My BB 9600NP out of box was a POS, but after a little arctic silver and make sure my system has good airflow, I got a stable card running at core 440 (can go higher) and mem 500Mhz.
3dmark2k1 , over 12,000
3dmark2k3 , over 33,00
overall not a bad card play all my game with 4x/4x
and the most important thing...NO FAN. No motor ware and tear and no dust