Renoise is worth it if you intend to make something other than chip with it as well.
It's extremely powerful, very similar to MilkyTracker [both take their UI-design from FastTracker II, so there shouldn't be too many problems], and works rather well, even on crap machines.
I had Renoise 1.9 on a 500MHz iBook, 192MB of RAM. I made a fairly complicated track, and used only about 30% CPU [uses ~3% CPU on my current 2.1GHz PC].

Also, the sampler in Renoise. Maaaan, the sampler. BEST. THING. EVER. Applying DSPs straight to samples, precise loop editor, and being generally easy to use... great stuff.

For me, Renoise is to lsdj what hookers are to blow: You can do well with just one of the two, but both at the same time yield the best results.
For "just chiptune", I prefer a gameboy and nothing more, but using renoise adds such a huge dimension of possibilities...
Though I haven't bought it yet. ... ... ...SHUT UP I DON'T HAVE THE MONEY! HOOKERS AND BLOW ARE EXPENSIVE!!!

I agree that you don't need something like Renoise to do chiptunes the purist way. I would even go as far as to say that using Renoise makes your chiptunes less "chituneish". On the other hand, it really depends on the individual approach, some of you will certainly disagree, but to me, making chiptunes does not exclude the use of advanced DSP and it does not even exclude vst... so I think you can use Renoise to make chipmusic...
In the end it all boils down to how you define chiptunes, but personally I don't care a lot about definitions, as Duke Ellington once said, there's two types of music: the good one and the rest.

Im disagree with the opinions here. YOU DONT NEED RENOISE FOR MAKE CHIPMUSIC!!!

I would bet for simple trackers. Renoise have tons of pro features that you will never use.

Ok, people will reply me saying: "but with renoise you can make chiptunes too"
Yes.. agree... but again.. you will be use only the very basic features that you can get in other trackers for free.. ( so not need to pay)

the most noteworthy features are the built in DSPs and VST support - not things that you need to do chiptunes
you can get everything you need to do chiptunes from a free tracker and I don't think you'd miss much by using milky/schism/protracker if you were just bleeping and blooping (and these trackers are much lighter, and seem to have a sleeker interface too).

for non-chippy (real?) music, renoise is absolutely fantastic! recommended +++++++

how is that?

Renoise is really worth it

but not for making chiptunes

You must have a slow CPU then lol, cause it run perfectly fine on my craptop.

I tried renoise and it takes up quite alot of my cpu when playing songs back and screws up. Try MadTracker2. Its free, uses vst and samples, interface is sorta like milkytracker, and It doesn't lag.

Man, I'm checking out Renoise now.

i'd say it's also worth for having a very powerful and flexible sampler built right into the DAW. Well actually that is the core of the DAW in Renoise

worth it for 'capture VST as samples' alone (which is disabled in the demo, and the main reason I bought it!)   

I just downloaded the demo version, when i have the cash, i may need to pay for it for real

@Ant1:  There is a nearly full featured Demo version.  You only pay for a small handful of features that don't really affect the overall usability of it.  You pay if you want to pay.

Yes, it's a team of people making money from the software, but it is built with a LOT of input from the community.  The devs are very open to suggestion and will add just about anything if demand for it is great enough (and sometimes just for kicks).  Renoise wasn't made by some high profile business execs either, it was a small project at first.

I never meant that the program wasn't amazing and worth it. I have a friend who tried all programs avaliable and end up using seq24 . And he makes awesome stuff with it.

I'm not saying you don't have to buy it. I'm just saying that you can try another pieces of software, maybe (if your bugdet is low) ANOTHER option may suit for your particular needs. For example, i just use the modern computer for recording+FX's. No need to buy anything (on linux there are ardour and LADSPA fx's - among a lot, just naming some). Even better, you can donate to make ardour more awesome.