The powercolor pro EZ 256mb for less than 100 pounds has 200Mhz less memory clock than stock ATI 9600PRO, that is why it costs less. If i were you i'd get the 9600 XT, its pretty well overclockable and probably will be a tiny bit faster in some cases than the TI. Plus the radeon 9600XT supports Dx9, and performs better in upcoming games. And about the 256MB RAM, it does not matter if you get 256, having double the ram of a normal 128 will not impact performance, sometimes it will because chances are they are selling old memory, and will give you less performance than a normal 128MB. So if price is a problem, theres a solution for you, get a 128, it will not differ. All 256mb does is more texture storage, which really no game in the industry is taking advantage of. A stock PRO is normall 400Core clock, 600 Memory clock. And pay attention to memory interface or memory architecture. If its 128 and higher, its good. Anything below 128 would impact performance greatly, so really like i said, 256 will not always improve performance. Its jsut a tactic to make a profit and get rid of memory that might be useless. So pay attention to the memory interface, this is different from the amount of RAM you have. 128BIT memory architecture, and 128Mb of RAM is good.
If i didn't mention before, the radeon 9600series will be perfect for HL2, but thats only a speculation till the real game comes out, due to Nvidia-Valve controversy.
