ATI Radeon X800 GTO Mini Roundup: Sapphire, Connect3D, and PowerColor

Final Words

The X800 GTO is definitely a mid-range card worth considering, and with the exception of Splinter Cell and Doom3, it attained higher framerates than all the other cards (except the X800 XT) with every setting in every game that we tested. Those who like the idea of a card that can outperform a standard X800 and do so in complete silence for about the same price will like the Sapphire X800 GTO Ultimate ($185). We've shown that this is a mid-range card that can run with and, in many cases, outperform most in their price range.

The X800 GTO is unique and certainly deserves the kind of attention that it's getting. The potential to overclock this card is a little staggering to think about and the more we consider this, the more we understand why the GTO2 is a limited edition part. We aren't exactly thrilled about its temporary availability as it is one of the more impressive cards that we've seen for the price in a long time, but because there are a limited number of these GTO2s, it may be hard to find good deals on it. However, those who are skilled at overclocking may be justified in paying a little higher price for this card, assuming what it can do.

That said, given the risks involved in flashing your GTO2's BIOS to make it perform like an X850, many would find it much less of a headache to save up for a 7800 GT rather than searching for a deal on the GTO2 and overclocking it. Because NVIDIA's 7800 series has been on the market for so long, there are usually good deals to be found on them. At the time of this writing, the GTO2 is available for about $207, and for some, that's still a bit expensive. If you don't care about overclocking and you are tight on cash, then this isn't your card. Those really on a budget and looking for a deal might want to check out EVGA's 6600GT instead, which is going for $122 (after rebate) right now; a good price considering the potential of the card.

The features of the PowerColor Radeon X800 GTO 16 put it in a class slightly above the rest of these cards when using them strictly “off the shelf” (a.k.a. not user-overclocking). While it's true that you may be able to get the same performance results by unlocking 4 more pipelines on the GTO or GTO2, PowerColor has done it for you with this card, and you don't have to worry about damaging your card or the headache of trying to overclock it. For those who like the idea of tweaking an X800 GTO, then the Sapphire X800 GTO2 would be better for you, since you probably won't be able to do much more overclocking with the PowerColor X800 GTO 16 as we've shown. But given the fact that, right now, the PowerColor X800 GTO 16 is only about $185 compared to the GTO2's $207, we recommend the PowerColor card for sheer performance vs. price. The Connect3D Radeon X800 GTO would also be a good choice, especially if you like to overclock because it's the cheapest at $150, and it has good overclocking potential.

This roundup is somewhat unique because each of these X800 GTOs are so different and they all offer impressive qualities depending on what the user requires for his/her gaming system. The Sapphire X800 GTO Ultimate, for example, is completely silent and therefore, perfect for those who use their PC to record audio. The Sapphire X800 GTO2 and Connect3D X800 GTO are great for all the overclockers, and the PowerColor X800 GTO 16 is for those who just want the most powerful factory modified GTO. Overall though, given the prices and performance of each of these cards, we would recommend the PowerColor X800 GTO 16 because of the impressive performance boost (off the shelf) over the other three. It's true that it is a little more expensive than the Connect3D, but for the majority who want to simply “plug-and-play” without tweaking, the extra money is worth the extra power that you get right off the shelf.

ATI seems to be doing better since getting hit by NVIDIA's 7800s this past year and we are finally starting to see some competition to the 7800 GTX (price-wise) from ATI. That being said, ATI should be focusing on value right now, and to their credit, the X800 GTO is a good value card. For the cost, it performs very well, and will make many gamers happy. There is, however, a card from NVIDIA that was just released, which offers better performance per cost than the X800 GTO - theNVIDIA 6800 GS. We recently reviewed this card and you can take a look at it here. The 6800 GS outperforms the GTO and only is very close to the same price range; whether or not it beats the GTO2 in terms of value is a much more complicated question. Given the right prices and availability (and user-overclocking), it could really go either way, and the battle between these two cards may go on for a while depending on how long these cards will be around.

It can indeed be confusing when looking for a mid-range graphics card, and both ATI and NVIDIA have been cranking out a lot of them lately. This is usually good news for the buyer, however, as it means better value for cards that will suit gamers' individual needs. There are many decent graphics solutions available right now, but the ATI Radeon X800 GTO is something special, and we give all four of these cards our stamp of approval.