Well, the suspense is just killin' me.
I got a minor pay raise at work, and decided to reward myself with a vid card upgrade... it's true, the GF3 Ti200 is finally showing a touch of age (got a barton 2500+ overclocked to 3200 speeds; the wee GF3 is throttling me back a bit, methinks).
I had finally decided to try and grab a 9800 non-pro, but I must say that the 9600XT looming on the horizon may turn out to be better bang-for-buck, since I will certainly be grabbing HL2--why not go for the bundle?
On the other hand, I don't do hardware upgrades that often, and while I certainly can't justify the $500 for the 9800xt (or even $350 for the 9800pro), I'm having a hard time deciding if the 9800 non-pro is $100 better than the 9600xt will be (I say $100 more because a 9800non-pro runs about $250 these days, plus $50 for non-bundled HL2... heh).
But I'm paralyzed until I see some 9600xt benchmarks. I have heard "later in october", but does anything more precise exist? I know the supplies of 9800 non-pro cards is starting to dry up, but according to their website the 3 Best Buy stores near me still have them in stock, not to mention a few available on the web. Just trying to plan things as I can.
(Aaah, the anticipation of an impending hardware upgrade is almost as much fun as the new toy itself...).
:Stitch:
I got a minor pay raise at work, and decided to reward myself with a vid card upgrade... it's true, the GF3 Ti200 is finally showing a touch of age (got a barton 2500+ overclocked to 3200 speeds; the wee GF3 is throttling me back a bit, methinks).
I had finally decided to try and grab a 9800 non-pro, but I must say that the 9600XT looming on the horizon may turn out to be better bang-for-buck, since I will certainly be grabbing HL2--why not go for the bundle?
On the other hand, I don't do hardware upgrades that often, and while I certainly can't justify the $500 for the 9800xt (or even $350 for the 9800pro), I'm having a hard time deciding if the 9800 non-pro is $100 better than the 9600xt will be (I say $100 more because a 9800non-pro runs about $250 these days, plus $50 for non-bundled HL2... heh).
But I'm paralyzed until I see some 9600xt benchmarks. I have heard "later in october", but does anything more precise exist? I know the supplies of 9800 non-pro cards is starting to dry up, but according to their website the 3 Best Buy stores near me still have them in stock, not to mention a few available on the web. Just trying to plan things as I can.
(Aaah, the anticipation of an impending hardware upgrade is almost as much fun as the new toy itself...).
:Stitch: