ATI has decided to confuse us a little more with the release of the 7th product under X800 name, the X800 GTO. In fact, we could even speak of 8th and 9th version since the 256 MB X800 GT and GTO features a memory clocked at 490 MHz and the 128 MB version is clocked at 350 MHz.
Although it has an identical memory and lesser frequency, the X800 GTO has been beefed up in terms of the number of pixel pipelines, which has been increased to 12. This represents an overall improvement of 26% in pixel processing.
The only problem is this card’s place on the market compared to the already existing X850s and X800s. In the end, here is the ranking based on various criteria (for 256 Mo versions):
Fillrate / Pixel shader : X850 XT PE > X850 XT > X800 XT PE > X800 XT > X800 XL > X850 Pro > X800 Pro >
X800 GTO > X800 > X800 GT > X800 SE
Vertex shader : X850 XT PE > X850 XT > X850 Pro > X800 XT PE > X800 XT > X800 Pro > X800 GT > X800 SE > X800 XL >
X800 GTO > X800
BP memory : X850 XT PE > X800 XT PE > X850 XT > X850 Pro > X800 XT > X800 XL >
X800 GTO > X800 GT > X800 Pro > X800 SE > X800
In terms of performance in practice (and in price), we can assume that the 256 Mo X800 GTO will place in between the 256 Mo X800 XL (approximately 300 €) and the 256 Mo X800 GT (approximately 180 €). However, was it really necessary to release another version? This gives us many different X800s all at 50 € more than the other, which doesn’t really help the consumer in the end. According to ATI this seems to be their objective. Of course, we can really see that it’s an attempt to rapidly get rid of stocks of this chip before the arrival of the Radeon X1600 and X1800.
