The 9800GTX is a fast card. Of that there is no doubt. Compared to a 9600GT single card or a HD3870 single card the 9800GTX has performance that is near double those cards. The problem becomes when looking at the price of a 9800GTX, you can buy 2 9600GTs. 2 9600GTs in SLI outperform a single 9800GTX in every benchmark, making the choice quite clear in my mind. For now, a faster 8800GTX with 512MB just doesn't seem like much of an upgrade for the high end enthusiast wanting the fastest performance bar none and not worthy of the GTX moniker.

For the person waiting for the ultimate upgrade from the 8800GTX or 8800Ultra from a year and a half ago, this just doesn't fit the bill, as the performance while stellar, doesn't seem to shatter the competition of the high-end 9800GX2, or the HD3870X2. If the choice is whether you want this card for Tri-SLI, the truth is 3x 9800GTXs will not likely outperform 2 9800GX2s in SLI. This leaves the 9800GTX from NVIDIA as an 8800GTS 512MB overclocked. Performance of the 9800GTX is faster than a 8800GTX in most respects but the problem is the 8800GTX was released in 2006.

It wasn't that long ago that NVIDIA released a new card that nearly doubled the performance every 12 months. This trend started with the release of the TNT2 Ultra in 1999, then the GeForce SDR, GeForce 3 in 2001, GeForce 4 in 2002, GeForce 5 in 2003, GeForce 6xxx in 2004, GeForce 7 in 2005, and the GeForce 8 series in 2006. Each new generation up until now either added new performance paradigms to NVIDIA cards, new features, or both.

NVIDIA and ATI need to release their true next generation video cards soon, as the current crop just is a bit boring rehash of the last generation cards with maybe a couple extra features, or tying two of the last generation cards together. It has been nearly 2 years since the release of the GeForce 8800GTX; it's time to move on. Hopefully we'll see both the RV770 and NVIDIA's “G1xx” architecture this year with more performance for the cost. And hopefully we'll see more fun PC games that take advantage of DirectX 10 graphics or higher, as a gamer that is a good hope.