I have a 7900gt that i'm about to replace with a 9600gt or an 8800gt
my current card (EVGA KO SUPERCLOCKED 7900gt) is fitting pretty tight as it is.(I think its a little over 8 inches?)  my case is massive(chieftec matrix 'full' tower), but I have a removable hard drive cage that slides to the rear to take out, and to take it out I have to pull my graphics card out.  kinda defeats the purpose of a hard drive cage, but i guess thats what happens when you keep the same case for a long time.
 
anyone know how these cards stack up in length?
 
I've been eyeing a gigabyte 8800gt that used a shorter PCB than the reference design and uses a Zalman fan for cooling

Most of the computers that I work on have a similar problem in that the graphics card has to be removed before a hard drive cage can be removed. I have a Chieftec case for my business computer and I like it overall even better than a lot of the newer cases. I've had a 8800 GTS card in it and though snug, it fit alright. I've known of some people who removed the hard drive cage completely for extra room and put their hard drives in the next cage up. There are some cases that are longer and thus fit long cards a bit easier, such as the Thermaltake Eureka, but not all that many.  
 
In any case, you should be able to find the exact length specs of a card from the various card websites, and as best I know, all will fit into your Cheiftec case.

thanks, I've seen similar looking cases by Ultra(aluminus) which have all the nice things and size of the chieftec I have, but they have alot of newer better features, like 120mm fans instead of 80 and a hard drive rack that faces the other direction.  I'm in no way dissing chieftec cases, theres a reason i've kept it over 5 years.  Its design is timeless and if you hit it with a baseball bat, you'd have a broken baseball bat(the ultra cases are flimsy), not to mention a built in theft detterent that it weighs too much to run off with, when that case came out people were still on the 5 series nvidia or earlier nobody expected the gfx cards to double in length, unfortunately both the top and bottom hard drive racks are full of hard drives, floppy, and card readers, so just using the top isnt an option

The 8800s are 9 inches long, except the Gigabyte 8800GT  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814125088 which uses a shorter board (not the reference board). I think it's about 8 inches long. Sorry,  I don't have the exact measurements. The 9800's  run 11 inches. *EDIT*  the 9800s are 10.5 inches as per EVGA website

I've had my Cheiftec for over 7 years now. Yeah, its heavy and strong. I updated it with some 120mm fans for better airflow and less noise. Anybody that tried to steal it would deserve their hernia.  
 
For gaming, I bought an Antec 900 to base my latest build upon. The cages come out the front of it, so there's no problem with long cards. Its got a couple shortcomings though, which may be why Antec is dropping it and replacing it with the Antec 1200. Wish Antec had come out with the 1200 before I bought the 900, but that's the way things go.

A case with one of them side mounting hard drive cages would work just fine.

I don't get it. Why does it matter? At most, the card will block the opening of one of the 5-6 3inch bays in a typical midtower. You can still put in drives in the rest. It really shouldn't be a problem unless you use 5-6 hdds.

I have an Ultra Aluminus, it fits my 8800GT with room to spare

 
As the OP wrote, his drive cages are full at the moment, so its not like he can simply leave the cage out or leave a space open. A side mounting cage gives an extra inch or more of room for the video card and allow easy access to the drives if and when its necessary. Likewise, a cage that exits the front like the Antec 900 also gives easy access to the drives without having to take the video card out every time you do something.  

Get a rack and use the 5inch bays. Even something like this will do.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817984001

or: you could just pull the card out whenever you want to mess with your drives. how often do you do that in real life?

Typical 8800 and 9600 series cards are 8.5" -9" long inside the case + room for the PCI-e power cable out the end.
 
Typical 8800GT is 9", HD3850 is 9", the  evga 8800GS is 9", the XFX 8800GS is 8.5", the Palit 9600GT is 8.5".  So you can find some of these cards under 9".  evga vs xfx 8800gs vs Palit 9600GT below.  
 

 

 
 
I don't own it, so not positive.  But I believe this 8800GT is shorter than 9".  And it's priced well too:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814125088
 

I think i'm probably going with the Gigabyte 8800GT just to avoid problems
right now with the 9600gt and the 8800gt priced so low and rebates being offered, I wasn't even considering the 8800gs, gigabytes website stinks, poor US version of a taiwanese site, and dimensions are nowhere to be found, but from straight on photos and overlaying them in photoshop on pics of other boards with dimensions it looks like its about 8 inches and should be about the same size if not smaller than my 7900gt.  
 
Is gigabyte the only one offering cards at this smaller than reference size? I havent found any others yet, I have seen EVGA offers a few dual slot 8800gt's, but they are just as long as the rest,
 
May be off topic, but Sailer, you seem to know alot about cheiftec, their hard drive bays and fans seem to be a very modular system, do you know if they sell other parts(120mm fan mounts/different hard drive racks) that can snap into their cases?  I shop on tigerdirect alot and it seems that chieftec has all but dissapeared in the last few years

Yup, I quickly tried to check gigabytes site before posting, but nothing was quick about the site.    SO I was basically going visually compared to the height of the slot bracket, which I had studied a bit another time.    The card looks closer to 8-8.5 inches than 9 inches.  

Well, a standard g92 8800gts is exactly 9 inches long, which is 3 inches longer than the end of your pcie slot.

Aha I thought the shorter gigabyte model was going to be my only choice, but tigerdirect just started listing a new XFX model the other day, same shape as the gigabyte and the same Zalman fan, I'm buying it because i trust XFX more than gigabyte and the before rebate price is $10 less.  
 
I think for future upgrades to dual 8800gt SLI it will be easier to find a stock core speed (600mhz) to match up instead of gigabytes (700mhz) and yes i know its the same model, but still I'd rather not take chances at compatibility.  
 
the second card wont matter if its a foot long because my second slot is below the hard drive cage!  and i've got plenty of space down there in this beast of a case http://www.tigerdirect.com/applica [...] =MTX-BL-UF
 
after rebate this xfx 8800gt is only 139.99! thats like 8600 prices. damn i love price wars