the 9500 will probably give better framerate and overall better picture quality. Stability really depends on your system. I would wait a month until the 9800 and by the 9700 cuz the price should drop.

I have the 9700pro, it's extremely good. 9500 chip is basically identical, will work well for you.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
The Next Thing I Say To You Will Be True
The Last Thing I Said Was False

Thanks for the reply posts guys, Some more opinions would be nice though, there are hundreds of guys on this forum and only 2 guys willing to reply?????

Come on lend a hand.

Badcalma

Ah, Bump......

I'm a big nVidia fan, so personally I'd probably go for one of the newer GeForce cards. However, the ATI cards are fine pieces of hardware and currently may even outperform nVidia's. That said, nVidia has had a much better track record with driver updates.

At the end of the day, I think you'll be happy with either option. They're the two leading cards in the industry. Shop around and enjoy.

If you're going for the Nvidia, get the Ti4600, the 4400 isn't enough better than the 4200 to justify the price difference. However, the 9500 is the better card, and the 9700 is even better, so if cost is not an issue, get the ATI.

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world:
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Had exsamples of both and now that ATI have cought up with driver production would go with them, 9700 pro creams the fastest gforce by about 25%.

Well, the fastest Geforce is the FX 5800, and the ATI 9700 is pretty evenly matched with it. I wouldn't buy either one right now though. I'd save money by buying a GF4 Ti4200, since it'll play all games fine today, then splurge for the ATI 9800 or the next Nvidia, which should actually be GOOD since they're dropping the NV30 and concentrating their efforts on the next phase.

ATI still has driver problems (*cough* Freelancer *cough*), Nvidia virtually doesn't know what "bad" drivers are =P

Save for its minor issues with Freelancer (which are thankfully still easily fixed), I find the latest Catalyst drivers pretty darn stable - at least as stable as the Dets I was using on my old GF3.

Wait if you can until after the new flagship cards are released...if not, I think the 9500 Pro is the best mid-range card to get. If you have the money to spare, a 9700 Pro won't let you down; hasn't let me down yet.