Just pretend the 9800GTX is called the 8900GTX and the 9800GX2 is called the 8950GX2.  It makes more sense within performance grounds.  I guess ATi is guilty of the same thing, as the 3870 performs similar to the 2900XT, but I think that drastic series change was neccessary.  They needed to separate themselves from the 2900's reputation of high power and high price.  Nvidia's 8800 line is well recieved and they need not distance themselves from it as drastically.  Calling it 9800 instead of 8900 is just an asshat move.  Even calling it a 8900GTX would be questionable because the 7900GTX relative to the 7800GTX was faster than 9800GTX to the 8800GTX.  And it has less memory, which is stupid.

Ah yes, well anyway. The new smaller die G92 cards (8800 GT, 8800 GTS, 9800GTX) cost less and use less power and perform slightly better (usually) then the old G80s.  So it's a good thing.  But the real gen has yet to come, and Nvidia still is planning a die shrink even further to 55nm (where ATi has been since November).

 I wonder when we can expect these.