Gigabyte 6800 Ultra Review :: The Card

Gigabyte 6800 Ultra
Brand	Gigabyte
Model	6800 Ultra
Graphics Chip	NV40
Graphics Memory Type	DDR-3
Memory (MB)	256
Graphics Core Clock (MHz)	400
Memory Clock (MHz)	550
Memory Speed (ns)	2
RAMDAC Frequency (MHz)	2x400
Active Cooling on Graphics Chip	Yes
Heatsink on Memory	Yes
Video Capture	No
System Health Monitoring	No
Ports
Dual Monitor Support	Yes
VGA Out	DVI-Ix2
Video In and Out	S Video Out
Package and Support
Printed Manual	Yes
Driver CD	Yes
Performance Tool Software	V-Tuner
Major Games	Thief 3, Joint Operations
Major Software	No
VR Glasses	No
DVD Player Software	PowerDVD
Video Recording Software	No

The GIGABYTE GEFORCE 6800 Ultra GV N68U256D comes in an attractive box. Gigabyte put up their metallic angel from the previous GEFORCE FX 5950 Ultra series and paired her with a picture of Nalu on the front cover of the box. Also on the front of the box is a list of the primary hardware features of the board (AGP8x, DDRIII, DVI, DirectX 9.X). The back of the box has a listing of the primary features of the 6800 Ultra including CineFX 3.0, High Precision Graphics, Ultra Shadow II, and GDDR3 memory.

The card itself is nearly identical to the NVIDIA reference card in size, shape, cooling. The card is a 2 slot design, with the cooling fan and heatsink raised above what a single slot would hold. The fan on the video card is a 5 fin radial fan. When in operation the noise of the card is noticeable in an open air environment. In a case, the noise level is lower as there are other parts of the computer contributing to the noise. The heatsink that surrounds the fan covers nearly the entire length of the card including the memory.

The memory of the 6800 Ultra is arranged in 4 pairs of 32 MB DDR3 memory on the front of the PCB. The rated memory that NVIDIA uses for this chip is 2ns Samsung memory. This memory is rated at 500MHz which gives a maximum memory bandwidth of 32 GB/second (500 MHzx256x2/8). The rear of the card is empty of memory, which gives room to put 256 MB additional memory on the card for a 512 MB configuration. NVIDIA hasn't announced such a card as of yet, but it is coming.

The input/output array on the side of the PCB is different than previous NVIDIA-based cards before it. Instead of the standard D-sub, TV-Out, DVI-I configuration, GIGABYTE includes 2 DVI-I connectors. This is great for those that use DVI connectors for their LCD monitors. Included in the package is 2 DVI-I to D-Sub converters, which allows anyone to use 2 CRTs as well. This hopefully will be the norm in the future as more and more LCD monitors are sold.

One thing I have to take NVIDIA based 6800 Ultras to task for is the 2 Molex connectors for powering the video card. GIGABYTE followed the reference design here and its rather annoying to need two Molex connectors. When the 6800 Ultra was first reviewed, NVIDIA recommended a 480W PSU to power the 6800 Ultra. I recommend a strong power supply, as while I haven't had any issues with a 400W PSU and the 6800U, skimping on the PSU when you're buying a $500 video card is not a smart thing.