256MB Radeon 9600 for $149 at CompUSA...

[Woolen Horde]

Wow, I was just there looking at it and does this sound like a deal or what?

Visiontek 9600 with 256MB of RAM. $199, but with a $50 mail-in rebate.

That's so damn tempting. That's probably the best bang/buck deal right now, isn't it?

Advice quickly! Money burning hole in wallet.

[extarbags]

God I wish I had $200 lying around. :(

Don't get me wrong, I like my 9200 a lot and it was a good deal when I got it for $130, but for just $20 more...

[JD]

That's probably the best bang/buck deal right now, isn't it? Check the speed of the VRAM first and compare it to other 9600 cards. 128MB cards can be faster if they have better RAM and at that price the 256MB card might not have the fasted memory available. (It could, but it's definitely a factor you should consider.)

[Woolen Horde]

According to Visiontek's site...

GPU clocked at 325MHz
RAM clocked at 400MHz DDR

[Erik Andersson]

It doesn't sound like a very good deal to me, and the prices should be higher in Sweden. 325/400 is the standard I think, but pro should be 400/600 and XT 500/600 (unless they change it in the last minute). I wouldn't be surprised if you could find a pro for $150 now, but in any case it will probably end up in that price range when the XT has been out for a while. Memory size doesn't matter very much and in the cases where it would matter the card is probably too slow anyway. The reason they can use 256MB with these cards is that 400Mhz memory is very cheap.

[Jason Becker]

I'd rather have a Pro with the faster core and memmory speeds.