Well it's nice to see speed go up and power consumption go down, I think that's a first. But the pricing is just silly and it's slower than some overclocked GTX's, so I don't know what nVidia was thinking.

Mike here is a reference shot for the Ultra. It did not upload when I made Ultra reference card. http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/1648/8800calloutbox2pt4.jpg

2160 with GDDR3? Does this card have a hell of a great cooler or is it designed to melt? 104 gigs per sec... not bad :)

I have two of these at home in my computer and they are scary man BIG BIG BIG power. They cost a lot 1650$!!!!!!!!!!!!!

90 nm core , GDDR3 ... why don't they move to 80nm/65nm and GDDR4 already ? I don't get it.

"I have two of these at home in my computer and they are scary man BIG BIG BIG power. They cost a lot 1650$!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Sir, you've just wasted your money. 2 "lowly" 8800GTXs and some OCing are worth WAY more than a 8800u SLI.

KG what power supply are you using?

Haha.. expensive? That price is even cheaper then what we pay for an 8800GTX in South africa.. I can only imagine how much its going to go for here. Il guess and say $1050

:(

This card is a bigger threat than i thought.
95% of the population dont have any idea what the difference between the 8800 GTX and the 8800 Ultra is. nVidia tells them taht the Ultra is the "most powerfull graphics card on earth" and since the price tag is 800$ they believe it and buy it.
They dont even KNOW what they are doing.

Cost as much as a water cooled 8800 gtx was so whats so big about the increase and the ultras where usually always had horible price to performance and there are people in the world that don't even care about price to performance.

why do some of u say that its slower than an overclocked 8800GTX? What will happen if this 8800Ultra OC, it will be faster than the 8800GTX dont u think...and yes this card is expensive b/c it's a powerful card, i hope that they lower the price and change from 90nm to 80nm/65nm...then it will be cheaper now!

@Keymaster: The 8800 GTX and the 8800 Ultra both use the exact same core. So they will both overclock to the EXACT same level. This means that the 8800 Ultra will give u the same performance as the 8800 GTX, but for 300$ more.
Now, talking about pre-overclocked cards is meaningless because they are the biggest scam ever. And if u like to buy pre-overclocked cards, then that might explain why u want to spend 300$ on a 6% OC that u can easily do at home on a GTX.

The core's of a newer stepping so I don't think a GTX can be a Ultra and like previous gens might be cherry picked and have a slightly better cooler.
and about pre-overclocked cards there covered by warranty and have been tested or cherry picked or even a better cooler and I think the Ultra's price would settle at about $100 more expensive than a GTX but still the Ultra will never make sense in price to performance only the most hardcore of computer enthusiast will buy it or to a rich person who thinks money is no object.

Sorry for double post but also the memory speed is also a fair amount higher in the Ultra compared to the GTX and some pre-oced cards have better memory.

What about the increased memory bandwidth?

This thing actually uses 1W less than the 8800 GTX . Funny , since it's clocks are a fair amount higher than on the 8800 GTX , while the process is still at 90nm and memory at GDDR3 .

whats are the main differences between 8800gtx and 8800ultra core????

same core dude different clock speeds, unless ur flithy rich dont buy this card, get a gtx and overclock it

it's not the same core

lol some people like the look of it... nvidia is smart... so many people dont care...can Mike approve of the fact that they both use the same chip and can run at exactly the same speeds?? if yes then he can ruin nVidia's marketing plan lol

this video card isn't good.It's only 3-6% faster thasn the other high-end cards and it's too expensive.Don't waste money on this card,better buy a 2900XT,which is much cheaper.

The shader clock on the 8800U is a lot higher than on the 8800 GTX . Even if you OC the GTX to match the 8800U core and memory , the shader clock on the 8800U will still be faster . However , the performance in games will differ only by a mild amount .
Oh yeah and you can get two HD 2900 XTs in CF for the price of a 8800U . However , in reality , this card isn't much faster than a stock 8800 GTX and most factory OCed 8800 GTXs beat a Ultra .

I can't believe I'm getting this card.

The 8800Ultra costs now only 50$ more than the 8800GTX. (620 vs 670) Its a good deal now! buy it!

Where are you living? In the US the GTX costs 480$ and the Ultra 600$.

One question - it has higher clock speeds than the 8800 GTX , it has 90nm process and GDDR3 memory ( according to the site ) , but it draws less power than the 8800 GTX ( well , 1W isn't much of a deal , but the fact , that it's lower than on the GTX is what makes me wonder ) , so why does it draw less power ? Does anyone know ?

@Radiator, you can overclock the shader clocks on the 8800s and make a GTX an Ultra. Not sure about that 1W, nVidia might have cut something from the card or optimised part of the core.

I'm not sure about the 1w thing, as I've seen review sites which claim that the Ultra takes 30w MORE than the GTX.
But if it IS true, then it's for the same reason that the G0 revision of the Conroe core gets less hot than the B2 revision - tweaking.

cool

Its different in mroe ways then a GTX.

It uses better memory modules, faster, so they can clock higher, it also uses the "better" g80 cores and has them set to run with more voltage, so no, on average a 8800gtx wouldnt be able to clock as high as an 8800ultra could.

The slight difference isnt reason enough to warrent getting an ultra over a GTX though.

This is like ATI's XTX graphics cards.

May be so , but you can still overclock a 8800 GTX to pass the 8800 Ultra (while still remaining stable ) . So you could just buy a 8800 GTX which costs a shit ton less than the 8800 Ultra and overclock it . Provided you have good enough cooling , you can easily make it faster than the Ultra .

All Ultras can be surpased by the slightly slower lower clocked version.

Its a perfect card!

lol so witch card would anyone get if $$ is'nt a object $ is but meh id save up lol

SIGH - if the GTX is "just as good" as a ultra, WHY the hell on earth are all 3dmark scores with nvidia cards used an ultra!? no?

3dmark03
1. 101649 k|ngp|n NVIDIA 8800 ULTRA SLI
2. 99049 hipro5 XFX 8800Ultra SLI
4. 90400 *Overklokk* Asus p5n32E-SLI
[GTX not evene on the top 20]

3dmark05
Ultra's are there, not going to search for them, but the ONLY GTX that made it is in 20th position

3dmark06
8. 26847 k|ngp|n NVIDIA 8800 ULTRA SLI
[GTX not evene on the top 20]

bleh, NUFF said.

And that's the reason that you've fallen for nVidia's trap already. Benchmarks don't mean shit, especially when the big cards are compared. A benchmark program will notice differences of how different cards operate and rate it with points. You, when playing a game, won't notice any difference especially league of cards.
If you want to buy it, go on. But know that this money you spent more than a GTX would've costed could be invested better

NUFF said

The new R680 should be a able to beat this card, they say the R680 is powered by 2 R600 cores, which mean double the power of HD2900XT, can't wait for the release of the R680 core GPU

No, 2x r670 cores, which means 2x 3870's. If it was 2x 2900xt it would need like 300watts.


To anonymous, you talk sooo much rubbish its unbelievable. If 2 cards with the SAME CORE bench each other and one wins, IT MEANS ITS BETTER!!!


If it was 2 different cards it may be down to other things but with both G80 cores then it tells the truth.


Besides this si gd for tri-sli now the top dogs will be using it even more.

@anonymousD - are all the cards before the 20th position 8800U's in SLi ? :)

The 8800 Ultra is faster than the 8800 GTX ... by about 6% or 8% . You can EASILY OC a 8800 GTX to match or surpass that , like I've said several times .

Is it worth buying an 8800 Ultra now, or "waiting" for the Geforce 9 series to come out? I have an AMD 6000 X2 FSB 800MHz. Will the Ultra top out and my processor and mobo be the bottleneck?

Your mobo will bottleneck for the 8800 ultra on its lonesome.

I have an AMD X2 6000 2GB PC 6400 DDR2 Corsair RAM with an Asus m2n SLI deluxe mobo. Could I have some input one what would be the best graphics set up? Two 8800GTX's? An 8800 Ultra or the new 9800 series. I want to know the limit where my motherboard will begin to bottleneck.

My Asus M2N SLI deluxe PCI-e x16 mobo. (forgot to mention that)

oh, well right. uhm, well Adam leave the GTXs and Ultras alone and get 2x 8800GT's - they're beyond excellent for price/performance ;)

What about us guys that dont want to overclock the video card at all. Then the Ultra might be the best card out there. All the money you spent on cooling equipment to keep you OC's card from melting i spent on a card i dont have to worry about.

Good call Josh, I don't OC, OC, OC and then some more OC. OC shortens the life of ALL computer components hands down. I might buy a Factory OC Ultra by EVGA. "Factory". It is already OC'ed but the warrenty still covers it.

I did much research. I invested in an Ultra last night!

This card is HUGE!! WOW! Just put it in last night! Over 11000 3D '06 Marks! In Two Worlds I get over 100FPS with AA maxed! Yes a heavy price tag, but you usually get what you pay for in this world.

Two Worlds? Come on
Load up Crysis, Two Worlds graphics blow

Crysis gets about 42fps-79fps. DX9

At what resolution ? Anyway , you could have bought the HD 3870 X2 instead... it's a bit more powerful and about 200 USD cheaper .

Crysis = 1600x1200 AA 4x ( you can't see a difference above 4x AA anyway). I have always liked Nvidia because ATI drivers to say the least, suck. However I have some older AGP video cards made by ATI that kick-ass! X1950Pro, 9800 Pro, 9700 pro... anyway. I did some serious research on "waiting" for the "9800GTX" or buying the 8800 Ultra. Being my motherboard is AM2 with an dual core AMD 6000 to go above the speed of an Ultra would be a waste of money. It is an Asus m2n-deluxe SLI PCI-e x16. My only other serious upgrade would be to buy another 8800 Ultra and SLI. I wouldn't get the full benefit of the HD 3870 X2 because my processor and mobo would be the "bottleneck" because a quad core is recommended.
I own an EVGA 8800 Ultra KO with a lifetime warrenty. Pricey, but will last me a while.

3870 X2 might be cheaper and more powerful, but when you turn up AA and AF, it dies rather quickly and loses to the 8800 GTS 512 or higher.

you guys dont get it, you cant say AN OVERCLOCKED GTX IS FASTER LOLOLOL. Who buys an Ultra and doesnt overclock that too? An overclocked Ultra is faster than an overclocked GTX. You cant compare apples-to-oranges like that...

Adam -- Your mobo and CPU will NOT bottleneck your cards, not at all. Also, why would you say a 3870X2 would bottleneck you when an Ultra wont?!?! An Ultra is faster, and an Ultra SLI is WAY faster...

Actually y'all: An Ultra IS different, just barely though. nVidia has stated that they have optimized the hardware for less power usage, only slightly though. The key difference is that Ultra memory is a newer version that is higher quality and rated for higher clocks. So a GTX can never clock its memory as high as an Ultra can.

It may clock higher than a GTX but the difference in performance would be meaningless.

A 8800 U is NOT faster than the HD 3870 X2 .
And ATi's drivers suck ? Since when ? NVidia has the benefit of an efficient architecture , hence no need for uber drivers .

An 8800 GTX even OC'ed is still not as fast as an 8800 Ultra let alone an OC'ed one. If anybody states otherwise, they don't know what they are talking about and need to do the research before they speak up.

Well anonymous, the difference in performance ISNT meaningless if you have ever read a review.... its about 10-15%. Meaningless is a subjective term, and if you're spending that much money on video cards anyways 10-15% is very meaningful.

Also, Adam you are very right. Everyone says "OC an GTX to an Ultra". Well, what happens when you OC that Ultra?
OC GTX < OC Ultra
GTX < Ultra
You cant just say
OC GTX = Ultra.
Who spends that much and DOESNT overclock is what I want to know! :O

They're both based on the G80(I fairly doubt a small revision will bring massive clock gains) so a Ultra OCed would just clock meaninglessly higher than a OCed GTX. Memory OCing is a different story though but since the memory chips aren't made by Nvidia they differ too wildly per manufacturer/ People who overclock this would OC only for 3dmark records as the performance difference would be quite meaningless and I have seen people buy these only because they don't want to OC a GTX and these come with prebuilts because having the fastest card when they release their computer is great for advertising as most people who OC are looking for value.