NVIDIA has been catching lots of heat on the release of their new top dog 8800 Ultra graphics card. The problem is that the stock clocked cards are outperformed in some cases by the overclocked 8800 GTX graphics cards, that are often much cheaper as well.

Of the three main NVIDIA card partners, XFX, EVGA, and BFG only XFX has announced an overclocked graphics card at this time. Even the seriously nice BFG 8800 Ultra water cooled edition carries the NVIDIA stock reference clocks.

XFX is stepping up to the plate and delivering the first overclocked 8800 Ultra graphics card which carries their XXX moniker marking it as one of the fastest graphics card you will find. XFX has set the core clock speed for the 8800 Ultra at 675MHz and the memory clock at 2.3GHz. Anytime you increase the core speed you also increase the shader clock, which on the XFX 8800 Ultra XXX is 1674MHz.

Alas, if you are wondering when you can buy this ultimate 8800 Ultra the only word I get is soon. As for the pricing of the XXX version, I can’t confirm that yet. We can expect the price to be over the $829 the normal XFX 8800 Ultra is priced at. A guess on my part is that the 8800 Ultra XXX will hit the street at around a $50 premium over the stock 8800 Ultra. Image via XFX.