Product Reviews

ATI may have just released its latest graphics technology (see the review on page 44), but that hasn't stopped it expanding its previous generation's range. The latest to hit the shelves is the GTO, and both GeCube and Sapphire have cards based on this chip.

The basic specifications are the same for both cards, with core speeds of 400MHz, 256MB of GDDR3 running at 490MHz (980MHz effective) and 12 pixel pipelines. The specifications are slightly below those of the X800 XL, which was released a few months ago. This makes little difference, though.

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Both cards produced around 52fps in our standard Doom 3 test and scored over 10,500 in 3DMark03. Scores of around 38fps in Doom 3 at 1,280x1,024 show they are capable enough at higher resolutions, although they struggle when running at 1,600x1,200.

The real advantage of these cards is price. GeCube's X800 GTO is £125, incredibly good value for a card with this level of performance and cheaper than the X800 XL. With no external power requirements and one cooling fan, it will work well in lean, quiet PCs. Sapphire's GTO2 is more expensive and requires external power, so it may not seem to be very good value. But by updating its firmware (www.techpowerup.com) you can turn the card into an X850 XT, giving it 16 pixel pipelines. Running at the same clock speed it scored 61.4fps in Doom 3 and managed 30.7fps at 1,600x1,200. You can overclock the card to run at a core speed of 520MHz with memory running at 540MHz (1,080MHz effective).

With the update you get an X850 XT for half price, but you must overclock it. Otherwise, GeCube's X800 GTO is a great mid-range card.