bought a new computer, and the last piece I need is a video card that will replace my old hercules 3d prophet geforce 3 ti 200 64 DDR. Since I spent a lot of money by buying this new system, I would like to know if the ATI 9600 PRO is a good video card to buy right now, it is interesting because it is really affordable. The price is lower than the higher cards and it seem to support direct x 9.1 and be overclockable. I would like to know if it's a good long or medium term purchase and if it would be really better in order to run FFXI smoother than my current graphic card ?

In order to help you guys with your advice, here are the specs of my system :

P4 3GHZ 800FSB
1go DDR 400mhz
SATA 150 Maxtor 80 Go with 8 cache memory HD
Intel® Desktop Board D865PERL
Hercules Geforce 3 TI200 64 DDR video card (175mhz core clock I think, can be overclocked to 220.)
Sound Blaster Audigy platinum (don't matter but oh well...)

Furthermore, I got these results from the benchmark 2.

High : 2100
Low : 3215

Well, in order to conclude I hope someone will be able to advice me upon my next video card purchase, and I thank you for your time, that's really appreciated.

Best regards,

Solune.

[Doppelganger]

9600pro
-overclockable like crazy
-under 200
-full dx9 compatibility
-sure to get you over 3800 high, 4600 low (who goes low res ingame anyway?)

it's a good card... i wish i had it, but my parents are too cheap to get me it and $180 worth of rd ram (i need 512 more mb for video editing, so it's one or the other for me... memory upgrades perced vid cards always)

[Solune]

Well thank you for your reply, actually my decision will be the ATI 9600XT, I think it'S a good price/quality ratio

[SSJChrono]

9600pro
-overclockable like crazy
-under 200
-full dx9 compatibility
-sure to get you over 3800 high, 4600 low (who goes low res ingame anyway?)

it's a good card... i wish i had it, but my parents are too cheap to get me it and $180 worth of rd ram (i need 512 more mb for video editing, so it's one or the other for me... memory upgrades perced vid cards always)

No its not... (overclockable like crazy). Well actually it depends, if you can find one with 2.8ns memory, then yeah but i wouldnt say its overclockable like crazy.

Just thought i would comment, its still a good card, although I've had lots of issues with my ATI cards, but after awhile i was able to resolve them. I didnt have near the issues with my Nvidia cards. But the Nvidia cards sucked at DX9 benchies.

[Solune]

I see, but I heard the 9600xt was slightly better than the 9600 PRO, do you guys know if it is really true ?

[SSJChrono]

well of course you heard that... i mean its a new card from ati, duh why would they want you to buy the pro...

the only diff between the two is you can OC the XT with out voiding the warranty, and it has slightly higher clock rates. I don't the the 9600xt comes with HL2, but I know the 9800xt does.

[GSDragoon]

The 9600TX AND 9800TX both come with HL2.

[The Heretic]

As stated before, XT features "Overdrive", which is a great, simple overclocking utility from ATi (The 1st time ATi have ever allow OC'ing)

What on Earth makes you think that the Xt isnt faster than the pro!? Of course it is! www.tomshardware.com will tell you the score!