Despite the impressive gaming performance advantages of these cards over the lower clocked cards we've compared them to, and the simply fantastic cooling abilities of the ThermoIntelligence coolers, where both these cards will really be judged is on their price. This is becoming the case more and more often in the increasingly competitive and cut-throat world of mid-range graphics.

At the time of review, BFG Tech was quoting us street prices of around $194.99 (around £115 inc. VAT) for the 9600 GT OCX and $184.99 (around £110 inc. VAT) for the 8800 GT OCX. While we haven't been given official UK pricing yet, we're expecting these cards to be priced in a similar range to the new Radeon HD 4800 series which, as I'm sure you'd like to know, offer significantly better performance for just a few quid more (as we'll see in Tim's upcoming article).

In light of Nvidia's decision to move the GeForce 9800 GTX's price down to $199 (or £125-140 inc. VAT in real money) in order to remain relatively competitive with the Radeon HD 4850, we're expecting the price of these cards to drop faster than a stripper's thong. However, there is no official word on when, or by how much the price of these cards will drop.

And without a reasonable price drop, it becomes very difficult to recommend either card on a value basis. Despite being superior performers when compared to cards using the same graphics core, and having phenomenal cooling ability, both cards are victims of the changing tides in The Sea of Grey. The mid-range graphics market can change enormously with the introduction of a new GPU or card series, and until the market calms down, and the 8800 GT OCX and 9600 GT OCX drop in price, we simply cannot strongly recommended them, despite their impressive gaming and thermal performance.