Help Please Head Hurts (9600 Pro's)

Tried googling this one a few times and i cant seem to find anything conclusive...

I had a GeForce5600FX, didnt really impress me that much, in fact i was disapointed. Also it had heaps of tearing at stock Freqs!! i though that was a bit fishy, so i sent it back for testing and lo and behold it was faulty, i took the store up on the offer for store credit.

Have decided to give radeon a whirl. Ive settled on a 9600 series. I have a few questions.

1). When the XT's come out (note: as i live in NZ we dont get them till November...) are they gonna be quite a bit dearer than the pros?

2). If i settle for a pro instead of waiting a couple of weeks for the XT's I have the following two options of cards from the comp shop. One of which i dont even think exists... But here they are;
(this is all the detail the shop gave me...)

Radeon 9600 Pro EZ: 8x AGP, 128mb CRT, DVI. I. SVIDEO, VIDEO OUT

for NZ$ 499

Radeon 9600 Pro Bravo: 8x AGP 256MB CRT, DVI,I,SVIDEO,VIDEO OUT

for NZ$ 520

Makes + Models they didnt tell me, On average it takes one day to get anysort of info from this shop, took 2 days to get those prices!!! Its the last time ill shop there, but since i cant get a strait refund i have no choice.

Now in a couple of posts it seems the EZ is a POS, But why would it only be an extra $20 for double the ram? In my searches ive not found and Bravos with 256mb of ram anyway!!


So hopefully with that info somone can help me.

Cheers

it's actually the first time I've heard of 256MB 9600 cards.

I don't think you'll gain much from double the RAM though, as even the 9800 does not gain that much from 256MB RAM, and the 9800 Pro is about twice the speed of the 9600 series.

So I'd say just get the 128MB version of the Pro now.

Im thinking that the place means 128megs of ram, will point that out to them tomorrow, i think that the bravo is the better option as its got a bit of extra mem clock as standard 670 vs 600 IIRC... not to mention the fact that power color use the 2.8 ns ram as opposed to the 3.3 ns ram as found on other Ati cards...


Its looking like the 9600xt that power color will bring out is gonna be pretty impressive (with the 2.8ns ram once again...) and they have much more OC capablitie, might just wait the extra 13 days and pay the extra $50 or so, should be well worth it.

Well i finally got my computer up and running with my new G Card, a 9600 Pro Bravo.

Result?? (With 3D Mark 2003/4...)

Old G Card Asus V 9560 5600 FX Score 2444
New G Card Score 3382!!

All i can say is wow,

Now ive just got to track down some decent drivers and overclock the little bugga.

Cyas.

cool.