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Spotting the differences ...

The Radeon X800 "GT" ICEQ II iTurbo
This little ogre was manufactured under the codename of R480 yet can also be found as R423 (it seems to vary which chip is under the hood). The graphics chip is actually built on a smaller 0.11 micron fabrication process. The product was of course initially purely intended for the PCI-Express platform. But hey, the mid-range production for AGP platforms is still big and thus expect to see the AGP version also. Thanks to the addition of a little "bridge" chip (Rialto) the silicon can be made backwards compatible for all you AGP lovin' guys and girls. It's expected to sell at half the price of the 16 pipe Radeon x800 XL, but of course only has half the rendering power with 8 Pixel pipelines and thus becomes a more affordable solution.

With no less than eight pixel pipelines and six vertex engines this is in fact a product that can compete with the GeForce 6600 GT or as ATI calls it "the green goblin". The X800 GT will be available in 128 MB and 256 MB versions (GDDR3) on a 256-bit memory bus. All in all these specifications are looking good for a 150-200 USD product. This card should be able to deliver what the x700 series couldn't - a little more performance. The BIOS dump below is displayed with the help of our home grown Rivatuner.

$0000000000 Description : ATI RADEON X800 GT
$000000000f PCIE link width : 16x supported, 16x selected
$0900000000 Graphics core : R423 (8x1)
$0900000002 Memory bus : 256-bit
$0900000001 Memory type : DDR3 SGRAM
$0900000003 Memory amount : 256MB
$0900000004 Core clock : 472.500MHz
$0900000005 Memory clock : 492.750MHz (985.500MHz effective)

HiS Radeon x800 GT IceQ II -  iTurbo

The Radeon X800 "GTO" ICeQ II iTurbo

And then there was the GTO. This is an R480 based little demon, really ! Shortly after the X800 GT release ATI figured, hmm, we have a gazillion cards out... XT, XL, XT PE, Pro, GT, why not one more eh ? :) And so they introduced the Radeon X800 GTO, a card which in many ways is close to the GT as memory frequency is the same yet with one important difference; it has one quad more pixel pipelines bringing it to 12 pixel pipes and a lower (default) core clock (400 Mhz). This product will be competing with the GeForce 6800 (standard) graphics cards. Oh and yes this is the X850 Pro yet clocked slower and manufactured on a smaller fabrication process.

There are only a few of ATI's partners out there on the market that consistently update their product range with new releases and special cooling. I do have to say that I have great respect for HiS as they are constantly following the trend and are not afraid to change their line-up. A dynamic and versatile product line versus high quality products, that in one word is HiS.

Both of today's tested products run the same memory frequency, both cards have the brilliant ICEQ II cooling and both cards have the iTurbo function that allows a small overclock straight from the manufacturer. Both products tested also utilize a 256-bit memory interface and have 256 MB of GDDR3 memory. The one difference is that the GT has 8 pipex pipelines and a 475 MHz core and the GTO has a 398 MHz core running with 12 pipex pipelines. What to choose and what to do huh ?

$0000000000 Description : RADEON X850 PRO
$000000000f PCIE link width : 16x supported, 16x selected
$0900000000 Graphics core : R480 (12x1)
$0900000002 Memory bus : 256-bit
$0900000001 Memory type : DDR3 SGRAM
$0900000003 Memory amount : 256MB
$0900000004 Core clock : 398.250MHz
$0900000005 Memory clock : 492.750MHz (985.500MHz effective)

Funnily enough Rivatuner does not recognize the proper product ID just yet and will see the closest thing available - it reported back as the Radeon x850 Pro, which in many ways is correct. Let's have a look at the X800 series in a simplistic overview to understand the bigger picture:

HiS Radeon x800 GTO IceQ II -  iTurbo