The 9550 is far from being a technological slouch though. While it may lack the raw pixel processing power of the Pro and XT series, it still has a 128-bit memory bus like the 9600 Pro and XT - in fact the 9550 is positioned between the 9600SE and the 9600Pro. While it definitely is not cutting edge, it should provide a healthy boost over DX7/DX8 video cards. This is an important step as it technically gives ATi a featureset that is nearly identical from the bottom up. This means that while games like Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia may not play as fast or at the same resolution of higher end cards, they will nonetheless play. The same cannot be said about the GF4MX series of cards.