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ATI Radeon X1800 GTO 256MB
Introduction
As you may recall, I wrote a preview of ATI's top-of-the-line X1900 XTX at the end of January. On March 9, ATI took a small step back and announced a new card in the X1800 line-up, the Radeon X1800 GTO 256MB PCI-Express. Notice that I said announcing, not launching; I'll come back to that! One might ask why ATI would seemingly make the X1800 series obsolete only to announce another card in that series a month later. I assure you, however, that it was not a random drunken decision by an ATI executive to pump new blood into the X1800 line. Last summer NVIDIA launched their 7 series of video cards, first the 7800 GTX, and then the 7800 GT, and until recently, there was no mid-range segment in the new series. On March 9, NVIDIA also launched three new video cards: the 7900 GTX, 7900 GT, and 7600 GT. Perhaps worried that the 7600 GT would kick the X1600 XT's keister, ATI decided to take action and the X1800 GTO was born. In terms of architecture and features, the X1800 GTO is identical to the X1800 XL with the exception of the pipeline count: rather than 16 pipelines, it has 12. When asked whether there was any difference aside from pipelines that distinguish the XL from the GTO, ATI said "it's R520 [X1800 XL] with 75% of the pipes." So basically, it's an artificially handicapped XL - and in case you're wondering, yes, people have already found a way to re-enable those 4 pipelines to turn the GTO into an XL (which I'll talk about later in the review). The product placement for the GTO is below the X1800 XL and above the X1600 XT. See the table below for more details. I have added NVIDIA's new cards' specifications for reference.
While ATI officially announced the X1800 GTO on March 9, they weren't available until the end of March. The reason we didn't see immediate availability (as mentioned in my preview) is that there aren't any actual ATI-brand X1800 GTOs at all; they are only being made by Add-in-Board partners (AIBs). The last thing I'd like to mention before I move on is something moderately exciting ATI told us about the GTO. Not only is it compatible with the currently available X1800 Crossfire card, but a future driver release (in the near future?) will enable a dongle-less peer-to-peer crossfire configuration with two standard X1800 GTOs on ATI's Xpress 3200 chipset. I asked whether this future driver release would open up the same capability for other X1800 series cards, and I was told no. However, I see no reason why it couldn't be done since it is basically an X1800 XL anyways. Of course, we also have to wonder what the performance implications are of foregoing the dongle connector with a moderately high-end part. For the X1800 GTO preview back on March 9, I only had time to run 4 cards through 3 games. I've been benchmarking around the clock until just last a couple weeks ago and now have 11 cards to compare in 8 games spanning multiple genres (9 if you count 3DMark, which I don't!). One of the cards I've added for testing since the preview is the X1800 XL. As such, we can now show the difference the 4 removed pipelines actually make. I still need to do a little more benchmarking at some more image quality settings to round-out testing for my upcoming image quality article. With final exams this week, time is limited, though, so I won't be able to get to that until next week. Keep an eye out for the image quality article in the next couple of weeks, though. Note: Since I've already covered the X1000 series architecture and features in our X1000 Series Preview, I won't bother copy-pasting the same information in this review and take up another page in an already lengthy review.
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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Add Comment
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? Add Comment To add a comment without being a member, you may omit the password field, but you must enter your name (or nickname) along with your comment. * Denotes required fields. |
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