X800GTO2

[Maluno]

Originally posted by: Sunrise089

Originally posted by: Maluno

Originally posted by: S13SilviaK

Originally posted by: Finns14
Uhh am I'm stupid or blind you said it was selling for 199 now i see it at 299 what happened?

Don't buy it from Newegg, there are plenty of other companies that are selling the card for a lower price, although honestly it stops being such a great deal the closer it creeps to $250.

What do you mean by "plenty of other companies," because, last I knew, the only other place that was selling it and had it in stock was allstartech, who is selling it for $247. Do you think this is a good deal, btw, for ~250 bucks?

Depends what resolution you run at. Basically this card's competition is going to be a 7800gt, which is definately better. Evan at $250 for the GTO^2 and $30 for the (optional) cooler that is still $50 cheaper than the 7800GT. IF you have a 24" widecreen display then definately get the 7800GT, but if you only game at 1280x1024 or definately 1024x768 then the GTO^2 might still be a better value. (Best bet is to try to find it for $220.)

Where?

 

[Sunrise089]

Originally posted by: Maluno

Originally posted by: Sunrise089

Originally posted by: Maluno

Originally posted by: S13SilviaK

Originally posted by: Finns14
Uhh am I'm stupid or blind you said it was selling for 199 now i see it at 299 what happened?

Don't buy it from Newegg, there are plenty of other companies that are selling the card for a lower price, although honestly it stops being such a great deal the closer it creeps to $250.

What do you mean by "plenty of other companies," because, last I knew, the only other place that was selling it and had it in stock was allstartech, who is selling it for $247. Do you think this is a good deal, btw, for ~250 bucks?

Depends what resolution you run at. Basically this card's competition is going to be a 7800gt, which is definately better. Evan at $250 for the GTO^2 and $30 for the (optional) cooler that is still $50 cheaper than the 7800GT. IF you have a 24" widecreen display then definately get the 7800GT, but if you only game at 1280x1024 or definately 1024x768 then the GTO^2 might still be a better value. (Best bet is to try to find it for $220.)

Where?

You meen a 7800gt for $330?($250 GTO^2+$30 cooler+ $50 difference) - I found that here

 

[Squeeken]

Hi guys. I've been reading your forums for the past few weeks, but have never replied to any until now. Based on the information that I found here, I purchased the Sapphire X800GTO2 card on 10/05/2005 from Allstarshop.com for $213 + $16.51tax = $229.51. I installed the card into a new AMD64 3500+ system that I just finished building. I thought that there might be alot of other guys out there like me who are trying to get as much information as possible on the card before they make the big purchase. So here's my story...

The card installed without any problems. I loaded the driver off the included CD (Catalyst 5.8). I downloaded ATITool 0.24 from here. I have read here that some of the cards are coming out of the box with 16 pipelines enabled. That was not the case for me. Mine only had 12 pipes enabled. I flashed the bios following the instructions from techpowerup. This was a little scarey for me; I have never flashed the bios on my video card before. I'm happy to say that it went exactly as advertised and my card now runs on all 16 pipes.

I am using the stock cooling device on the card and all of the following temps are based on stock cooling. My case cooling consists of one 120mm intake fan and one 120mm exhaust fan. I used ATITool 0.24 for overclocking the card. This was another first for me. I have never overclocked anything before. The ATITool is a very easy and intuitive program for beginner overclockers like myself. It really was a no brainer. There is no help file within the program, but I found one here.

With the card running on 16 pipes and stock clock speeds of 400(core)/490(memory) my no load temps were 39*C(remote)/37*C(local). My full load temps were 61*C/47*C. The card can easily be clocked to X850XT speeds of 520/540 with no instability or artifacts whatsoever. At the X850XT clock setting, my no load temps were 39*C/37*C (ie: no change). My full load temps were 65*C/49*C. I was not able to reach the X850XTPE clock speeds of 540/590. The max stable core speed that I was able to attain was 553. The max stable memory speed that I was able to attain was 591. However, I could not reach both 540core & 591memory at the same time without detecting artifacts. As you can see, the memory speed is the problem when trying to reach the X850XTPE speeds...at least for me.

I am still testing the card to see what my max combined clock speeds are. I would be very interested to hear from others of you who are running stock cooling on the card. What are your maximum combined stable clock speeds with no artifacts detectable? Also, while I was overclocking, the highest temps I ever saw the card reach was 68*C/52*C. I was expecting to see higher temps than that. My understanding is that the high temperatures are what cause the card to become unstable. Am I correct in my thinking or is there more to it than that?

Thanks for your help guys. You have been a wealth of information already.

 

[Doug117]

Yup, temperature is one reason the card could become unstable, the other part is its just being pushed as far as it will go. The core and the ram will only go so far as you've found. But congrats on a successful overclock! (I have 2 sitting next to me right now, but still have to get mobo and proc lol)

 

[DJSfurry]

your building 2 computers? this card is great if you plan on adding another X850 mastercard for cross fire later.. but i probably will skip that and move to R600 when that comes out.

well i have my card sitting here too. hoping to put it in tonight. got my lanparty and new HD allready to be put together too. hahaah too bad i live in hong kong. temps kill over here. argh. anyway hope i got a good card!

 

[fbrdphreak]

For those who are looking for a big bang/buck card, NewEgg also has a refurb Leadtek 6800GT for $221 shipped. X800GTO^2 is a bit more powerful, but the 6800GT should easily OC to Ultra+ speeds and you get SM3 for those who care. Just an FYI!

 

[Megatomic]

Excellent first post Squeeken. Welcome to AT forums. My own luck with my GTO2 has been less than yours. I can only get to 474/570 so far without problems. This is after I reapplied thermal compound (AS Ceramique on the ram chips, AS5 on the GPU core) and installed a new power supply. I did get 15MHz more OC for my efforts though so I guess I can't complain. My next attempt at getting a better overclock is going to be installing a Zalman VF700 cooler on the card.

 

[hellfire88]

Again, excellant first post Squeeken. Thanks for pointing out that the drivers on the included CD are catalyst 5.8's. I switched from a 6800GT @ Ultra speeds for this card, and I was getting more performance in DOD: Source at max settings and 1280x1024 res with the 6800GT than my X800GTO2 @ X800XT PE speeds (and 16pipes of course) (full HDR and 6x AA, 16x AF...got 35-60FPS with the 6800GT, 29-35FPS with this X800GTO2), which is odd, since a X850XT PE should outperform a 6800 Ultra. Perhaps its a driver issue? Maybe I'll try the newest catalyst drivers from ATI (5.9's?).

When I was first installing the video card though, I was lazy and just used driver cleaner to "get rid" of the nvidia drivers for my 6800GT (I think I was using 78.01's). I then decided to try out some "leet" drivers and downloaded and installed the latest Omega Drivers (based off of 5.9's I think). It recognized the X800GTO2 at stock, but after I flashed it to 16pipelines, the drivers couldn't really recognize it properly. Maybe it was because some remnants of the nvidia driver was conflicting with the omega drivers? In any case, I had some spare time over the weekend, and just reformatted. I wanted to ensure everything worked fine, so I just installed the drivers from the CD that Sapphire provided in the box.

Anyways, that's my installation experiance with this card. To answer your request Squeeken, I'm using ATITool 0.25 build 8 Beta to overclock, and after letting both the "detect max core" and "detect max memory" run for 1hr each, I got 559.xxMHz for the core, and 629.xxMHz for the RAM. I probably should let it run for longer than 1hr each, and I plan to do so. I'm just running it at X850XT PE speeds though (540MHz core, 590MHz RAM), just to be safe. This is on stock cooling. ATITool reports 38*C idle, and the hottest I've seen it was after a 2+hr run in Battlefield 2 @ 68*C. I'm running everything in an older Antec Lanboy with 2 80mm Panaflo L1A (one for intake, one for outtake). I do have a Zalman VF700-CU sitting around somewhere, but I don't have those blue RAMsinks that Zalman gave . Anyone know where I can get some RAMsinks? Anyways, good luck with your card everyone!

 

[Nutdotnet]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
For those who are looking for a big bang/buck card, NewEgg also has a refurb Leadtek 6800GT for $221 shipped. X800GTO^2 is a bit more powerful, but the 6800GT should easily OC to Ultra+ speeds and you get SM3 for those who care. Just an FYI!

How are Newegg Refurbs?

That may be the card I go with.

 

[Squeeken]

Thanks for the kind words guys and thanks for the numbers. I guess I'm doing alright for stock cooling. It looks like I'm getting a bit higher speeds than Megatomic and a bit lower than Hellfire88. I suppose it just varies a bit from one card to the next.

I'm happy to get X850XT speeds (520/540) out of the card, but was hoping for X850XTPE speeds (540/590). Last night I was stable with settings of 550/580. With that, I've got three questions for some of you more experienced overclockers...

1. Aside from changing out the cooling device, is there anything else I can do to squeeze another 10Mhz out of my memory clock?

2. If I choose to upgrade the cooling device on the card at some future date, how much of an impact can I expect to see on my overclock numbers?

3. What has a greater impact on overall card performance, core speed or memory speed?

My max stable core speed is 553 & my max stable memory speed is 591, but not at the same time. I can easily make the core clock speed for the X850XTPE, but I can't quite make the memory speed.

 

[Zim]

2. If I choose to upgrade the cooling device on the card at some future date, how much of an impact can I expect to see on my overclock numbers?

Look at this review and see the results.

3. What has a greater impact on overall card performance, core speed or memory speed?

Pretty sure it's GPU speed.

When overclocking using the ATITool, what does the "lock reference divider" option do?

 

[Squeeken]

I see that NewEgg is selling the Sapphire X800GTO2 again for $199.99. I guess when you're out of stock you can easily lower the price again.

 

[Squeeken]

When overclocking using the ATITool, what does the "lock reference divider" option do?[/quote]

Zim, you might find your answer here.

That's the only explanation that I could find.

By the way... thanks for the link.

 

[Sonikku]

Too bad it couldn't be $300 when it's out of stock and $200 when it's in stock.

 

[Superguy]

Wonder if it goes back to the "default" price when it's out of stock.

 

[Munky]

Couldnt resist the temptation, so I snagged one up from atacom.com for around $220. I'll post my results when I get it.

 

[RedBeard]

Originally posted by: munky
Couldnt resist the temptation, so I snagged one up from atacom.com for around $220. I'll post my results when I get it.

When did you order? I ordered on monday, still no confirmation email.

 

[OVERKILL]

Habib,

I ordered one on Oct 6th, i also got a confirmatio email the same night i believe.
It's due today. To give you an idea, It's coming from California and shipping to
New Jersey.
Good luck.

 

[Squeeken]

Well, now NewEgg shows two Sapphire X800GTO2 cards on their site. The OEM version for $199 (out of stock) and the retail version for $249 (in stock).

That's a really pretty box you get for $50. It should come with a frame so I can hang it on my wall for that price.

 

[kurt454]

Ordered me one from Atacom as well. Got the confirmation email, same day. I haven't used ATI in awhile, since my old 9700 card. Looking forward to trying this card.

 

[LostWanderer]

Got an OEM version from <ahem, coughs> Page Computers <ahem> It actually came after about 2 weeks. Anyway. System is below. Don't have 3dmark 2003 yet, but here are my results so far with what I do have. I'll update these as I go along...


Out of the Box - 3d2k1=18805 3d2k5=4283
Flashed to 16 pipes - 3d2k1=19768 3d2k5=4839
X850XT (520/540) - 3d2k1=20348 3d2k5=5797
X850XTPE (540/590) - Artifacts and stuff... X850XT is good enough anyway!!!

Bottom line. Good deal!

 

[Zim]

I got my X800GTO2 today from ExcaliberPC.com and immediately fitted it with the Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 5 (rev. 2) I got yesterday. I unlocked the extra 4 pipes and ran ATITool to find the max overclock. The result was 544/606. I then dropped it back to 540/600 and have it scanning for artifacts. No problems so far and the VPU temp is 66C with a case temp of 36C. I ran 3D Mark 05 a while back and got 6470. I also noticed that this card uses about 150W when OC'd and running at 100%.

Does anyone know if you can set the card permanently with the new settings (i.e. not to have to run ATITool)?

 

[Megatomic]

You'd have to modify the BIOS using rabit, I think that's what it's called. I used it's NVidia counterpart back in the GF4 days.

 

[Zim]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
You'd have to modify the BIOS using rabit, I think that's what it's called. I used it's NVidia counterpart back in the GF4 days.

Thanks. I found the latest version HERE but the VPU clock slider only goes up to 506MHz.

Would it be a bad idea to flash this card with a Sapphire X850XT PE BIOS if I use RaBiT to disable the VIVO feature in the BIOS first?

 

[Leper Messiah]

Originally posted by: Zim

Originally posted by: Megatomic
You'd have to modify the BIOS using rabit, I think that's what it's called. I used it's NVidia counterpart back in the GF4 days.

Thanks. I found the latest version HERE but the VPU clock slider only goes up to 506MHz.

Would it be a bad idea to flash this card with a Sapphire X850XT PE BIOS if I use RaBiT to disable the VIVO feature in the BIOS first?

yeah, it would. The X850XT has the Rage theater chip, and the GTO doesn't, so the drivers would get kinda confused and crap...