ATI Radeon X1800 GTO 256MB

Reviews: Hardware

Motherboards | Power Supplies | Memory | Systems | Video Cards

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Kurtis Kronk
Brian
ATI
May. 8, 2006

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Test Setup

We will be using eight popular games for benchmarking: Half-Life 2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Quake 4, X3: Reunion (demo), Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, F.E.A.R. - First Encounter Assault Recon, Need for Speed Most Wanted, and Black & White 2. These games span across multiple genres and vary greatly in their use of shader effects (not to mention they do a great job of stressing out video cards) so our testing should give you a very clear picture of whether or not a particular card is right for you. Just for kicks, we also ran each card through 3DMark '06 - not because we care how many 3DMarks a particular card gets, but because you might. I want to make it clear that we won't be counting the 3DMark scores in our overall evaluation; they are just presented in case you want to see them.

The system we are using for benchmarking consists of an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 motherboard which utilizes the nForce4 chipset. An AMD Athlon64 FX-55 is used along with 2 GB of Corsair PC-3200 XMS XL Pro memory running in dual channel mode with 2-2-2-5 timings. Every component of the system is at stock or default speeds set by the manufacturer.

Windows XP was installed onto a freshly formatted Seagate NearLine 500GB SATA hard drive connected via on-chip SATA. All the latest Windows Updates were downloaded and installed. The latest video drivers at the time of testing were installed - Catalyst beta 8.223 certified drivers for the ATI X1800 GTO, Catalyst 6.2 for the other ATI cards, Forceware 84.21 for the XFX 7900 GT XXX and XFX 7600 GT XXX, and Forceware 81.98 drivers for the other NVIDIA cards.

In the video card control panel V-SYNC was disabled and the cards were set to "quality" over "performance." For the ATI cards that means "Texture Preference" and "Mipmap Detail Level" were both set to "High Quality" while Anti Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering were custom for each test. For NVIDIA cards, the "Image Settings" slider was set to "High Quality." V-Sync was disabled for all testing. Everything else was left to the default settings. Default quality levels for AA and AF were used as opposed to Transparency AA, High Quality AF!

To ensure the best possible results, we run each benchmark three times for each test and average the results. When possible, we benchmark a recorded timedemo, which prints the average FPS (frames per second) when finished running. Not all games allow you to record a timedemo, though, so testing may differ for some games. The details for how a specific benchmark was run can be found on the corresponding benchmark page.

Test Computer:

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 Motherboard (Donated by Directron.com)
AMD Athlon64 FX-55
2 GB Corsair TwinX PC-3200 XMS XL Pro Series (Dual Channels @ 2-2-2-5)
Seagate NearLine 500GB SATA Hard Drive (Donated by Seagate)
Enermax Liberty 620W SLI Certified Power Supply (Donated by Enermax)
Windows XP Professional SP2 w/ DirectX 9.0c and latest updates (Donated by Microsoft)

When analyzing the performance graphs on the following pages, I will sometimes refer to settings that offer the best gaming experience. To me, a good gaming experience offers the right mixture of speed and image quality as well as smooth gameplay. Playing a game at 50 FPS with smooth edges and crisp textures would offer a better overall gaming experience than playing at 100 FPS with "jaggies,' noticeable texture filtering and bogging-down in certain parts of the map. Personally, I think 40-50 FPS generally allows for a smooth experience and my comments will stem from that belief. Your opinions may differ. Of course, certain game genres will let you enjoy the gameplay with 20+ FPS, but we'll talk about that where it applies.

We'd like to thank Directron.com for donating the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 Motherboard which we used for testing.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: The Card & Bundle
Page 3: Test Setup
Page 4: Benchmarks: Half-Life 2
Page 5: Benchmarks: Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
Page 6: Benchmarks: Quake 4
Page 7: Benchmarks: X3 Reunion Demo
Page 8: Benchmarks: Chronicles of Riddick
Page 9: Benchmarks: F.E.A.R.
Page 10: Benchmarks: Need for Speed Most Wanted
Page 11: Benchmarks: Black & White 2
Page 12: Benchmarks: 3DMark '06
Page 13: Overclocking... and Unlocking?
Page 14: Performance Summary
Page 15: Conclusion

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5 User Comments

1 - Posted by tobba007 on May 26, 2006 - 12:22 pm

Excellent review there Kurtis - I needed a comparison of these 2 cards, with an unbiased slant, and that's what I've got!

m

2 - Posted by Kurtis on May 26, 2006 - 1:39 pm

i recommend reading my 7600 GT review as well. i found out some interesting information about the pricing while i was writing that review. the main thing you need to see is the conclusion:

http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/276/XFX+GeFor...

3 - Posted by mustafa on July 10, 2006 - 9:29 am

I really wanted to know if i failed in flashing the x1800 gto to x1800 xl would it be easy to restore the default bois of the gto or it is someting out of hands?

by the way what is ur opinion in powercolor x1800 gto?

thanks

4 - Posted by Kurtis on July 10, 2006 - 9:49 am

i have no idea if you'd be able to recover from a failed BIOS flash... i haven't tried it, personally.

as far as the different brands of video cards go, that's all up to you. my personal opinion is i don't care that much who's sticker is on the video card, what i car about is what the GPU is under the heatsink. the deciding factor for me would be the price, the bundle, and the warranty.

5 - Posted by mustafa on July 10, 2006 - 5:53 pm

well what i think about the x1800 gto GPU is that it is has superior power (321 million trasistors and 256 bit memory interface),excellent support for HDR, AA and AF but when it comes to the 7600 gt it is cheaper, hell of a fast card,
designed for specific game titles but unfortunately it only has 167 million transistors and 128 bit memory interface.

i think i would choose the x1800 gto it's eyes looking
for the future.

now for my questions part:
1-would i be able to crossfire this 1800 gto using another 1800 gto on an intel 975 chipset based m.board
2-is this crossfire dongless or not?
3-i read that ATI will have several crrossfire layouts,2 GPUs,1GPU and 1physics card is that true?

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