As if having the jump over rival ATI by releasing the world’s first DirectX 10 compatible graphics architecture is not enough, NVIDIA has continued to consolidate its superiority by extending its GeForce 8 series from the initial high-end GeForce 8800 cards. So we have also seen the mid-range GeForce 8600 and 8500 series in recent months while at the extreme high end, NVIDIA’s response is the GeForce 8800 Ultra. MSI sent us its version of this new king of the hill and here are the highlights.
How to top the successful and speedy GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB? Well, NVIDIA’s answer is to raise the bar on the clock speeds. The MSI card we received is a typical reference card that follows the default clocks – which have all been increased in the Ultra SKU. Hence, the core clock has gone from the GTX’s 575MHz to 612MHz, the memory has increased to 2160MHz from 1800MHz and underneath all this, the internal shader clocks have also gone up to 1500MHz from 1350MHz.
..The GeForce 8800 Ultra is a luxury item, with prices starting from US$829 at launch and we don’t expect this MSI card to be any different, especially when one factors in the software and applications bundled. There probably won’t be that many available also for this niche product that will appeal only to enthusiasts with real spending power. For the majority, this is a card for bragging rights only, as the value is hard to justify with its performance. This isn’t the fastest yet as MSI has an overclocked version in the pipeline, but that too will come at a price of course.
