• [TheTechReport] “The NV40 is exceptionally good, with no notable weaknesses in performance or capability. NVIDIA has caught up to ATI’s seminal R300 chip in virtually every respect, while adding a host of new features that make NV40 a better graphics processor, including long shader programs, more mathematical precision, and floating-point framebuffer blends.”
• [TrustedReviews] “To sum it all up, the GeForce 6800 Ultra is the fastest and most impressive graphics card I have ever seen and I m not easily impressed. On the down side, you do need a high-end PC and a small nuclear reactor, if you want to get the most out of it, but such is the lot of the early adopter.”
• [Hexus] “It’s ridiculously fast compared to R360 in some tests, if you avoid the 8X supersampling mode. But there lies the rub. Shouldn’t we expect good high-end antialiasing performance with their latest generation GPU?”
• [FiringSquad] “In many cases GeForce 6800 Ultra outperforms its nearest competitor by a factor of nearly two, and keep in mind that this is with early drivers, performance will only get better from here.”
• [TomsHardware]”The first barrier on your way to graphics ecstasy is the power requirement calling for a PSU with at least 480Watts.”
• [HardwareAnalysis] “If you can afford it, as suggested retail pricing is around $500, you ve got yourself a graphics card that ll chew up anything you throw at it with performance to spare.”
• [AnandTech] “Of course, we aren’t crowning any kings yet, as ATI will soon be making its mark on this generation of GPUs. We will have to wait to find out what they can bring to the table, but it is definitely turning out to be an exciting battle.”
• [HotHardware] “Directly comparing the Radeon 9800 XT to the GeForce 6800 Ultra yields some interesting results. Without any anisotropic filtering enabled, we’d give a slight advantage to the Radeon – the image is slightly less blurred (the differences are most visible on the mountain). At the 8X and 16X aniso settings though, the GeForce 6800 Ultra clearly does a better job at sharpening the textures.”
• [NVNews] “I sensed it was special since it arrived in the briefcase you see pictured below. The briefcase even had a combination lock, which may have been a precautionary measure in the event the package found its way into the wrong hands.”
• [PCPerspective] “In the end, who the winning vendor will be means little to gamers as either way they will end up with some phenomenal hardware. Though from what we have seen so far, we cannot think of a way any gamer would be anything but blown away with the GeForce 6800 Ultra.”
• [Beyond3D] “When all is said and done, this is a very impressive, and welcome, leap over the FX series.”
• [HardOCP] “Still, with all these great things said, NVIDIA is far from being off the hook in terms of competition. ATI’s R420 VPU is looking to be a 16 pixel pipeline part and is being touted as a 600MHz monster. We all know that the real battle is fought in the mainstream trenches, but the winner of the high-end battle gets the bragging rights and it is unclear just yet who will get to do the bragging.”
