Have we seen the 'real' GeForce 6800 Ultra yet?

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Have we seen the 'real' GeForce 6800 Ultra yet?
I think it's fair to say that a fair number of people were suprised when the GeForce 6800 Ultra boards sent out to reviewers were clocked with a 400MHz core, when everything we'd heard and seen before had led us to believe that the final core speed would be 475MHz.

Now, in this thread at Beyond3D, Uttar suggests that we may not yet have seen the 6800 Ultra's true form...

Regarding the NV40 - I think you're all forgetting this is A1 silicon which has been available for sometime now. A2 silicon was available at review time, but NVIDIA decided against it.

There's a reason the clockspeeds suddenly went from 475Mhz to 400Mhz - the final ones will be at or over 475Mhz, but NVIDIA's in their "let's make ATI more confident in themselves than they should be" mood.

If anything, this generation will probably be remembered by the gazillions of tricks & traps each company is preparing for its arch-nemesis... But I'd still be inclined to say the R420 will win this war for several reasons. We'll see though.
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Personally, I would imagine there is more to the clock speed change than a simple "let's catch out ATi" plan, especially given the hurried modification that seems to have been made to the review boards shipped out. The next few weeks are going to make for interesting viewing, that's for sure...
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i thought this was interesting. would definately explain albatrons rumored 600/1000 speeds. (http://www.pcunleash.com/ )
^
Albatron said that their 'Geforce6800UV' has core clock running at 600Mhz and the ram is reaching 1Ghz.
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Wow I hope Albatron is telling the truth about the 600mhz, because that would be awsome. It does make since that the A2 revision would run at higher clock speeds. Hopefully they will be able to push the card even farther later on down the road. :D
 
yeah if this is true this is great news for the consumer. more competition. meaning that if both companies are hiding their full power then more power to us right? :D
 
the fact is that the 6800 Ultra is 400/550, no ifs ands or butts about it, period end of story

this is what NVIDIA is setting as the default clock on the 6800 Ultra

will AIBs clock their cards differently? there is always that possibility
 
alright ill give you that. but if the manufacturers can get higher speeds on the retail product, this is good news for us.
 
Originally posted by Bad_Boy
alright ill give you that. but if the manufacturers can get higher speeds on the retail product, this is good news for us.
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more performance is always good :D

and with 16 pipelines the performance will increase more with clock speed than an 8 or 4 pipeline card
 
Originally posted by Brent

and with 16 pipelines the performance will increase more with clock speed than an 8 or 4 pipeline card
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i never thought of that. sounds good.
especially when overclocking the final product (if even needed)
:D
 
well if a 600mhz overclocked core can be had on a nv40 then the r420's supposed stock coreclock of 600mhz doesn't sound unrealistic...
 
Originally posted by mcryptic
well if a 600mhz overclocked core can be had on a nv40 then the r420's supposed stock coreclock of 600mhz doesn't sound unrealistic...
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if a manufacturer releases a card it doesnt mean its overclocked, im pretty sure a few of them probally made some changes from the revision board given to them.

but i get what your saying.
 
Originally posted by Merlin45
perhaps the 6800 ultra will be the baseline, with faster cards above it.
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there is only GeForce 6800 and GeForce 6800 Ultra from NVIDIA, with the Ultra being their fastest part

that doesn't stop AIBs from having "OC" parts though that could possibly be clocked higher than Ultras
 
but holy hell if you could get one with a "stock" speed of 600mhz and then OC it even farther...holy shit youd have a friggin rocket inside your case.......man I cant wait to see what everyones offerings are going to be...I have a feeling Ill be either getting a BFG or an Albatron...since both have always served me damn well
 
I wonder if the PSU requirements on a overclocked 6800 ULTRA goes up to a 550 W PSU ;)
 
Originally posted by Brent
the fact is that the 6800 Ultra is 400/550, no ifs ands or butts about it, period end of story

this is what NVIDIA is setting as the default clock on the 6800 Ultra

will AIBs clock their cards differently? there is always that possibility
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The question then is - What's happened to the A2 silicon, which people are known to have, and running at 475MHz core no less? :p
 
Originally posted by Hanners
The question then is - What's happened to the A2 silicon, which people are known to have, and running at 475MHz core no less? :p
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i've not seen any A2 silicon

NVIDIA told us they went into production with A1
 
If all the AIB makers are setting higher than stock clocks, there could finally be some real incentive to go with one maker over another. (in the past the only company with real incentive was Gainward with their GS products, but with the new trends like the OC cards from BFG, this could get interesting)
 
Originally posted by Merlin45
If all the AIB makers are setting higher than stock clocks, there could finally be some real incentive to go with one maker over another. (in the past the only company with real incentive was Gainward with their GS products, but with the new trends like the OC cards from BFG, this could get interesting)
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indeed, i think its awesome
 
So not only is Nvidia competing with ATI but all the add-in makers are competing with each other. Sounds like a win win to me.
 
Originally posted by Brent
i've not seen any A2 silicon

NVIDIA told us they went into production with A1
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I suggested another explanation for this on Rage3d....

Specifically, recall what happens with the GeForceFX 5600?

Maybe nVidia IS going into card production with the A1....but only to run out their cores they've already bought. A month or two from now, there will be another batch of 6800 Ultra cards coming out with 475 core clock.

If they do so....I really hope they remember to rename it this time (the 5600 -> 5600 flip-chip clock bump didn't get renamed at all - which was VERY confusing as the performance between the two cores was not at all comparable!)
 
I’m going to keep an eye on this when I get enough money. BFG and Albatron have never givin me any problems with their hardware that I’ve used in other peoples computers.

As for the A1’s, everyone has said they probably are just selling those off cheap for the low end ultra’s and the A2 are in short supply for the time but will be in the TRUE ULTRA cards later to come out with a higher price.;)
 
There'll probably be a 6850 should the R420XT prove to be superior to NV's current offerings.
 
It could be. But if Nvidia went to all that trouble, it would probably just be for naught.

If ATi's core had something left in it, they could always release a 800XT "Turbo". ATi did it before when other cards would start to catch up, they changed the pro, to a pro turbo.

Normally its a really bad idea to showcase below your ability.
 
yes it does

now does someone know how much it will be?

i wanna get one right away to try it out.
 
doesnt really matter where i order it from i just want one :D
 
Offhand, a jump like that would be aimed for the 6850 Ultra refresh however-long down the line they want (~6 months?) to keep things fresh, but I'd sincerely doubt we'll see like these cards from a major board manufacturer at this point. We might see more "Special Edition" cards like we do with Alienware now--where cream of the crop chips are plucked off to give higher stock speeds--but how on earth would a 200mhz jump be at all plausable without significant manufacturing change underneath to support it? It's the type of refining I'd expect to see to get a good jump with their next major refresh, but that's down the line and with a new name--not a 6800Ultra that would just get squeezed on in to replace. (And the current crop doesn't seem to OC enough to lead me to believe they can bring this about with the current chips.)
 
well the review boards ran really cool, so i assume they were undervolted, I bet if the voltage was upped this thing would scale very nicely.
 
It just smells more like "marketing number" or "typo" than any real expectation from their commercial boards. After all, if some are able (and allowed) to kick the board up to 600Mhz now, all the others will have to follow, and just what would nVidia be able to do for a worthy 6850 update without refrigeration-casing? ;)
 
I'm not sure we should expect to see a fall refresh of this part.

Remember, the r500 is supposed to be out by then (well, was SUPPOSED to be out for THIS cycle...which would have put a WORLD of hurt on nVidia. Good thing ATI couldn't do it - but their alternative solution might be just as bad!).

If r500 really is the leap over r420 that it is SUPPOSED to be....nVidia better not think they can get by with a nv40 refresh! Unless, by 'refresh' you mean "put two cores on one card"!

(Hmmm....actually....they DO have 3dfx technology.....)
 
There is one thing I find comical about this, There are people here that are expecting add in board partners to get an extra 200 MHZ out of the core (albatron) which is not physically possible, please name the last time that happened on any graphics card.

So far no one has been able to get more than a 50 MHZ overclock from the NV40 and some of you are expecting 200 MHZ which is pretty much laughable and desperation, it just is not going to happen, EVEN if Albatron did some how manage it by seriously overclocking the card and mounting a refridgerator on the core while using the best possible parts they could get there hands on it would still be a chore to get that kind of overclock and can you actually imagine the price, have any of you even considered that.

The current price will be $499.00 I think and all that kind of work will probablys clock another $150 to $200 on top of that, golden sample's used to have about a 50 mhz overclock over Nvidias standard and they used to charge nearly $100 extra, what your expecting as an overclock from Albatron is 4 times that and you think that would be possible any where near the same price.

Not a chance guys!!!

Nvidia have released a damn good card and it plays everything currently available with NO problems, christ I cant wait to see ATI's card and that could end up being a complete flop in which case none of this desperate specualation would have been warrented.
 
Originally posted by crazyspike
There is one thing I find comical about this, There are people here that are expecting add in board partners to get an extra 200 MHZ out of the core (albatron) which is not physically possible, please name the last time that happened on any graphics card.

So far no one has been able to get more than a 50 MHZ overclock from the NV40 and some of you are expecting 200 MHZ which is pretty much laughable and desperation, it just is not going to happen, EVEN if Albatron did some how manage it by seriously overclocking the card and mounting a refridgerator on the core while using the best possible parts they could get there hands on it would still be a chore to get that kind of overclock and can you actually imagine the price, have any of you even considered that.

The current price will be $499.00 I think and all that kind of work will probablys clock another $150 to $200 on top of that, golden sample's used to have about a 50 mhz overclock over Nvidias standard and they used to charge nearly $100 extra, what your expecting as an overclock from Albatron is 4 times that and you think that would be possible any where near the same price.

Not a chance guys!!!

Nvidia have released a damn good card and it plays everything currently available with NO problems, christ I cant wait to see ATI's card and that could end up being a complete flop in which case none of this desperate specualation would have been warrented.
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Do you understand the effect voltage has on overclocking at all? Hexus was reporting extremely low temps. 44C under load while overclocked to 420MHz. It would not be surprising to see a voltage increase in retail cards allowing for higher overclocks seeing how the temps look like they have considerable room in them.
 
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