NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Graphics card features
3. Testbed configuration, benchmark list
4. Test results
5. Conclusions

When rumors of NVIDIA's plans to release a product even more powerful than GeForce 8800 GTX only appeared, many believed that Californians were afraid of the coming AMD R600 and decided to strengthen positions with an overclocked modification of 8800 GTX. The vendor promised to significantly increase frequencies - up to 650 MHz core clock vs. GTX's 575 MHz.

And when it turned out there was nothing to be afraid of since AMD positioned a modification of R600 as a rival to 8800 GTS, leaving GTX on its top performance throne, guys in Santa Clara had to come up with an idea what to do with 8800 Ultra, which was already being mass-produced. It turned out noone actually needed this product. Therefore the vendor decided to follow another path - reduce core clock rate down to 612 MHz, thus increasing the yield, and focus on lower power consumption. The new G80 A3 revision consumed 5W less, add to this lower memory voltage. But due to the latter they had to use very expensive 0.8ns memory that could be stable at 1080 MHz even at reduced voltage. As a result, the product had 10W less power consumption than that of 8800 GTX.

So, after May 1 the updated GeForce 8800 series includes:

1. GeForce 8800 UItra 768MB PCI-E - 128 stream processors, 384-bit memory bus, 612/2160 MHz clock rates, $849.
2. GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB PCI-E - 128 stream processors, 384-bit memory bus, 575/1800 MHz clock rates, $549-599.
3. GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB PCI-E - 96 stream processors, 320-bit memory bus, 512/1600 MHz, $399-449.
4. GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB PCI-E, 96 stream processors, 320-bit memory bus, 512/1600 MHz, $299-349.

Naturally, there are two reasons for the price of 8800 Ultra to be so high:

1. to beat down the demand, since the amount of cards was limited
2. expensive memory made card's cost price increase greatly.

So, before we start examining the card, we should make an important statement: 8800 GTX owners do not actually have to move to 8800 Ultra. The gain is not that good, but price difference is about twofold. But enthusiasts willing to obtain the very most powerful solution may pay their attention to 8800 Ultra (given, there's no cheaper vendor-overclocked 8800 GTX for sale.)

Next: Graphics card features

Compare prices:

1. BFG GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB PCIe
2. EVGA GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB PCIe
3. XFX GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB PCIe
4. GeForce 7950 GX2
5. 8800 GTX 768MB
6. X1950 XTX