Going Past The Reference GeForce 6800 Ultra

Our recent High-End GPU/VPU Shootout article and the earlier NV40 Preview article have focused much on the performance and technology standpoints of NVIDIA's GeForce 6 series. Having discussed much just based on reference products, MSI's NX6800 Ultra-T2D256 will be one of the retail graphics card review using NVIDIA's top of the line GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU.

Top graphics card models have always hogged the retail shelves with their overly huge box packaging, but the good thing is that it often acts as a strong branding statement to the general onlookers.

A flip-open box cover design adds to the exclusivity of the product.

Unlike some huge product enclosures that contain only the graphics card and plenty of air, the contents within the MSI NX6800 Ultra-T2D256 package were quite comprehensive. Besides the graphics card and its accessories, you receive 14 CDs that comes packed with 20 utilities and 17 games. Here's the full product inventory:-

MSI NX6800 Ultra-T2D256 graphics card

1x DVI-I to Analog VGA converter

1x S-Video extension cable

2x Y-Power cable connectors

MSI quick installation guide

MSI quick user guide

Prince of Persia 3D (full game, 2 CDs)

XIII (full game, 4 CDs)

URU (full game, 1 CD)

14-in-1 Games Collection Demo DVD

Compared to MSI's older graphics card products, we are glad to find that the game bundle offering has been completely revised. The three full games aren't brand new, but they are still current titles since they were only launched middle of this year. The game demo disc has also been overhauled and now packs a larger list of playable game demos that are compiled on a DVD disc:-

Praetorians

YAGER

Heaven & Hell

Divine Divinity

Etherlords2

IL-2 Sturmovik

Splinter Cell

Black Hawk Down

Joint Operations Typhoon Rising

Comanche 4

American Conquest

Commandos 3 Destination Berlin

Beach Life

Deus EX Invisible War

Well, that's about it for the graphics card's bundle so let's concentrate more on the MSI GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics card and its performance on the following pages.