6800 Ultra: Bloody Expensive!

Adeptus Titanicus

Just having a gander over at the gfx cards over on Komplett .

Gainward GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3 AGP, "CoolFX Ultra/2600 GS" 450Plus mhz: €919
must be made of gold!

Cheapest is Gainward GeForce 6800 128MB DDR 2.8ns AGP, "Ultra/2100", at €385

Who's gonna bite?

<edit>
of course, they're not due in till June 14th. Wonder if the price will be revised by then?
</edit>

TacT

definitely not at that price

BloodBath

The 919 euro one is for graphics design, not games. It's pretty cheap at that price as well.



BloodBath

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by BloodBath
The 919 euro one is for graphics design, not games. It's pretty cheap at that price as well.

Ah, k. That would make more sense. Was trying to get more info on it. So what makes it a graphics design card rather than gaming? I'm sure many "bragging rights junkies" would give their eye-teeth for this.

<edit>
http://www.digit-life.com/news.html?104514
comes with a water cooling block

BloodBath

Apparantly most graphics design is done in open gl and this card is optimised for that and supposedly performs worse in games than the normal version.


BloodBath

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by BloodBath
Apparantly most graphics design is done in open gl and this card is optimised for that and supposedly performs worse in games than the normal version.

Are you saying the Ultra isn't as good for gaming as the non-Ultra? Doubtful. Or just this particular flavour?

Heh, I remember spending £2500 on a Wildcat card about 6-7 years ago (well, I spent the companies money) because we needed shít-hot OpenGL support for rendering 3D scenes. We've come a long way!

<edit>
from the inquirer

"We suggest that the 450MHz 6800 Ultra Extreme core will form only the starting point for Gainward's overclockers wet-dream, the liquid-cooled CoolFX Ultra-2600 'Golden Sample', and we suggest that 500MHz is Gainward's target for the GPU Core."

so €617 for the air cooled @ 430MHz and 919 for the liquid cooled @ 450MHz, but supposedly very overclockable.
Might explain the 900 yoyo bill, but not enough for me to part with my cash!
</edit>

Dman_15

overclockers.co.uk have both the x800 and the 6800.
£300 and £400 respectively

neokenzo

Yeah Overclockers have the X800Pro at £254.95 and 6800 Ultra at £339. Looks like Komplett trying to strech their profits a tad bit.

Adeptus Titanicus

Actually, the 6800 Ultra 256Mb XFX card at overclockers @ €508 (£339) stands pretty much the same as the Gainward 6800 Ultra 256Mb at €506. Komplett don't give much in the way of details though. :dunno:

I was just shocked at the 919 bill of the watercooled version, but it does have a pretty good clock speed (450MHz plus, must be the Extreme flavour). Crazy money though! I'm happy with my overclocked/flashed 9800Pro for the next while.

Woden

that card for 900 blips is no more optimised for graphics design and openGL then any of the other ultras its just water cooled and overclocked and what not and is for gaming and stuff. gainward did the same with the 5950ultra iirc which also had a very expensive water cooled variant.

the wildcats are still knocking about i was wondering what they where recently and why they where so expensive.

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by Dataisgod
... gainward did the same with the 5950ultra iirc which also had a very expensive water cooled variant.

the wildcats are still knocking about i was wondering what they where recently and why they where so expensive.

Yeah, I read about that somewhere. Not sure I get the point of paying for the priviledge of a pre-overclocked card when you can do it yourself for less. Thought that was the point of overclocking. :dunno:

I see Komplett have dropped the Wildcats from the ie site I think I had posted a reply to you on them before. Can't remember how much they were on Konplett.

BloodBath

Idiots on that other forum. That sucks. An extra 400 euro for a water block and the speeds pre-overclocked.


BloodBath

neokenzo

I've never seen the waterblock version. What does that mean? Is the gpu cooler meant to be watercooled or do you get teh whole watercooling system?

Matt Simis

The 900+ card is hand picked by nVidia, the cream of the crop. All that human intervention and low yields costs a lot of money... I wouldnt be surprised if they were losing money on this card.



Matt

leeroybrown

Economics: Supply and Demand

Ultimately, they are probably only producing a very limited run of this card (compared to other models). If people are willing to pay this much for the 'flagship' card of the Gainward line then they'll sell it for this much.

The extortionate €900 price is probably more of a function of high prices in Europe, worse again in the UK and more again in Ireland than a very high manufacturers price. Considering that the Euro is 20% stronger against the Dollar than it was 12/18 Months ago we're really taking a hammering here.

po0k

DDR3

CombatCow

Regarding the card and it's power requirements, from Gamespot :

We caught up with Ujesh Desai, General Manager of Desktop GPUs for Nvidia, for a quick Q&A and asked him if he could clarify the GeForce 6800 Ultra’s 480W power requirement situation for us. It turns out that Nvidia’s newest GPU isn't as power-hungry as previously thought.


GAMESPOT: What are the reasons behind the 480W power supply recommendation for the GeForce 6800 Ultra?

UJESH DESAI: We have to spec our products for the absolute worst case, not the best. Marginal power supplies and poorly ventilated cases must be taken into account. We are traditionally overcautious about our minimum specifications, and this is no exception. Now that we have had more time with the GPU, we are getting a better feel for its capabilities, tolerances, and resource requirements.The reason we initially spec'ed out 480W was because the GeForce 6800 Ultra was targeted at the enthusiast. These folks tend to push their systems to the max. That means overclocking the GPU, using the fastest CPU on the market, and also typically using multiple peripherals. For these folks, a 480W power supply and a second power dongle on the graphics card provide an ideal overclocking solution. For people that do not want to overclock, the 480W power supply and second power connector combination is overkill.


:rolleyes:

CombatCow

neokenzo

So does that mean if you want to overclock it you need to to have a 480W PSU and a second dongle and if not you dont? Looks like their somewhat answering the question and not at the same time.

The Brigadier

The OpenGL boards from Nvidia are not called GeForce they are sold as Quadro and use the same core.

Sir Random

Gainward's CoolFX system has been around for a while, adding a similar price-hike to the 5900 and 5950 Ultras last year.
There's even a nice acrylic/LED mod to light them up
http://www.themodfathers.jolt.co.uk/?page=&action=show&id=9318

netman

The 6800's are a bit too expensive. I think you'd be a fool to buy now, as the cards aren't even out yet and this is the time when you pay the premium price.

I plan on holding off for a few weeks or months after the launch when people suss out all the softmodding options and then bite the bullet and upgrade. X800 looks more appealing, it's cheaper and still offers great performance.

I'm hoping someone will find out a way to enable the extra pipelines, like the 9500 > 9700 mod. Then get a X800 SE or PRO and mod it to 16 pipelines... Then I can try out some games at 1600x1200