A little more than a year ago, the graphics market exploded in a frenzy of excitement. What used to be a one-sided race for graphics dominance quickly evolved to include two capable players. Then, over the course of a few months, it reverted to a one-manufacturer show once again; only this time, it was ATI on top as NVIDIA fumbled its plans for NV30.

Since then, we've seen both manufacturers unveil subsequent updates to their respective architectures - the same ones that were battling for supremacy more than a year ago. Admittedly, NVIDIA has taken two large strides in gaining ground, first with its GeForce FX 5900 Ultra and again with the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra.

Most of the enthusiasts that keep pace with the industry will agree, though, that ATI maintains its advantage in both performance and that it doesn't require the same degree of per-application optimization that NVIDIA's design seems to necessitate.

Of course, a lot of work has gone into coordinating board layout, cooling design, and software support, so we aren't surprised that Sapphire chose to stick with ATI's reference card for its own RADEON 9800 XT. The only feature that distinguishes the two is a sticker that adorns the clear, plastic heatsink cover. That isn't a bad thing, though. Given the complexity of a modern graphics card, don't be surprised if every one of ATI's board partners employs the same card. Where you might expect to see differentiation is in packaging, bundling, and pricing.