Final thougts
There's no doubt in this reviewer's mind that a GeForce 6800 GT represents a better price-to-performance ratio than the Ultra model. To AOpen's credit, we've seen its GT and Ultra cards available at the lower end of the pricing scale, with the reviewed GT version available, albeit in limited quantities, at just under £300 mark. That represents good value when most respected partners' GTs cost up to £30 more.AOpen's achieved a low price by running with a completely reference card in every way, shape and form. The associated bundle, however, is non-reference. AOpen manages to bundle in a couple of reasonable retail games. That's more than can be said for a number of NVIDIA's other partners. Benchmark performance, by dint of the card's default 350MHz core and 1000MHz memory clocks, was also strictly reference, although reference equates to a massive step up from the previous generation's cards. Purchasing the second-highest card in the range often leads to decent overclocking results, as it often uses the same technology and setup as the premier card but runs at slightly slower speeds. That was the case here. 411MHz core and 1100MHz memory put the Aeolus GT above a default Ultra's clocks.
You have two choices when evaluating which next-generation card to purchase. Firstly, given a budget of around £300, you must choose between ATI's Radeon X800 PRO and NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 GT. The bottom line is that you cannot make a bad choice; both cards are excellent performers. Secondly, should you wish to go with a GeForce 6800 GT you need to decide which partner's card is best. AOpen makes a strong case. Its cards are backed up by a 2-year warranty, are priced attractively in relation to others, and include a couple of retail games, too.
All GeForce 6800 GT-based cards are intrinsically good. AOpen's efforts puts its GT in the above-average class Recommended.
