Yea, I hear ya, around 200-2002 as you say every other week there was a new speed of cpu coming out, it was crazy times, and still is to a certain extent.
Your ati 9800, a couple years ago they were teh bomb, I never had one myself, i had its weak competitor, the fx5900ultra, I went threw 3 of them before I got my first 6800gt, and I would never ever recommend a fx5900 to anyone, those things just loved to die, and the jump in power from the 5900ultra to the 6800gt was just too much to take in, but the 9800 was the king of its day and nothing can take that away from it, if you have the AIW type of 9800 then you still have a good card, not soo much for gaming, but the all in wonders were leet, tv tuners etc loads of connections, I always did fancy a AIW, but I bought a stupid hauppage usb 2 digital tv tuner cuz I ran out of pci ports for an internal model, only to find out that I could of bought a freeview tv set top box and got better overall quality and hooked it upto my pc via video in input, as I can get freeview on my pc with an indoor aerial, once i knew that i was uber peed, as i first thought i needed outdoor aerial, so i then bought freeview boxes for all the bedrooms and bought small but hi gain aerials that get a real good signal for the size of em. so basically, i didnt need to shell out a 100 squid for a 3-4 month old usb 2 tv tuner that i never ever use
we live and learn the hardway, but i agree that your 9800 was a magic card, and as mentioned above, if it is of the aiw type, then it is still a decent card, as it will last for years doing normal graphics and tv tuner stuff if capable.
never had a lappy tho, but seriously looking at the mac pro, all intel with ati x1600 vid card, capable of installing windows onto it since its all intel inside, really am thinking bout getting one of them, but I have no real need for a laptop, the only kind i would maybe buy is a desktop replacement, with anything from a 24-30 inch screen, but I dunno, i like to upgrade and OC, and your kinda limited with doing things to a lappy, but they now have sli in lappys so they are becoming real powerful.
This was my pc before the one I have now, it was an Alienware aurora 7500 with amd 4400 sli 78s and audigy 2zs, i took it apart and took some pics while i was putting it together and seeing once i added more fan wires if everything was working, the wires look messy in the pic, but that was just to see if everything worked as expected, they were tidied up a day or 2 after that pics.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/readersrig/311/I still have the same case, but everything inside it now is diferent to the specs i list on the website, the specs are the ones i listed earlier in another post, and its all purrty looking compared to those pics u see.