The physical differences between the ultra and this version is that this card wont take over the space of the adjacent PCI slot and only requires one power connector. We also found the noise level produced by this card to be lower than the Ultra version which is definitely a good thing. Our reference card overclocked quite well. We managed to get the memory up from 700MHz to 880MHz while the core went up from 325 to 375. This resulted in differences between 4% to 12% which is quite a reasonable performance gain. If we could figure out a hack to increase the pipelines from 12 to 16 then we would definitely have a killer card. Here are a few shots of the card followed by the testbed.

Basically, it boils down to the price and availability of a product. The 6800 is definitely a better performer than the previous generation of graphic cards and although we havent seen a retail version yet, we think that it should be available very soon. Regarding the price, nVidia's suggested price is US$350 however, reading at different websites, it seems that this card might be available for $299. If that is the case, then we think that nVidia might have a winner even though the x800 PRO is a better performer as its currently selling at well above $400.