ATI Radeon X1800 GTO Video Card Review

X1800 GTO

It may seem like the GTO is a card rushed to market but ATI has been working on this for some time and have very important changes in store. The biggest of the changes are that the X1800 GTO does not require a dongle or master card to run in CrossFire as long as you have a new Xpress 3200 motherboard. If you have an RD480 based motherboard you will need the master card along with the dongle. This is big news and a big step forward for CrossFire.

Let?s take a look at some of the other features:

• Ultrathreaded SM 3.0 engine with fast dynamic branching
• 500 MHz core speed
• 1.0 GHz memory speed
• 256-bit memory interface
• 12 Pixel shader processors
• 8 Vertex shader processors
• 512-bit Ring Bus memory controller with 256-bit GDDR3 memory
• 2 dual link DVI connectors
• HDTV and ViVO enabled
• HDCP option for board implementation

If you are wondering why the specifications look familiar it?s because they are nearly identical to the X1800XL. The one exception is that the XL carries a full 16 Pixel shader processors. In fact the ATI X1800 GTO even has the same impressive heat sink fan that the X1800XL has. Since we didn’t take apart the X1800XL heat sink in our review of that card let’s show you the one on the X1800 GTO.

First you have to remove the eight screws that hold on the fan cover.

Once those screws are removed you have to flip the card over and take out the additional four screws that hold the heat sink in place.

With the heat sink removed you now have full acess to the R520 core that is used on the ATI X1800 GTO video card. Many enthusiasts and overclockers will install better thermal compound, which is simple to do with the right tools.