I Tested Codex's $500/mo Ultrafast. What You Need to Know.

The video reviews Codex's newly announced ultrafast tier, available exclusively on their $500/month professional plan and the upcoming GBD-6.1 Soul model. Ultrafast operates at 300 tokens per second, delivering speeds 8x faster than standard mode and 4x faster than regular fast mode. The creator conducts two detailed tests comparing ultrafast versus standard performance. In the first test, creating a 60-second video from 145GB of Google campus footage and 11 minutes of personal reflections, ultrafast completed in 19 minutes consuming 17% of the weekly limit, while standard took 50 minutes consuming only 4%. Despite the dramatic speed difference (2.5x instead of promised 8x), the ultrafast version produced qualitatively better results—more natural storytelling with fewer awkward interruptions. The second test, creating a resource guide from a YouTube video comparison, showed ultrafast achieving closer to the promised 8x speed advantage (1 minute 43 seconds vs 13 minutes) while consuming 3% versus 1% of the weekly limit. When examining the actual outputs side-by-side, both results were nearly identical in quality—both rated around 9/10—despite the significant difference in processing time and token consumption. The creator concludes that while ultrafast mode is genuinely impressive and useful for time-critical situations (such as working minutes before a meeting), the token consumption multiplier makes it impractical for routine work. He notes that he regularly uses the regular fast mode without excessive resource drain and would only resort to ultrafast in desperate situations. The creator recommends building better processes to avoid rushed deadlines rather than relying on ultrafast as a solution.