Introduction
Connect3D Radeon X800 GTO 256MB PCIe and GECUBE Radeon X800 GTO Ultimate 256MB PCIeThe past month has been busy for ATI and its board partners. Right before the launch of the eagerly-awaited Radeon 500-series of GPUs, ATI has decided to harvest what's left of its large stockpile R4xx cores, re-spun them into a few new SKUs, and launched midrange cards with excellent price-to-performance ratios. ATI has thus launched Radeon X800 GT and GTO GPUs. The former, available in both 128MB and 256MB models and priced up to £110, runs with 8 rendering pipelines allied to a 256-bit memory bus, with, usually, a core speed of 475MHz and memory chugging along at 980MHz.
The GTO, however, adds a further rendering quad to bring up the pixel-pushing and shader power to 12 pipelines but does so with a lower core speed of 400MHz. The Radeon X800 GTO, then, is a little faster than the basic GT, and this extra speed is reflected in an online price of around £125 for the 256MB model.
We took a look at a Radeon X800 GTO 256MB from the folks at SAPPHIRE just recently. Now we've got the chance to evaluate another couple of GTO 256MB cards from proven ATI partners in the form of Connect3D and GECUBE. Both are priced at around £120 and both offer something the other doesn't. Read on to find out which is best for you.
