Luckily, the latest generation of graphics cards are still DirectX 9.0c, so all games optimised with Shader Model 3.0 will take full advantage of either the G70 or R520.

And actually, what I meant was exactly what I said; there will never be a circumstance when the GeForce 7800 GTX will allow someone to play a game the Radeon X1800 XT will not.

This conversation will never arise:

Person A: “I’m playing Gears of War right now on my 7800 GTX”
Person B: “Oh, I can’t play Gears of War because I only have an X1800 XT”

Curiously though, if you paw over benchmarks like I have, you notice that in numerous games, the 7800 GTX wins in “pure” tests, but the X1800 XT pulls away when the resolution is bumped up and Antialiasing/Anisotropic filtering applied. This is not always the case; in the games to which this doesn’t apply, the X1800 can be winning off the bat, or not at all, or consistently. What this may mean though, is the X1800 architecture has greater staying power. I remember seeing these sorts of benchmarks from the R300, and look how long that architecture lasted.