HIS IceQ II X800GTO compared to the X800GT

HIS IceQ cards are right on top of the ATI-based pile of cards - the efficient yet smooth cooling and good design do add extra value on top of the otherwise standard reference ATI design. Usually, with the IceQ cooling benefit, you can add extra 10% - 15% on top of the rated GPU speed.

In the space of a month, HIS followed ATI's funny outburst of X800-based mid-range family chips to release the X800GT and soon after X800GTO cards. While I personally consider this as ATI's massive stock clearance before RV530 comes later in the year, it is worth comparing the two well-performing mid-range cards and see what happens when the GPU and memory speed are constant, and the only change is the increase in pixel pipelines from 8 to 12 (no, not 16, I don't have those Sapphire X800GTO cards with the BIOS to unlock the disabled defective pixel pipes).

Their ice-blue looks are the same as for HIS higher-end X850XT PE cards I reviewed before, and the cooling system should be just as efficient. The cards were tested in my old trusty Northwood LGA775 test system - the 3.46 GHz P4 EE with 1066 MHz native FSB, and 2 GB of DDR2-533 CL 3-3-3-8 RAM. Catalyst 5.8 was used for both. Both cards look identical too, by the way.

So, let's compare HIS IceQ II X800GT and X800GTO - Here are the 3DMark2005 results. No formatting required, I think.

test X800GT X800GTO X800GTO
speed 500/1000 500/1000 540/1080
default 4121 5192 5523
SXGA 3326 4225 4419
SXGA 4aa 2639 3433 3587

The performance difference seems to hover around 25% for most runs, and its sound reasonable knowing that the vertex pipes stay the same, but pixel pipes get increased by 50% compared to the GT.

While the GPU alone on the GTO could actually overclock beyond 550 MHz with the IceQ, I preferred to stop at the last reliable level where GPU and memory clock were still in sync comfortably completing all the tests without any issues. Even then, as the X800GTO utilises 12 pixel pipelines compared to the 8 pixel pipeline on the GT, with this kind of speeds its 3D Mark results come close to the 850XT family, at a way lower price.

In summary, a good card with very decent performance out of its 6 vertex and 12 pixel shaders, the under US$ 200 price should help as well. If the RV530 was out here right now with its Shader 3 and HD support, this chip would have no place under the sun anymore - but, since it is not the case yet, it remains one of the best mid-price 3-D card choices around. µ