you know what the sad thing is?

Most people will buy it, just because the games on the market considers their otherwise fine card "obsolete" and disables a bunch of features that the card could otherwise handle just fine. That, plus forced drivers obsolence. For example - my current linux box runs of a 2000-ish GeForce4 MX440 AGP. NVidia has recently stopped supporting drivers for the board, but since the legacy driver runs fine on it, no probs. But then, what will happen when Kernel 2.8 comes out a few years down the road and it's API changed, and the legacy driver stops compiling?

Jaded

I used to follow the "GPU Wars" religiously, ever since the Voodoo II hit the shelves, and was then challenged by the Riva TNT 128 (it's been so long, I'm not even sure I have the names right...)

But I lost interest after a while.

Firstly, the prices kept going up, and the release cycles shortened, to the point where the whole upgrade treadmill became rediculously expensive.

Secondly, the competition between ATI and Nvidia rapidly descended into self-parody.

And finally, the naming schemes got so complex I needed a look-up chart to know which chipset was faster than which, and by how much.

Is a GT faster or slower than a GTS? And a GTX? And what about the overlap with the previous generation? Is a 7600 faster or slower than a 6800? How does a 7800 GTSX5 Ultra Mega mk II rev B with Forceware 37.1.8.62C compare with the latest 8xxx?

Where's my lookup-table? Oops, it's out of date. They've release twelve new cards since it was printed, and they've also changes all the suffixes between generations. Now a GS means what MX meant last year, expect if we're talking DX9 performance, in which the MX is actually *better* than the GS, despite being older. Or something...

In the end, it sounds more and more like Scott Adams' idea of a "confuseopoly" - "a group of companies with similar products who intentionally confuse customers instead of competing on price". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusopoly (or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dilbert_Future)

Nice Try

Nice try NVIDIA, but my 8800GTX is clocked higher, and cost a lot less.

NiBiTor and NVflash FTW!