Intervista a Creative

nV News: What besides the significantly faster memory does the Ultra offer over standard GeForce2 cards? Were there any board revisions to accommodate the faster memory (traces lengthened or shortened, etc.)?

Steve: The Ultra also has a significantly faster core clock, 250 Mhz which helps in the multitexture cases and helps with T&L. There are significant revisions done to the board to insure signal integrity at these speeds. Basically if you want to insure stability at these speeds you have to redesign the board. There is a huge difference between a board that is overclocked to 250 Mhz versus one that is designed to 250Mhz. If you just try to overclock the board without changing key components and key traces, then you run a big stability risk and you risk having a product that will die in a few days, or be overly sensitive to heat.

Basically, by redesigning the board to handle 250Mhz memory, you also provide the potential for headroom beyond this. The bottom line is there will be NVIDIA approved design for the Ultra board. Designed by the guys who understand the chip and memory and system issues better than anybody else. This design will have the highest performance, most stability, and most margin for overclocking. If you are going to spend $499 on a graphics card, then the thing you have to insure is that you have the board that was designed to go this fast (or faster).