New Ultra High End Price Point With GeForce 8800 Ultra
by Derek Wilson on May 2, 2007 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Test
As for our performance tests, we will be looking at a handful of games running the extreme resolutions and quality settings the 8800 Ultra is designed to enable. We will be including the stock 8800 GTX as well as the EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GTX KO ACS3. This should give us a good sense of what the new 8800 Ultra really has to offer.
We are using the same testing rig we've employed for quite some time now.
Games include staples such as: BF2, Prey, Oblivion, and Rainbow Six: Vegas. We will also be testing new comers S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Supreme Commander. This article sees the addition of AA modes in Oblivion and Rainbow Six, as this high performance hardware needs some room to stretch its legs.
Where possible we use built-in benchmarks. FRAPS is used for Oblivion, Rainbow Six, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (which has demo play functionality but no demo record).
As for our performance tests, we will be looking at a handful of games running the extreme resolutions and quality settings the 8800 Ultra is designed to enable. We will be including the stock 8800 GTX as well as the EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GTX KO ACS3. This should give us a good sense of what the new 8800 Ultra really has to offer.
We are using the same testing rig we've employed for quite some time now.
| System Test Configuration | |
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz/4MB) |
| Motherboard: | EVGA nForce 680i SLI |
| Chipset: | NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI |
| Chipset Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce 9.35 |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.7 160GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Card: | Various |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 7.4 NVIDIA ForceWare 158.19 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1280 x 800 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
Games include staples such as: BF2, Prey, Oblivion, and Rainbow Six: Vegas. We will also be testing new comers S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Supreme Commander. This article sees the addition of AA modes in Oblivion and Rainbow Six, as this high performance hardware needs some room to stretch its legs.
Where possible we use built-in benchmarks. FRAPS is used for Oblivion, Rainbow Six, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (which has demo play functionality but no demo record).
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strikeback03 - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
Since you always seem to think good graphics cards are for shooting aliens, are you aware that there are cards that sell for over $5000 for business applications?gigahertz20 - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
Well I was excited when I woke up this morning to find reviews on the 8800 Ultra but after reading this I'm very disappointed. All Nvidia did was overclock a 8800 GTX and are now calling it a 8800 Ultra while trying to sell it for $200-$300 more. It performs a few percent better but not enough to be noticeable in a game.I guess they decided a few people would buy it and it's not like Nvidia is losing money making them, the 8800 Ultras are the same as the 8800GTX just factory clocked a little higher. I guess as a business move it makes sense, make a little extra money while not having to change your product around at all except for a clock increase.
8800GTS 320MB is still the best deal, come on AMD/ATI I hope their benchmarks for the R600 won't be as disappointing as this, what I've seen from DailyTech on the R600 it looks like Nvidia could be holding the crown for quite some time.
Zefram0911 - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
guess what though... there are still going to be people who buy two of theses bad boys for Sli...... my goodness.DigitalFreak - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
Yeah, well... "A fool and his money are soon parted".johnsonx - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
Foxconn's 8800GTX OC runs at 630/2000 and is only $550 at NewEgg:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
This new GeForce 8800 Ultra really seems pointless, when almost identical performance can be had for $550. It just doesn't seem Ultra enough for an extra $300.
DigitalFreak - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
No kidding. Nearly $300 less than the 8800 Ultra. No wonder Nvidia wasn't too keen on letting their board partners overclock the 8800 GTX....JarredWalton - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
I'll make a note of this in the article, as the Foxconn should perform equal to the EVGA card.Sunrise089 - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
Theres also a similar spec'd BFG card at a lower price than the quoted eVGA. I'm all for reccomending eVGA in a buyers guide, but this article actually appears biased by leaving out other (cheaper) cards in favor of a single eVGA.munky - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
Nice job on the review, including an overclocked gtx really shows just what a joke the 8800u is. However, I suggest that in your future articles you keep the colors consistent between the cards in your resolution scaling graph. It's confusing if a card is shown in yellow on one graph, and then the same card is blue in the next graph.DerekWilson - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
sorry, it ended up that way because we had trouble enabling 4xAA on r6v with the ati x1950xtx. excel automatically picked the colors -- everything else is consistent though.