Cost

The 8800 Ultra from PNY comes in at between £400 and £430 depending on the retailer. This is about £50 more than the 8800GTX by the same company and about £80 more than some of the "Cheap" GTXs from other manufacturers.

Noise

Since the cooling for this Ultra is simply the referance cooler without even a customized sticker on it, I didn't hold high hopes. When at idle it was actually quite quiet, although as soon as you play a game or do something remotely 3D related, the fan spins up and man is it annoying. It stays this way for a while after closing down the application too.

This card is screaming for an aftermarket cooler; almost literally.

Conclusion

The Ultra is still the most powerful (at stock) card on the market and it doesn't seem to matter which company you pick one from, they perform pretty much the same. However, it really isn't that much more powerful than a GTX and costs quite a bit more. It's overclocking ability is quite poor - though understandable - and it's cooler is noisy under load. However, it looks relatively good and considering the results taken, you can see it's about as fast as a single card goes at stock speeds currentl.

The Ultra is not an example of a great card, but in terms of raw performance, it simply can't be beat.

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Thanks go to PNY for providing us with this card.