OK, I have to jump in here and set a few things straight. If you have to have DirectX9 then get the 9600Pro, but nothing except 3DMark 2003 requires it. If you have to play at a lower resolution because you monitor won't support 1600 x 1200 and a decent refresh rate, then you will need AA and AF and go for the 9600 Pro.
If you want to save money and have a faster video card, pick any 128MB GF4 Ti that runs a minimum of 300/650. Using the 44.03 Dets and 1600 x 1200 with no AA or AF it will still look very good, you will be hard put to actually see the difference at resolutions this high.
Before you guys disagree, you better read up on this
link
I have known this for awhile, but everybody seems to think AA and AF is a necessity. If you scroll down and look at the benchmarks, you can see at 1600 x 1200 the Ti4600 beats the 5600 Ultra and 9600 Pro handily with AA and AF off. It also beats the 9500 Pro. Now just try 1600 x 1200 for yourself without the AA and AF. Without being biased because you don't have these settings on, really take a good look and see how the image quality is compared to 1280 x 1024 or 1024 x 768 with these turned on. Only the 9700 Pro has the capability to run 1600 x 1200 with these on maintaining good framerates. I have two of these, and even at 1600 x 1200 with AA and AF turned on I can't see a noticable difference. And plain 1600 x 1200 definately looks better than lower resolutions with AA and AF.
You can hand pick a good overclocking Ti4200 128MB refurbished on Newegg for $89-$99 and game with the best of them with good image quality and very good framerates. I know this older technology being competitive goes against the general feelings here. But like I said, I have two Radeon 9700 Pros and four fast GF4 Ti 128MB cards. Using the settings above the 9700 Pro doesn't have much on the GF4's, and the 9600 Pro and 5600 Ultra certainly have less.
