Help Me Select WHICH Radeon X800 (GTO v. GTO2 v. XL)

[dalfollo]

Folks?I have been reviewing and trying to decide on a new PCI-e video card for a new system based on the following info below. I have read a lot and gotten some great advice from the folks here...looking to make the final decision.....

Compaq Presario - SR-1610-NX
MSI MB Socket 939 - Athlon Sempron 3200/1.8GHZ
1.2GB RAM
ATI Xpress 200 Onboard Video
Replacing stock 250W PSU with 430W PSU

I have decided to get one of the following ATI Radeon X800 GTO Cards. I am not worried about unlocking pipes, but am interested in overclocking on occasion (at east when running a game) and to help ensure I can get some time out of this card.

I am looking to load MS FLight Simulator, and then X-Plane eventually...and my brother assures me I must load Half Life as well, at some point....

I am looking for any suggestions you may have, so I can make the final decision, file the order and get on with my life

I know these run hot, so it is best to lean towards better cooling, if you can help it?while at the same time, my box is currently silent, and I would like to keep it that way as much as possible?.seems like any of the Sapphire models may start out cheaper, but I will likely upgrade the stock HS/Fan for added costs ("first through third thoughts" below)?Fourth thought seems to be what I am looking for with everything ready to go at once?My ideas on cooling:

Passive - (Sapphire Ultimate) nice if it will cool the card, but where does the heat go? Stays in the box, and I have to add another vent to make sure it gets evacuated
Stock - (Sapphire Regular)probably keeps the card cooler, but just pushed air around ()
FireBlade Cooler (Sapphire Fireblade)- It does evacuate air out the case, but the deign must be questionable with remarks coming back that it is invariably loud
HIS/AC ATI Silenser - (HIS/AC Card) Great reviews on being quiet; sends hot air out the back?helps cool the case somewhat as well?
Zalman vs Arctic Cooling Silencer - I like the idea that the hot air from the card is vented out the back (AC ATI Silencer) instead of just being further circulatred in the case, straining the other components; If I were to purchase an aftermarket HS/Fan, I am pretty sure I would go with the AC ATI Silencer, rather than the Zalman...

My First Thought: ($149 Now/$182 Later)

Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 GTO Ultimate - (Passive cooling now, upgrade the HS/Fan with either Arctic Cooling or Zalman etc. later if I find I need that extra cooling)
$149 - After Rebate at NewEgg - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102628
If I end up replacing the Massive/Passive HS with an Arctic Cooling HS/Fan, that would add $33 and bring it up to $182 total w/o S&H
I think to get the best from this VPU, one needs to at least overclock it, and the passive HS/Fan just doesn't support that as well as it could be?.Maybe I could get the Ultimate, but then I would feel that I need to mount some fan over the card to help keep it kool?.then, I am still leaving the heat in the box!

Second Thought: ($143 Now/$176 Pretty quickly)

Get a Sapphire X800 GTO with the "Fireblade" cooling option for:
$143 AR fro NewEgg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102660
But I have read too many reviews that the fan is loud, and I would have to replace the fan with something better?I would rather have a quiet passive card, than a over-clocked loud card like this?
If I add a new HS/Fan Cooler for $33, price jumps to $176

Third Thought: ($139 Now/$172 Later)

Get the stock Sapphire X800 GTO; then upgrade, if needed to the AC VGA Silencer:
$139 AR from NewEgg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102602
If I end up replacing the stock HS/Fan with an Arctic Cooling HS/Fan, that would add $33 and bring it up to $172 total w/o S&H

Fourth Thought: ($165 Now/ $0 Later!) - Most Likely Candidate

So I am looking around and I run across the following card from HIS on New Egg; the HIS Hightech Radeon X800GTO IceQ II Turbo
$165 AR from NewEgg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814161146
It has all the features of the X800 GTO that I was looking at with the Sapphire Cards?BUT THE AC ATI Silencer is already attached and ready to go!
The reviews are very good on NewEgg, indicating the low noice; as are other reviews I have found on both the card and the silenser separately

I appreciate any input or info I may not have considered?thanks for your feedback?.

 

[jlbenedict]

Honestly, if you are going to overclock.. get the Sapphire GTO2.
Its known to have the same core as the X850XT/PE, plus it has 1.6ns memory.. It has a large amount of headroom for overclocking..

All of the others will be a hit 'n miss chance.. you'll either get lucky, and get a good one.. or you'll end up with one that overclocks like the 800XL.. like $hit..

 

[emilyek]

Sapphire x800GTO2, ulockable/overclockable to x850xt pe speeds. I've heard the new ones even come pre-unlocked.

If you have $200 to spend, 6800GS, X800XL, X850pro

If that's too much for you, get the Powercolor X800GT

Aftermarket cooling on a budget card is a mistake, especially when that extra 30+ dollars might put you in a new GPU class.

 

[Cruise51]

Option #3 or #4.

 

[dalfollo]

Wow...good points...

I like the idea of the Sapphire x800GTO2...on newegg they have two...

- $176 AR (1 DVI/1 D-Sub/No VIVO) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102596

- $179 AR (2 DVIs/VIVO) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102646

Three things here intrique me....the model with VIVO has two DVIs instead of just one... of course VIVO, and the added pipes/performance

- Are there any limitations having two DVIs? Right now I have only CRTs, but hope to replace with decent/cheap LCDs as sales and prices drop...can I still run to CRTs from the DVIs? I quess I will have to buy a second adapter

- VIVO - let me get this straight...the VIVO will allow me to hook up a VHS, and the card will then record the contents of the VHS, that I can then burn to a disk, right? I had in my plans the need to buy a video capture card/adapter, but it seems this is part of the VIVO card...this would be very welcome....

If the answers are what I think above, I think I may have finalized the card to get:

Sapphire x800 GTO2 with VIVO
- great overclocking headroom
- already unlocked, or unlockable to 16 pipes
- faster memory
- decent hs/fan to get me started
- VIVO to capture video from VHS or other sources (camcorder, etc)
- two DVIs to furture purchases of dual LCDs

Thanks for any feedback...

 

[jlbenedict]

Go for it! The GTO2 it is..

I got lucky with my Connect3D GTO, and it unlocked.. but I bought it when the gouging on GTO2's had the price up toward $300 and had to settle for the regular GTO.

Luckily, my C3D GTO unlocked to 16 pipes, and the core on this overclocks like crazy.. with not so much headroom on the memory..

Get the GTO2.. whichever one fits your needs.. You will not be disappointed.

 

[Munky]

All the gto's with the r423 or the r480 core will oc to at least 500mhz in general. These are the cores originally used in the x800xt and the x850xt, both of which worked at 500+ mhz stock. There's a saphire gto16, which has 16 pipes out of the box - that one uses the r430 core from the xl, and it will not oc much.

I'd just get the gto2, because it has a 100% unlock success rate, and the r480 core.

 

[dalfollo]

I think I am going for it....the dual DVI should be no problem for regular CRTs until I get LCDs, right?

 

[dalfollo]

He is an interesting development....

HIS has an X800XL 256MB DDR3, VIVO with the Arctic Cooling for (drum roll...) $291 - $100 rebate = $191 !!! that is a whopper of a rebate....

That means an 800XT with VIVO and an AC Fan for $191...

Am I better off with the 800 GTO2 or a X800XL?????

Thanks for any feedback!

Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161143

 

[Avalon]

Might as well get the VIVO for an extra $3 over the non VIVO. GTO*2 for the win.

 

[dalfollo]

Both cards I am looking at have the following:

- VIVO
- Dual DVI
- Both appear to have 16 pipes ready to go out of the box

The Sapphire unit at $179 is a GTO2 card with a standard cooler
The HIS unit at $191 is a X800XL card, with a very good/quiet Arctic Cooling ATI Silenser HS/Fan, that will exhaust the hot air out of my box

The HIS Website seems to have have much better support/info than the Sapphire site

Every talks about getting an X800GTO2 and then flashing the BIOS to X800XL to open the pipes to 16....well the Sapphire here comes opened up out fo the box....the HIS card ACTUALLY IS a X800XL card!...do I understand correctly that starting with a GTO2 and flashing to X800XL is better than just starting with the X800XL to being with?? don't understand the logic there...

Down side to the HIS is the $100 rebate, and the fact it seems to be a "wait for it rebate" not instant....anyone know of the trustworthyness of the NewEgg rebates??

The reviews for the HIS card does have several people talking about problems with the fan controller causing overheating and RMAs....

here is a link comapring the two cards at www.newegg.oc: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductCo...61143%2CN82E16814102646&SubCategory=48

Some additional info: Sapphire X800GTO2 - R480 core - NOT lasercut - flashes to X850XT
Connect3D X800GTO - R430 core - SOME NOT lasercut - flashes to X800XT
Powercolor X800GTO16 - R430 core (AFAIK) - NOT lasercut - flashes to X800XT
AFAIK, all other GTOs are lasercut - meaning they can't be flashed to X850XT or X800XT. This includes X800GTO Fireblade Edition, X800GTO Ultimate, X800 GTO Plain Vanilla, etc.

Another GTO2 Comment: I have a GTO2 Dual-DVI, got it the day they were shipped. I checked and despite ATI Tool saying it was an R430, it is in fact an R480. It came with 16 pipelines unlocked out of the box (nice surprise) and a free game. It also has VIVO (although I have no idea how VIVO works, the manual doesn't even mention it lol). I polished it up and put on some Arctic Silver 5 and it scored higher than my friends 850XT PE on 3DMark06 (forgot the scores, 06 still confuses me a bit) although he refuses to overclock his. Worried about his warranty because he spent so much more on it. Mine was $284 + tax (Canadian), his was over $400 (also Canadian), how's that for value?

And one more: Yea... The new VIVO GTO2s are just X850s with an X800XL BIOS. They all overclock straight to XTPE speeds & above.

And one more; That's right. Last night I pulled off the fan and heatsink and was very excited. It in fact has the R480 core, and not the R430 reported buy ATITool and 3dmark05. So as stated before, this card Sapphire GTO2 VIVO version has R480 core, all 16 pipes come already unlocked from Sapphire so theirs no need to flash BIOS. Just overclock to your hearts desire!!!! Only Sapphire makes the GTO2 cards. All other GTO cards I've seen and read or heard about are R430 core's.

I was able to OC to 520/600 with stock heatsink and fan (Although I did polish the copper GPU sink as it was very rough) in a Dell 8400 case, stable and no artifacts at 67 degrees C. I will surely be investing in an ATI Artic Silencer v5 rev2.


According to the HIS website...the X800XL VIVO is : "R430 0.11um process "

 

[dalfollo]

Thanks guys/gals, I am ordering now....

Sapphire X800 GTO2 VIVO ~$179 @ NewEgg

Just glad to get this over with....dual monitors, and some very decent gaming hardware to play with....a tool to help pull in on old VHS and get them to DVD, I am looking forward to this...

Thanks again....

 

[aconsola]

This discussion is great! I have been looking to get a video card and have been asking the same question, which of the tons of x-800 based cards to get for a reasonable price/performance ratio

My only quandry left is that my monitor is analog only, despite being an lcd. the dual DVI gto2 card comes with a dvi-vga adapter. Does that make the dvi port actually put out an analog signal, or is it merely so you can put the digital signal through the more common vga style cable?

I could get the version with one each vga and dvi, but it is out of stock.
Thanks for any advice
-Anthony

 

[Munky]

Ahem...

I have a Connect3d gto, and it is most certainly not the r430 core. The r430 core is from the XL, which uses a cheaper die process, and generally max out at ~430mhz. AFAIK, all the gto's except the saphire gto16 are either r480 (x850xt cores) or r423 (x800xt cores). Mine is the r423 core, which I unlocked to 16 pipes, and it OC's to about 585 mhz before the screen goes blank. Do not confuse the XL with the XT, because the XL will not overclock anywhere near as good as the XT.

Also, overclocking results will vary from card to card. One of my friends got a gto2 that will not go above 540/550, while more recently I modded another gto2 for someone else, and that one went to 600/630 before it crapped out.

About the whole bios thing, you never know for sure what core you have until you actually take off the heatsink and look. Software like Ati tool only report what's set in the bios, which may not report what core it really is.

 

[dalfollo]

Got the Sapphire X800 GTO2 VIVO 256MB DDR3 and it loaded nicely, immediately went to ATITool and overclocked to 500C/550M...the fan is quieter than anything in the box, basically silent with a light rustle...very happy....

16 Pipes right out of the box no mods needed, now to load some games and see what things look like...tomorrow I will get another DVI to VGA adapter so I can go Dual Monitors (the box comes with one adapter and I need to by a second one (the VIVO version of the X800 GTO2 comes with two DVI connections) - all my monitors are/will be regular 17"/19" CRTs (Hitachi 1997 17"/Acer 2001 17"/Dell 19" 2004))....once things are stable, I will attempt to get the onboard video back in play for a triple monitor delight....I don't expect it to work, but I will try....

it comes with a DVD of full version games....in some reviews it says to can play all and then decide to instal one of them with a special code....well my special code says this version of the card doesn'y give you a free game.... just discounts if you decide to buy the full version of any one or all games....

One other thing to add to the $20 rebate from New Egg....you can also get a $5 check from Pricegrabber.com, if you go to their webpage to find the price for this item, and then return to write a review of the card....

Thanks for your help with things...

 

[Wellsoul2]

I've been shopping for a card to replace my 9600XT.

I did all the research and was hoping to wait for a shader3.0
ATI card to drop to <$250. No go..still around $335.

You guys convinced me..Just ordered the Sapphire X800GTO2
for $170 after the rebate from Newegg.

 

[aconsola]

I got my Dual DVI card from Newegg yesterday. it works great with my analog flat panel display. It has the 16 Pipes unlocked out of the box, and ran stable at 540 core and clock speeds. I use ATI tool to set the fan at 100% while playing games, and the card stays under 65 degrees
FPS in the 2 games I treid was about 5x higher than with the built-in express200 at 128mb shared video ram.
thanks for the advice, definatley a great deal.
-Anthony