Well, I have three home systems with a 95pro, 96pro, and a 97pro (the
wife says it'll be part of the upcoming lawsuit). My experience is both
cards, the 95 and the 96 pros are pretty close. On games using lots of T&L
the 95 is somewhat faster particularly at higher res (>10x7). On some games,
particularly Shader stuff, it seems the 96 is a tad quicker, maybe because
of faster internal speed. I also found its easier to overclock my 96 than my
95 with the stock HSF, mostly because it runs cooler (.13u vs .15u).
Remember, not all ATI based cards have the same memory chips and some
overclock better than other so YMMV. Neither card matches my 97pro
performance. My guess is both cars will probably choke a bit on a Doom3
caliber game if played above 8x6.
If you use res > than 10x7 I'd consider the 95pro if price is below the
96XT, otherwise I'd go with the XT.
best-0-luck,
mikey
