Looking to get a high end GeForce 8 for Christmas?  You might want to hold off for a couple months with the GeForce 9 series on the horizon.  The lack of competition in the graphics card market has sadly led to a content Nvidia.  Nvidia has split from its strategy for the GeForce 7 and 8, releasing a high-end card for Christmas and mid-end cards the following year, and will not be releasing the GeForce 9 this Christmas.  Instead, Nvidia will be release a new batch of mid end GeForce 8 cards this Christmas and the GeForce 9 cards later next year.  So if you want to run your new games at the highest graphical options (or even Vista), I would suggest you hold off on the horde of mediocre cards coming out this holiday season. 

The first GeForce 9 are expected to be released in February. This high end card will have a D9E GPU that takes advantage of 65nk technology. The cards are also expected to support DirectX 19,1 and Shader Model 4.1. For those with a lighter wallet, the midrange cards are expected to be released in June of next year. These more affordable cards will feature a D9P GPU and take advantage of the 55nm technology. 

Source; Leaked pricing