ATI's Daily Roadmap Shuffle: Another X800 Part on the Horizon

We've touched on R520 information just recently, but it seems as though there is a lot more going on at ATI with regard to the X800 series (R480). We just got word that there will be another X800, dubbed the X800GTO. There will be two main varients, each with different memory and clock speed; but all GTO cards will use excess R480 Pro, R430 Pro or R423 Pro chips. In essence, one GTO might have a R480 Pro core, the next might have an R430 Pro. This is highly dependent on the manufacturer. Here's what we know

X800GTO 256MB Base configuration

• Core: 400MHz
• Memory: 490MHz
• Pipes: 12
• Memory: 256-bit 256MB GDDR3

X800GTO 128MB Base configuration

• Core: 400MHz
• Memory: 350MHz
• Pipes: 12
• Memory: 256-bit 128MB DDR1

Keep in mind that any of these configurations can use any R480 Pro, R430 Pro or R423 Pro chip (although availability on the R480 Pro is limitted to manufacturers). Our roadmap information also claims that there will be AGP versions of this card available in the near future. ATI already has reference designs of the 256MB chip running on 500MHz GDDR3 based on R430 Pro on both AGP and PCIe with the Rialto bridge.

Our sources claim performance should be right between a X800GT and an X800XL; and the price will reflect this as well. Since ATI is being very liberal with the cores on a per manufacturer basis, performance and pricing and highly speculative at this point. We expect to see the new cards in September's retail channel.