My friend said he got one but I was thinking it was one of the lower end versions based on the NV40 core. Well, we got togther to LAN last weekend and my friend's running Far Cry at 1280x1024 with everything maxed and hitting like 60-65 FPS. I looked up so more info on them and was surprised by what I found. Basically this card is identical to the 6800 Ultra except for the clock speeds. The core clock is 350MHz instead of 400 and the memory runs at 1000MHz and opposed to 1100. It has 16 pixel pipelines, a 256-bit memory bus and 256MB of GDDR3 memory.
The only other major difference, I think, are actually pluses. It has a smaller cooling unit, so it actually fits in one slot. Its takes 1 external power connection instead of 2. And the kicker...it costs $100 less than the Ultra version!!! Granted it is still $400, but every writeup or benchmark I have seen has it smoking the equally priced X800 Pro which only has 12 pipelines. Plus the X800 series doesn't support Pixel Shader 3.0. Of course DirectX 9.0c is still a couple months away from being even sparingly used, but I've seen hints that alot of game studios are going to include supports for it in new patches sooner, rather than later. And that some companies are extending their development cycles to add it into near-future games.
Throw in nVidia's 32-bit floating point units (instead of ATi's 24-bit) and you've a helluva lotta card stuffed into a fairly reasonable price. It has the complete feature set of its Ultra brother and kills the competition in its price range. I know $400 is alot to spend on a computer component but for what you get I think it is worth every penny.
Those of you who I have taked hardware with before are probably calling me a sellout cause I'm an ATi guy. Well, let's just say that this is one product that nVidia did completly right. Features, cooling, price, performance. I would have one right now if all three Best Buys in Jacksonville weren't sold out. What are the chances.
The only other major difference, I think, are actually pluses. It has a smaller cooling unit, so it actually fits in one slot. Its takes 1 external power connection instead of 2. And the kicker...it costs $100 less than the Ultra version!!! Granted it is still $400, but every writeup or benchmark I have seen has it smoking the equally priced X800 Pro which only has 12 pipelines. Plus the X800 series doesn't support Pixel Shader 3.0. Of course DirectX 9.0c is still a couple months away from being even sparingly used, but I've seen hints that alot of game studios are going to include supports for it in new patches sooner, rather than later. And that some companies are extending their development cycles to add it into near-future games.
Throw in nVidia's 32-bit floating point units (instead of ATi's 24-bit) and you've a helluva lotta card stuffed into a fairly reasonable price. It has the complete feature set of its Ultra brother and kills the competition in its price range. I know $400 is alot to spend on a computer component but for what you get I think it is worth every penny.
Those of you who I have taked hardware with before are probably calling me a sellout cause I'm an ATi guy. Well, let's just say that this is one product that nVidia did completly right. Features, cooling, price, performance. I would have one right now if all three Best Buys in Jacksonville weren't sold out. What are the chances.
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