ATi X800 GTO Graphics Card

Monday, January 23, 2006

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The X800 GTO is a confusing card. With all the hoopla about Crossfire and dual GPU systems, ATi should've come out all guns blazing with this card for the mid-range buyer. Alas, it is not so and it misses the most important feature: Crossfire. Well, at least it's based on the PCI-E architecture.

Otherwise the card is an excellent solution for a moderate gamer. We put the card through its paces and were surprised. The test bed comprised of Athlon X2 4800+, 1 GB DDR400 RAM, 120 GB Seagate SATA HDD and the ASUS A8N32-SLI gaming board. The test suite comprised FEAR, DOOM 3, Far Cry and 3DMark 2005. We tested it over two resolutions-1024x768 and 1600x1200 to get the best out of it at stock speeds. For each resolution, we ran  the test for two settings, one with AA/AF turned off and the other with them turned on. The quality was set at each game's maximum level. For Far Cry, the card did so brilliantly that we ran it at the maximum settings as well and have included those scores.

Bottom Line: The card's performance is amazing but two things go against it. First, it doesn't support Shader Model 3 which is becoming increasingly popular and second, NVIDIA has brilliant price points. For example, the NVIDIA 6600GT 256MB retails for roughly 14k and if you are willing to spend a little more, the 6800 is now sold for 14.5k. Keep in mind that the only card in production in the 6800 series is the 6800GS, but even then the 6800 series supports SM3 and other goodies.

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