Today Nvidia introduced the world's fastest graphics processing unit (GPU), the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra.

NVIDIA claims that the new GeForce 8800 Ultra performs an average of between 10 and 15% faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX GPU.

Graphics cards equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra GPU and 768MB of video memory will be available at e-tailers and retailers worldwide by May 15th. Prices range from $829 and higher.

The GeForce 8 Series GPUs include all required hardware functionality defined in the Microsoft Direct3D 10 specification, with full support for the DirectX 10 unified shader instruction set and Shader Model 4 capabilities.

The core clock of the new Ultra is 612 MHz and its memory clock is 1080 MHz. Nvidia said that the NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI-based motherboards for Intel processors "provide the fastest and most feature-rich platform for the GeForce 8800 Ultra" for gaming.

However, it is questionable wheether the enthusiasts will pay at least $830 for a GPU that run 37MHz faster than its predecessor, no matter if Nvidia's claims for a 10 and 15% performance gain in gaming are true.