![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, May 02, 2007
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra & SLI
NVIDIA is bringing the name “Ultra” back with today’s launch of the GeForce 8800 Ultra. This new video card pushes the GeForce 8’s performance to new heights, but at $829 is it worth it? We cover single card and SLI performance in Oblivion and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Introduction
On November 8th, 2006 NVIDIA launched a new GPU generation known as the GeForce 8 series. Specifically, the chip was known internally to NVIDIA as G80 but to you and me we know it as the GeForce 8800 GTX. When the GeForce 8800 GTX was introduced it had a suggested retail price of $599. You can currently find GeForce 8800 GTX cards online from $529 all the way up to $939 for an overclocked and water-cooled BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX.
As a quick refresh the GeForce 8800 GTX utilizes 128 stream processors and 768 MB of GDDR3 memory on a 384-bit memory bus. The core, which is the ROPs and everything else, runs at 575 MHz on the 8800 GTX; the stream processors run at 1.35 GHz. The memory runs at 900 MHz (1.8 GHz) which provides 86.4 GB/sec of memory bandwidth on the 8800 GTX.
The only performance difference with the new GeForce 8800 Ultra are higher core, stream processor and memory clock speeds explained below.
GeForce 8800 Ultra
The “GeForce Ultra” branding is back, and we are happy to see it once again. We have fond memories of highly clocked GeForce based Ultra cards over the years. The Ultra name has always been synonymous for just flat out fast performance and higher clock speeds. As such, that is exactly what the GeForce 8800 Ultra is, a faster GeForce 8800 GTX. The core architecture is exactly the same, 128 streaming processors and 768 MB of GDDR3 memory on a 384-bit bus.
While the architecture is the same, there are a couple of things NVIDIA has tweaked with this new GPU. The GPU itself is actually a newer refined revision compared to the GeForce 8800 GTX GPU, though still built on 90nm process. NVIDIA has done some tweaking internally, concerning timing tuning and other minor things to coax a little more performance but yet keeping the power utilization in check. In fact, according to the specifications the maximum load power draw has been reduced by a few watts compared to the 8800 GTX even running at the faster clock speeds.
The quoted power consumption for a GeForce 8800 GTX is 177 Watts. For the new GeForce 8800 Ultra, running at higher clock speeds, the quoted power consumption is 175 Watts. We will do our own testing to see how the Ultra compares to a GTX later in this evaluation. I would suggest that the R600 power comparisons be ignored as they are verified as not being correct or at least all the information about them is not disclosed on this slide. We will have our own R600 power comparison numbers here in a couple of weeks.
Here is the GeForce 8800 Ultra in all its glory. It runs with a core frequency of 612 MHz (versus 575 MHz on the GTX). The stream processors are clocked at 1.5 GHz (versus 1.35 GHz on the 8800 GTX). Finally, the memory is clocked at 1080 MHz (2.16 GHz DDR), compared to 900 MHz (1.8 GHz DDR) on the GTX.
The core frequency isn’t much higher, but the shader clock speeds is a healthy 150 MHz faster, which should help in more shader intensive games. Most impressive is the memory clock frequency increase. At 2.16 GHz the memory bandwidth available is now 103.6 GB/sec versus 86.4 GB/sec on the 8800 GTX. This kind of a memory bandwidth increase can help with antialiasing performance improvements or games that use a lot of alpha textures, like the grass in Oblivion.
The heatsink and shroud also received an update with this video card. The shroud now covers the entire length of the video card, though the actual heatsink does not. The heatsink itself is very close in design to the 8800 GTX with some minor tweaks to allow the fan location to be moved. Overall it is a bit more elegant of a design and does a better job of protecting components on the card and also makes it more comfortable to handle.
So how much is this going to cost? You would think not much higher than a GeForce 8800 GTX right? After all it is only a clock speed bump. We’ll, prepare yourself, this is a shocker; the GeForce 8800 Ultra has an MSRP of $829 USD. Yes, that is correct, 829 big dollars. To us, it seems tremendously overpriced and NVIDIA is already warning of shortages, but more on that later. The only hope we see for this video card is if that price falls close to GTX levels at $600. Two GeForce 8800 Ultra’s for SLI are going to cost you a whopping $1,658 at MSRP which is just simply an insane amount of money for two video cards.
Also, while the video card is being announced today, availability will by May 15th. So yes, we are back to NVIDIA Paper Launch status with the 8800 Ultra. Cards will most likely show up before then, but they may be even more pricy for a while until we see more options and brands in the market. We will discuss this a bit later.
In these photographs you can see the new black heatsink shroud which covers the entire length of the video card. The fan has been moved to the top and actually bulges out beyond the edge of the video card. This does provide some benefit as it is able to now grab air from the back of the card as well as the front. This could come in handy if you are running a three video card system in a 680i motherboard or running a motherboard where the second or third video card butts right up next to the primary video card blocking the fan. With the fan off center like this it is able to grab more air for cooling in such an enclosed system. We think the new shroud design is very pleasing aesthetically and adds a bit of function as well.
Lengthwise this video card is exactly the same length as the GeForce 8800 GTX at 10.5 inches. Height and width are also the same (With the exception of the top bulge for the fan extension, which should cause little issue if any.); the only difference now is that the height is now carried over the entire length of the video card. Running in SLI, two of these video cards look quite menacing in a system.