Yeah pricing does suck but theres not much you can do about it. I'd only really upgrade from the 9700 Pro if you really needed it. It should be able to handle anything out now really well, especially when Half-Life 2 comes out it will run it really well. The 9700's are still an awesome card, hell I'm only running a 9500 Pro at the moment and it plays everything I throw at it. Sure I'm not playing Doom 3 at super high resolutions but hey do I really need to.