Well no it's not a 9500 lol. I said 'hacked' 9500. That means 9700/Pro
If you buy a 9500 for $150, you can 'convert' it to a 9700 worth $300. It can be dangerous, like converting Shady to a priest, but it can be done.
I've almost screwed mine up by sanding down a few resistors around the core
Anyways thanks to my mistakes, I'll let you all in on the secret of how to do it right.
First you need a 9500 OEM(non pro) 128MB card. Mine is a Sapphire, you could also go for powercolor and such other. The RAM layout on the PCB must be 'L' shaped. Meaning two chips on the top, two on the side on the front of the PCB. This indicates that the 9500 is on a 9700 PCB.
The newer 9500s will be protected with a 128bit PCB, so they're not good for this. The layout of the new model has 4 chips across the top of the card. You should easily be able to get the appropriate card right now, but you should try to be quick because ATI has found out about this. Not that they didn't know originally, but they didn't expect people to find out. They asked Sapphire to stop producing these cards, I do not yet know if Sapphire will abide by their request.
So anyways, if you do get your hands on one, Ill give you the 'safe' procedure on how to modify it.
There have been issues with people getting 'checkerboard' effects on the screen after performing the mod. This is probably due to substandard R300 cores that qualified for a 9500. I believe this is caused by a high-order Z-buffer, meaning 24-bit/32-bit. Forcing Z-buffer to 16-bit should clear this problem.
Fortunately I'm able to run a 32-bit Z flawlessly, maybe the people that attempted this mod screwed something up which is why theirs didn't work as it should. Anyways I'd go for it, deal of a lifetime. Get the best video card in the world for $150
!