[skool h8r]

Yeah, the 9 series are available, but the verdict on them isn't quite. The 9600GT' have less Shader Pipelines (64) as opposed to the 8800GT (Which has 112). The price on them is similar. However, the 9600GT doesn't cope as well in "Shader intensive" games as the 8800GT does. Since games are only going to get more and more shader intensive (Think crysis intensive, but with "better optimisation") i'm still planning on getting the 8800GT. Saying that, my current 3850Pro should (theoretically) outperform the 8 series in shader intensive games.

However, in real-world performance, considering i play games that have a lot of textures and objects loaded (Think how many different textures WoW has loaded even if they are pretty low quality, or how many different objects Supreme Commander has to display), i need the extra memory on the card more.

All in all though, i'm basically looking to the future, when i want to stretch WoW across 2x24" widescreen LCD's. I've tried stretching them on a 24"+19" combo, but i have to choose either bad quality or panning on the 19". I don't like either. A panning UI is bad. Bad quality and unreadable text is almost as bad too. The fact i'm now gaming at the highest resolution's i can manage means more and more that more shaders coupled with the same amount of memory, and being the same price, means the 8800GT is a more suitable solution for me.