If you can still find a Sapphire ATI Radeon 9500 non-pro 128mb card on the Red PCB then you can to a software mod to open up the 4 additional pipelines that the 9700 has. This particular card is the only one thats on the same PCB as the 9700. The 9500pro does not have the 256bit memory pipelines.

The success rate is about 50/50 for getting a flawless 9700 out of the 9500. Then you can still overclock it to the 9700pro speeds.

The black PCB 9500' s are the new cards that ATI is releasing, and you might get one of these even if the picture shows the red pcb card. These have the memory in a row across the top instead of in the " L" shape like the 9700. You cannot mod these into a 9700, but you can mod them to a 9500pro no problem.

Either way you cant go wrong with these cards. I bought one, and the mod was successful, but i was one of the other 50% with checkerboards on the screen. Oh well, it overclocked nicely and im still getting 12,700 3dmark2001 scores and 3,700 3dmark03 scores. You can find alot of info on the mod by searching the internet.

I' ve used both cards, (used to have the 9500) but the 9700 truly rocks. I was trying for ages to get the leaked Doom III code to try the card out properly!

Now there' s a hot topic, Doom III - there might be a ' goodie' coming soon to Kikizo actually.