New Geforce 9800 to be quieter than 8800 Series
 

As it turns out, in preliminary audio tests, the new card is more silent than not just 8800Ultra, but it is also less noisy than 8800GTX. It turns out that we are slowly approaching the era of silent monsters. Whoever was it who that said that noise was not important? He probably took a page from Dan Vivoli's book from the age of the GeForce FX fan-blower.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41740

NV wants us to hold of the 8800 purchases at all cost as if we weren't sold already.