I am sure many of you have read the amazing news about the 9600GT today on Nordichardware.com
 
LINK HERE:  http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7357.html
 
It was orginally thought the GeForce 9600GT was going to compete with ATI's HD3850 however it's performance is way beyond that.  Infact per this article the 9600GT unbelievably BEATS the HD3870 in ALL benchmarks.
 
Not only that but the 9600GT is slated to be priced at $179 and up.
 
Folks can you imagine the prices that are going to be available to us come March or April?
 
This means to compete with the 9600GT the HD3870 will have to be priced by at least $10 under $179 and the 512MB HD3850 may sell for $149 OR LESS!!!
 
Talk about bang for your buck! And that is just the opening prices.  What if Nvidia drops the price again in response to the ATI price cuts which are bound to happen?
 
I am excited about this spring.  It is going to be a great time to upgrade your GPU!

Waiting a few months if not 6 months for it to really flesh out.  Already got a 8800 GT 3 days after it released.  We ain't done yet.  I think October we'll really know, or then I'll really care.

Wait 10years. Then talk about bang for the buck.
 
Competition is a great thing, ain't it?

With the 8800GT 512 in $200-$220 territory now the $179 9600GT doesn't really change the fact that the 8800GT is the better bang for the buck between the two.
9600GT
64SP  
8800GT
112SP

in ten years every game on the market will be at least 2x as resource hungry as crysis or more.

Well as long as they fix their overscan compensation method, I'll be down for one, but until then, I'm not going to use an Nvidia card because I don't want to use a 1219x688 resolution.

 
Funny, We read the same article, yet came to very different conclusions.  You say the 9600GT beats the 3870 in all benchmarks, but what I read shows an OC'ed 9600GT trades blows with the HD3870.    
 
edit: Ok, looked it over again and I think I'll still side with the reviewer as he stated in his conclusion sometimes it beats the 3870 and sometimes it loses. Must be your forceware drivers are editing the preformance charts before displaying them.  I'm running older forcewares on this machine that don't have this hidden "Nvidiot Goggle Optimization"    (not calling you an Nvidiot, just having fun)

"It whips Radeon HD 3870 in most benchmarks and is on par with 8800GT in more than a few, at "lower" resolutions (1280x1024)."
 
"At higher resolutions, Radeon HD 3870 and GeForce 9600GT are pretty much even."
 
yes, prices will drop $20-40 over the next few months... don't they always?

You need to look at the actual review...the people who tested the card and not Nordic Hardware's  summation of that review. Nordic didn't do the tests, tweaktown did.  http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1 [...] index.html
 
Tweaktowns review states - "the card tends to perform on par with the HD 3870, sometimes better and sometimes slightly worse" and "We have to also remember that this is an overclocked 9600GT and not a stock clocked one."
 
 
Shoot, nothing against Nordic, I'm Norwegian myself.  But what were they thinking with their summation?  Where was the wipping?  
 
Looking over the results in the order listed in the review, clearly the HD3870 and 9600GT traded blows.  If anything the 9600GT won with extreme fsaa, tied in vista without it,  and the HD3870 had the slight lead in Win XP.  
 
In Vista, Synthetics - The HD3870 won at all three resolutions in 3DMark06. 9600GT won all three resoluions in PT Boats, They basically tied in Cinebench. The Games - HL2 the 9600GT won at 12x10, and lost at both 16x12 and 19x12 - winner HD3870. WIC The 9600GT won 12x10, they tied 16x12, and the 3870 won at 19x12 - Tie.  Quake Wars the 9600GT won at all three resolutions - winner 9600GT. Crysis - The 9600GT won at 12x10 and 16x10, tie at 19x10 - winner 9600GT. UT3, 9600GT won at 12x10, lost at 16x12 ans 19x12 - Winner HD3870. High aa tests the 9600GT won, keeping up with the 8800GT.  
 
In Win XP - Synthetics - 3dMark 06 the HD3870 won at every resoluion.  9600GT won at cinibench. Games - WIC HD3870 won at every resoluion- winner HD3870.  UT3 9600GT lost at 12x10, won 16x10 and 19x10 - Winner 9600GT. HL2 the HD3870 won at every resoluion  - winner HD3870. Crysis wasn't tested in Win XP.  
 
So all in all, synthetic they tied, each with the same number of victories.  IN Vista games they also tied with same number of victories, except the 9600GT won the extreme fsaa tests on the one page.  In XP games The HD3870 won two games and lost one game.  If you add up all the resolutions tested, and count them equal, the hD3870 had 20 victories, the 9600GT had 18 victories.  
 
ANyway, like I said, a factory overclocked 9600GT trades blows with the HD3870 according to that tweaktown review.  Nordic must have only looked at the high fsaa page when making the whipped comment as it doesn't go along with the charts as a whole nor the conclusion of the site that did the review.  
 
 

"Infact per this article the 9600GT unbelievably BEATS the HD3870 in ALL benchmarks. "
 
Ok Charlie.  

Oh, forgot to say.  While the performance of the 9600GT looks great, especially for the price and the x6xx series card, that cooler scares me.  Too bad their 8800GT wasn't referenced cooled, but by far the 9600GT was the loudest card of the three.  We could look at this review and see it's about the same volume as the MSI ref 8800GT. But testing conditions may have been different so we can't directly compare.  http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1 [...] index.html

Original poster sounds like he's reciting a pre-written advertisement on one of those after-hour ad shows.  His ebullience for the coming 'torrents of spring' seems just a little over the top to me.  It's graphics cards we're talking about, not the feast of tabernacles.

A some enthusiasm and a little color, notably red, doesn't hurt.

 
I really doubt that the prices are going to be anywhere near $179 in the first few months.  Wasn't the 8800 GT supposed to be a $200 card? (according to nVidia before it came out) And only in the last couple weeks have we started to see the 8800 drop below $250.  
 
And I don't see the 9600 beating the 3870 in all of the benchmarks.  As others have said, looks like they trade blows back and forth.  Not sure what benchmarks you were referring to, cuz it wasn't the ones on the link you posted.  
 
You are right though, prices will be dropping by that time across the board, which is great.  But really, they would drop regardless of there being a new series or not.  Prices drops over time.

Yeah I really hope it drops the prices for the 3870 down a good deal, then I'll be able to upgrade from my 3850 512mb for not much more.

I like these 9600gt for $180 but not when you can get 8800gt for $190 after rebate.
 
There will be more shader heavy games in the future.  64SP sounds weak compared to 112SP.

Yeah, I think the 8800GT is great for the amount you pay.  The only problem is that not everybody has that much money to spend on the higher performing stuff.  Altough some people don't even mind 25 FPS on a little monitor with a low resolution.  Plus there are some people that just don't know WTF they are buying so they end up with an expensive midrange card and not a super affordable upper end card.  

Sometimes, it's the benchmark sites that overcompensate for a favored company with bad drivers for the competition (ie in "real game" tests). Most times, when the benchmarkers get it right, someone linking to the benchies will give it a spin based on their favorite resolution, graphics settings or game.

One thing I do know, I'm going to spend more for a monitor next month. No 20" at 1680 x 1050. I'll go for the LCD that gives me 1920 x 1200. That seems to be where the 3870x2 avoids CPU limitations.

Nordic Hardware did provide some info on the upcoming 4870, which shows it on par with the 3870x2 at $299. That means I absolutely must get a new power supply next fall, plus a Crossfire board, so I can do CrossfireX. The horror! Does upgrading for DX10.1 never end?

Regardless of what the 9600gt does, I'm looking forward to seeing the spin on benchies of the 9800gx2 and on triple SLI 9800gtx. Nvidia will probably have the crown until 4870 arrives.

Nah, all of the Gx2s will burst into flames in everyone's case.  If not spewing 9 foot long flames out of the back, they will at least cause case temps to rise and melt the wire coatings and cause shorts and CPU overheating.  Ok, so that might be a little over exaggerated.