After the official Nvidia 8800 Ultra announcement, reviews started to appear all over the net. Some Nvidia partners decided to announce their own 8800 Ultra series. Most of them are nothing special, just a reference design with reference clocks. We are still waiting for those EVGA, XFX and similar special OC-ed Ultras.
First in the line is Gainward, with a capital G and Gainward on the cooler. The card has 768 MB 1.0ns DDR3 memory that works at 2160 MHz, and a core at reference 612 MHz.
Sparkle is the only one that has announced something different. It announced one card that is based on reference clocks, but with a cooler that looks like the one on their GTX version. I hope that it isn't just a PR picture, and that actual 8800 Ultras from Sparkle will look like that. Another addition from Sparkle is its Calibre series. This is the first of the overclocked 8800 Ultras, with 650 MHz clock for the core and 2250 MHz memory and shaders remained at 1500 MHz. The Calibre series from Sparkle uses TEC cooling, which comes with an additional power penalty of 20-30W.
Leadtek came up with their 8800 Ultra, it's the same as most other partners, still just a reference design. All that's changed is a sticker on the cooler. EVGA did a reference card as well. The same reference design and the same specifications. The only difference is that this one has EVGA written on the cooler, and a price tag of $849.99 USD on EVGA's homepage.
Inno3D advertise their as "Ultra redefined with Inno3D GeForce 8800 Ultra". Nothing has changed, reference clocks, reference cooling. The only interesting thing on the Inno3D card are the memory chips as the card should use Samsung 0.8ns GDDR3, which should support speeds of up to 2500MHz. I just hope that its not just PR. There is a simple math behind it, 0.8ns = 1250MHz x 2 = 2500MHz.
