the sapphire card went up in price this week too. i'd wait for their sales and see if it goes down again. does the sapphire 9600xt bundle come with HL2?
It really depends on what you want to do b/t the two cards you have. If it were me, I'd go with the ASUS for two reasons. Comes out cheaper if you don't want to upgrade the heatsink/fan combo for overclocking and comes with VIVO. If I may so myself. ITS ABOUT DAMN TIME ATI has some more cards with VIVO besides NVidia. (Now I'm talking about regular cards not counting the AIW, and top of the line video cards, not the original Radeon or the Rage Fury Pro).
neither of those links are to a sapphire card. they are ati and asus. the ati card has hl2. the asus card does too. this is easily seeable by looking at the image of the box for the cards.
Unless you are planning on going recording video with your card, get the ATI one. I have only ever bought the built by ATI cards but i am sure the Asus is a quality product.
I think that any card with the 9600XT or 9800XT, no matter who made it, comes with the HL2 coupon thingy.
I agree with starfury, the was only an ATI and ASUS card, no saphire.
One diff the ASUS cards have over the other Radeons is it has SmartDoctor instead of ATi's Overdrive function. I don't have the article with me, but ASUS claims its better than ATi's Overdrive 'cuz you have more overclocking options.
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