Well, I decided out of a sense of morbidity to go see how the Nvidia 5700 Ultra does against the 9600XT. Xbitlabs has a *very* lengthy article on the subject, and it was interesting to see that Nvidia does well in the geometry department, and ATI trounces Nvidia in the pixel shader arena. (this graph will give you an idea *how* badly it trounces Nvidia, http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video/fx5700ultra-9600xt/shadermark_640.gif
In general, the 5700's faster memory helps it out at higher resolutions, but at lower ones, the 9600XT leads.
Of course, this is all academic. How do they do in the game benchmarks?
Well, for the most part in the older games, the 9600XT sticks very very close to the 5700's score, until you get to the highest resolution, where ATI takes a small dive. However, the engines used in those benchmarks won't be around for too much longer, as is mentioned in the article.
The tests with the newer engines, taking advantage of Directx9, showed that the 9600XT smacks Nvidia around quite harshly. However, this is partially the fault of the 5700's drivers not being totally compatible with DX9, something that will be fixed later, according to this month-old review. (Does anyone know if it *has* been fixed yet?)
Also, pretty much any game where the 5700 shows an advantage over the 9600 XT? Enable FSAA and AF, and watch the 9600XT take off.
Small bit on overclocking: the 'overdrive' feature, according to the article, isn't yet usable for the 9600XT, a problem that will be fixed in the next Catalyst drivers.
My personal conclusion? If you play Counterstrike, Quake, etc. and run at low resolutions anyway for the max FPS and speed you can get? Go with the 5700 Ultra. But, if you're like me and play non-multiplayer stuff the majority of the time (being on dialup doesn't encourage me to compete online after all), and you just want beautifully rendered graphics, (as well as potential to run games coming out in the next year) definitely go with the 9600XT.
Of course, these conclusions are drawn from only one source, and if you would like to debate any of the above, go ahead and show me another article. Xbitlab's was very thorough however, so I feel confident in my statements.
Anima