Radeon X800GTO L?

[Blackmantis]

I'm looking to do a final agp upgrade on my backup/secondary box and I originally bought a cheapish Apollo 6800 off the egg and had to RMA it because it was a complete piece of crap. There were nasty purple artifacts all over the place in 3 or 4 different games. I tried different drivers, even a little underclock and it still was worthless.

Anyway, I'm looking at ATI cards over on newegg now and I see 2 versions of a Sapphire X800GTO

This looks like a normal X800 to me
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102608

This is a couple bucks cheaper and is some odd "L" version. If you do a power search for it the specs say memory clock 490MHz... can't be. If you then click on it, it says mem clock 980MHz which sounds right.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102609

I guess my question is.. what's the difference on the "L" model. I'm not worried about the small price difference, I just want to know what one is the better card, or are they the same thing?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

What is 490 MHz DDR equal to in market speak ?
980 MHz (including DDR) x 256 bit = 30.625 GB/sec video memory.

Which is pretty standard for a X800 XL level card, and likely the higher end (decent) X800 GTO cards.


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Speculation only below this point:
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It may be that one doesn't require a molex or 6-pin PCIe power connector, but without actually looking at both cards it is hard to tell. Both being X800 GTO it is likely neither require the extra power connection, even with the 'slender electrical power' AGP provides.

I personally suspect it is that they use slightly different GPU revisions, and this is Sapphires way of making them easier to differentiate.

If you really want to know just é-mail Sapphire, or phone them.... check their website first though just in case it lists them.

Failing that, or while trying that, é-mail Newegg and ask if they can check for you as you are a potential customer looking to buy either one or the other.

I honestly doubt anywhere hear knows, that will just happen to see this thread and go 'oh, I know the exact difference'..... unfortunately.

Still we can both hope someone knows the real answer, and if speculation is posted it is marked as such.

 

[conroe]

After looking over, and over those two I can't see any difference. The specs are the same and the cards look identical. It could be maybe one has better memory and will overclock better. I have one and I don't see a "L" anywhere so it may be that that one is just newer stock.

 

[rmthompson]

OK I was wondering the SAME exact thing - since I want to buy one of these cards.

I called Sapphire... they had NO CLUE about it...

They know about a GTO and GTO2 or GTO(squared)

And for AGP they only have ONE SKU number for the X800GTO.

?

The only difference I can discern is that the L is RETAIL and the other is OEM... L perhaps means retaiL?

 

[conroe]

Look at them, you are right! Funny, OEM should cost less not more. :roll:

 

[rmthompson]

Look at them, you are right! Funny, OEM should cost less not more. :roll:

Funniest part? I had the OEM one in my shopping cart to order tonight! ha ha... that's going to save me 6 dollars...

Ok, not as exciting as I initially thought, sorry.

 

[Datman]

When you look at the pictures the L card has 5 chips in the top left corner near the 15 pin conector, the other card has 5 capacitors in place. Specs are identical.

 

[rmthompson]

When you look at the pictures the L card has 5 chips in the top left corner near the 15 pin conector, the other card has 5 capacitors in place. Specs are identical.

then perhaps there IS a difference...

hmmmmmmm

Someone wanna call NEWEGG?

 

[conroe]

Mine has those caps. It's older, so I'd bet the newer ones have that changed. The OEM is just older stock, and has the older, higher price.

 

[rmthompson]

Mine has those caps. It's older, so I'd bet the newer ones have that changed. The OEM is just older stock, and has the older, higher price.

Awesome. I am taking the RETAIL, and getting a slightly better POWERSUPPLY than I initially was...

lol

 

[GeneticWeapon]

I recently had the card which was in the second link posted(the one with flat/square capacitors), and it wasnt bad. It overclocked to 561/1200 and got 5,761 on 3DMark05.

For only $165.00 U.S., it's an excellent buy.

 

[pauldh]

Hmm, interesting screenie. What brought that on GW? 3DMark06? :tongue:

 

[DPolkowski]

There are many versions of the GTO. ATI takes chips that do not pass the regular QA process because it cannot run at a specific clock frequency, does not have all of the vertex or pixel shaders operational, etc. It takes these and bins them. It batches these sub par parts and once it gets enough of these it builds a "new" product out of them. The GTO is one of these. The new X1800GTO is the same way. Nvidia and other semiconductor companies follow a similar pattern as it is an easy way to get the most out of production run.

That being said there are some better versions of the X800GTO than others. Some were built with ATI R423, R430, and R480 cores. Depending on the core and the capability deficiency is what determines what you can get out of the chip. Some that have disabled components can be re-enabled giving you a much richer card than you spent the money for. Some can be overclocked much more than others like the R480 that was the core that went into the X850XT PE. Some card you will not get anything out of as they were the bottom of the barrel GPUs that just passed the GTO qualification standard for whichever bin it was designated for. It is really hit or miss in what you can unlock or overclock.

 

[conroe]

You can't unlock the AGP. 🙁 Mine is the R430 core and does 470/570 for a 5548 in 3dmark05. 😀

 

[GeneticWeapon]

Hmm, interesting screenie. What brought that on GW? 3DMark06? :tongue:

You know as well as I do that you can only have one published(linkable) score on 05........and that is now reserved for my 7800 8)

 

[pauldh]

I don't recall seeing what the GTO scored. 😱

 

[GeneticWeapon]

Maybe I misunderstood your question.

What brought what on?....the 7800?....or the fact that I posted a picture of a 3dmark score instead of a link?

I bought the 7800 because the GTO had a little accident....I wasnt real happy with it's performance anyways.

.............FYI though, I am now playing NFS:MW without the terrible hitching/pausing problem. It only took switching out the cards to fix it(I still have my ATi drivers installed too )

 

[pauldh]

Yeah, that's what I meant; what brought on the new purchase? I was just rustling your feathers asking if it was the 3dmark06 score of the GTO that made you buy a new SM3 card.

NFSMW does hitch for 7800GTX owners even. Look at the official forum and it's split between ATI and NV owners as to who has the hitch. From my own experience, it's been the worst on a couple ATI systems. On my kids system, I got the hitching going from Ti4200 to 9700 pro, and then lost the hitch when I went back to a Ti4200. Drivers were wiped clean with driver cleaner pro. But, I do not have the hitch on systems with a 6800U, X800XTpe, and a 9800 pro. So it's random and strange as to who gets it and who doesn't. Good to hear you got rid of it; it's quite annoying to say the least to have high fps and still get that hitch. WHat's even worse, is all the console versions except PS2, also have complaints of the hitch.

 

[GeneticWeapon]

I was just rustling your feathers asking if it was the 3dmark06 score of the GTO that made you buy a new SM3 card.

Geez, I only ran 06 one time with that GTO, and I was pretty disgusted.

It really made me feel like my new card was obsolete :?