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Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there isn't one card that stood out as the ultimate deal from all of our cards we looked at today. As you can see, in many of the benchmarks, every video card delivered comparable performances. Even the aging BFG 8800 GTS 320MB did better than expected, and was able to keep up to the rest of the pack in this roundup. But even though there wasn't a stand out, we can still draw some conclusions from the results we collected.

First off, in regards to the great 8800GT versus HD3870 debate, fanboys from either side really do have enough ammunition to mount a successful argument in your favorite hardware forum.  When it comes to performance, from all the testing that we have done at here at Neoseeker, we would have to say the 8800GT will probably be able to handle the games of 2009 with just a little more ease then perhaps the HD3870's may. But it is close. On the question of which one is better deal, it truly changes so quickly that it is almost impossible to say. Price cuts having been coming fast and furiously from both sides ever since these cards have been introduced. It is a serious e-tailer jungle of chaos out there, folks. Most recent pricing rumors as of the writing suggests that the HD3870 will be dropped by a $30 or so, to come down somewhere around the $160 mark. However, sometimes announced price-cuts don't translate into actual prices on the street, so it is to soon to say either way which is a better deal. If I was forced to give you a real of thumb, I would buy a HD3870 if it was $25 less than a 8800GT -- but with so many cards out there, of course your going to want to judge for yourself. And as I'm sure you are aware, deals pop up all the time so be vigilant, and check your favorite e-tailers or stores often, to get a feel for the good deals.

Right now, one of the brightest gems of the new mid-range would be the 9600GT. Inexpensive 9600GT's are selling for as low as $145 right now, making them very attractive indeed. Take a look at our benchmarks and judge for yourself how much that extra performance is worth to you -- but for around $150, in all honesty these seem like very good deals, as you'll be able to play pretty much any game currently out today, at high details at a medium resolution (1680x1050 say), with a solid framerate. (One thing to keep in mind when going over the charts is that our sole 9600GT is an overclocked model, but most 9600GT's are capable of the Palit 9600GT Sonics' clock speeds, with a little bit of safe overclocking.)

The good news is that there isn't a horrible choice you could make, out of any of the cards in the new mid-range. Compared to the paucity of relative performance around the current $200 mark available this time last year, it is truly a cause for celebration that you can pick up a something for a reasonable price and be well-set to play any game that's out. This isn't always the case.

One thing is for sure: 2009 is going to bring huge changes in the GPU world. It's hard to believe, but 2008 might be the final year of the NVIDIA / ATI dialectic that we are all so familar with. ATI and NVIDIA will still be trading punches, but one of the most important things that shake up the video card scene is going to be coming from Intel. By the early months of 2009, Intel hopes to be jumping into the GPU fray with the introduction of Larrabee. It'll  be interesting to see what will be the result. ATI will also be close to releasing a GPU/CPU combo, the Fusion project, around that time. It'll be interesting to see what the performance stratifications will be like then. It should be interesting.

Hopefully you have a bit clearer picture of the new mid-range now; and hopefully video cards selling for about $200 will remain this attractive for quite some time to come.