GeForce 8800 Ultra

We barely managed to get used to GeForce 8800 GTX and Nvidia has released a newer more powerful card; GeForce 8800 Ultra. They finally brought the Ultra back after we last seen it on the 6 series. So whats new in this Ultra card? Well the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra performs an average of between 10 and 15% faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX GPU.

The new graphics card features a G80 GPU clocked at 612 MHz, a mild increase from the GeForce 8800 GTX’s 576 MHz. The 612 MHz G80 GPU pairs with 2.16 GHz memory, up 360 MHz from the GeForce 8800 GTX’s 1.8 GHz. Aside from subtle clock speed increases, there is still 768MB of video memory attached via 384-bit wide memory bus. NVIDIA has raised the shader clock speeds by 150 MHz to 1.5 GHz as well. A new cooler spanning the entire length of the card also joins the list of upgrades.

So why do you want the new GeForce 8 series anyway? Well here's why:

1. GeForce 8 Series GPUs are the first shipping DirectX 10 GPUs and are the reference GPUs for Microsoft DirectX 10 API development.
   
2. GeForce 8800 GPUs are the developer's platform of choice for this year's top DirectX 10 titles, including Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Crysis, Age of Conan, Hellgate: London, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, World in Conflict, BioShock, PT Boats, and Cryostasis.
   
3. Developers creating next-generation OpenGL titles, such as Enemy Territory: Quake Wars are also using GeForce 8 Series as their development platform of choice.
   
4. GeForce 8 Series GPUs include all required hardware functionality defined in the Microsoft Direct3D® 10 specification, with full support for the DirectX 10 unified shader instruction set and Shader Model 4 capabilities.
   
5. DirectX 10 is included with Microsoft Windows Vista and delivers unparalleled levels of graphics realism and film-quality effects for games, all rendered in real-time on a GeForce 8 Series DirectX 10-capable GPU.