8800 Ultra to arrive on May Day

A BLOGGER over at VR-Zone claims that an Nvidious conference call confirmed the GeForce 8800 Ultra for release on May 15, with reviews hitting the interwibble on May 1.

Whilst we're pretty sure that chaps on conference calls aren't supposed to talk about this stuff, the 8800 is 'confirmed' as a single-chip card, rather than the dual-chip hybrid SLI-a-like rumoured 8950 GX2. We suspect this is because Nvidia has had more than enough trouble getting SLI working on Vista, without releasing a product that relies on it for baseline performance.

Meanwhile, other sauces are giving the price point as a pant-wettingly massive $999. That's likely to translate to more than 600 pounds in real money, which is a bonkers amount to spend on a single component. However, it does suggest to us that the green team thinks that DAAMIT will launch its highest-end R600 in the $1k region, since the guys in Satan Clara are clever enough not to price themselves out of the market.

How long until we see the first $1k+ graphics card? How long until people realise that that's an Xbox 360, a Wii, a Nintendo DS and a truck-load of games?

Meanwhile, rumours suggest that a DX10, SLI-capable Vista driver will hit in early May to accompany the new card. Stay tuned. µ