Read the following two articles on the main page :
September 14
Broken 9700s There's a pretty good chance that EVERY Radeon 9700 card in existence today is likely to have the AGP 8X problem. ATI has apparently made revisions to boards which correct this.
Unless you like to buy broken $350 video cards (in which case, you need help), until ATI publicly says what is or isn't wrong with these cards, what they're going to do about it, and what happens to all the inventory out there, don't buy it.
And if you like to tell people to buy what could well be broken stuff . . . you need help, too.
Update: The ATI webpage on this issue, and the place where they'll announce updates is here.
September 18
Going From Red To Yellow A combination of statements from ATI and others, while not completely satisfactory, reduces the risk of buying this up-to-now high-maintenance card.
I'd still wait a while before buying an 8X AGP mobo/R9700 combo, though.