Love the title
I changed it just a little as to clue in the others what you are talking aboutl. They might think it is an off topic post
Well really i would recomend looking at the better series first
such as 6600 is less than a 6800
then after that look at memory type and size
then look at core speeds of the GPU
So if you just look at the cards name first you will get a idea of what is better
so 6800 is better than the 6600 as you well know
now lets break down the models
6800 vanilla
6800 nu
6800 gs
6800 gt
6800 ultra
- Vanilla is a term given to the no frills lowest of the bunch model. Think Ice cream Vanilla is the bottom of the pile. Chocolate is what you want
- NU is basically the vanilla
- GS is a 12 pipe card that recently came out that is clocked higher than the GT it is on par with the GT but i think the GT comes out barely on top due to more pipes. it clocks higher because of smaller fabrication process 90nm. this will allow it to clock higher than other 6 series cards
- GT is the first 16 pipe card in this class it is clocked slightly less than the gs but can usually be overclocked to ultra speeds
- ultra is the best of the best.
Ok armed with that go look at the model numbers you find and look for these things in the specs
- pixel pipelines most importand [more is better]
- core speed higher core usually dictates the top end model
- memory speed
- memory interface [128][256] higher is better
- memory amount [dont think that just because it has 256mb of ram that it will be better than a another card though]
This information should help you figure out which are the best performing cards in the bunch. Different manufacturers use similar and often the same model numbers so it can get confusing
Any questions?