14 DAY TRIAL // Ok, this won't be a speech directly related to 8800 cards but you will see the connection. It seems that several video cards manufacturers are pretty pissed at Nvidia because it does not supply the agreed amount of chip to them. You might thing this was another channel shortage but you couldn't be more wrong. In fact, it's Nvidia's idea to supply its pet integrators first and then the others.
As this is no new thing regarding the owner of SLI, it is somewhat surprising. I think that the guys at Nvidia see themselves as VIPs since there is no other explanation regarding this rather bizarre move. The actual problem is that G80 made Nvidia arrogant. Nvidia is the boss and you have to literally "beg" them to get enough chips. And that can't be good for the sales. The arrogance is somewhat normal if you think that they actually posess the fastes GPU, but they'd better keep that trend if they want to act like that in the future.
R600 is almost out and with it comes DirectX 10 competition. Whether Nvidia will stay ahead of it by offering an even faster G80 GPU remains to be seen. As for the arrogance, i guess it will eventually wear out. Eventually.