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they're exactly the same, they're always trying to be better than the other
Not at all. ATI's drivers are updated every month, and they are always a huge improvement over the old ones. I'm currently running the new 4.12's and they are rock solid, fast, and beautiful.
Also, for $160, you can get a 128MB 9700 Pro which will outperform anything else in the sub-$200 price class. It costs only $20 more than a 9600XT, and has twice the power.
I have a Sapphire 9700 Pro with upgraded cooling...One Vantec IceBerq 4 w/ blue LED lights, four Vantec copper-plated anodized aluminum RAMsinks for the bottom RAM, four Zalman jet blue RAMsinks for the top RAM, and four Zalman mini-RAMsinks for the MOSFET heat spreader. It now runs icy cool, not to mention that it performs amazingly well. A 128MB 9800 Pro is barely nan upgrade, it only bests the 9700 Pro by about 5-6 fps. Hell, the 9700 Pro is .6 fps faster than the 9800 Pro on the UT2004 benchmarks.