the GeForce 9800 GTX was the biggest disappointment of the year. it was a new flagship that wasn't any faster than the previous flagship - sometimes it was even slower. everyone thought the 9800 was going to set the world on fire, but it obviously just fizzled.

iirc, the Phenom and DDR3 were both released last year. that shouldn't make them eligible for this list. and DDR3 was released early so prices would be lower by the time Nehalem came out. Nahalem will probably be able to make use of all that bandwidth - unlike current processors.