Sapphire Radeon X1800GTO takes on Albatron Geforce 7600 GT

WE HAD a chance to get our hands on Sapphire Radeon X1800 GTO card and to compare it to an Albatron Geforce 7600 GT. The cards are now in the same price segment and we wanted to learn a little bit more about the performance.

Sapphire, ATI's loyal partner, made a card based on the R520, Fudo core and clocked it to 500MHz with 1000MHz 256-bit memory. The only difference between this card and X1800 XL is the number of pipes. The X1800 GTO has twelve pipes while the already discontinued X1800 XL had sixteen.

The X1800 GTO is equipped with two DVI-outs and a video in/out. It comes with Power DVD 6, Power Director 4 software and an instalation CD. The box includes a useful Sapphire select CD that enables you to pick out the game you want. Sapphire includes two dongles, an HD cable, S Video and Composite cable as well as the video i/o cable that will let you connect just about anything on your PC. The cheapest 'lite' retail card cost around €180 at press time.

We received the bulk shipping version of the Albatron 7600 GT 256MB card. We got the driver CD and the card while the retail pack includes a few cables and the necessary dongles. We learned that the card comes with an HDTV Cable, a DVI Adapter and a Driver CD. The card works at 560MHz and is powered with the moderately-successful G73 core. The memory is clocked at 1400MHz. It is very interesting that the memory interface is still 128-bit only, but you will see that the card can really stay competitive if not quite on the top.

The test was full of surprises as we expected that 256-bit memory interface to clearly dominate but, oh boy, we were wrong.

Benchmarketing
We used:
Athlon FX 57 2800 MHz 90 nanometre San Diego core 2800 MHz
Albatron 7600 GT 256 MB card
Sapphire X1800 GTO 256 MB
Asus A8N32 Deluxe Nforce 4 SLI X16 motherboard
2x1024 MB Corsair XMS-3500LL PRO memory
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB SATA NCQ hard drive
Akasa AK128 EVO Athlon 64 cooler
OCZ Power Stream 600W

Doom 3	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	95.1	72.1	55.1	33.5
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	105.8	91.9	73.6	49.3
?	?	?	?	?
Doom 3 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	69.3	47.8	35.8	18.7
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	72.6	48.6	35.6	18.1
?	?	?	?	?
Far Cry	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	85.25	82.01	75.27	43.31
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	86.11	84.27	75.47	49.74
?	?	?	?	?
Far Cry High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	81.16	65.58	50.06	14.76
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	80.27	55.23	39.11	22.79
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	138.8	115.5	91.5	58.0
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	142.1	127.8	103.2	70.9
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	118.8	88.0	68.5	42.1
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	116.0	83.8	63.4	32.2
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	69	51	35	19
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	79	56	40	26
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	51	37	24	12
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	43	30	20	12
?	?	?	?	?
Battlefield 2	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	95.35	75.69	60.68	40.89
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	96.77	78.24	61.93	44.41
?	?	?	?	?
Battlefield 2 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	86.85	67.74	54.57	36.29
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	67.83	50.75	37.38	23.28
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	3DMark 03	Game2	Game3	Nature
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	13083	99.9	76.8	83.1
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	13409	96.9	83.8	83.1
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Vertex Shader	Pixel Shader 2.0
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	2740.6	5758.4	49.1	135.6
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	2392.4	6397.2	37.8	284.4
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	3DMark 05	Game1	Game2	Game3
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	6835	29.4	20.7	33.7
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	5984	26.0	18.3	28.9
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Pixel Shader	VS /VS complex
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	2876.5	5979.9	144.9	75.3/46.6
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	2830.5	6648.9	184.2	51.5/37.6
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 06	3DMark 06	?	?
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	3006	?	?
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	3077	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
SM2.0 Test	Score	GT1	GT2
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	1222	9.262	11.091
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	1319	10.756	11.234
?	?	?	?	?
HDR/SM3.0 Test	Score	HDR1	HDR2
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	1223	11.982	12.562
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	1193	10.500	13.365
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	Score	CPU1	CPU2
Sapphire X1800GTO 500/1000 MHz	1103	0.347	0.561
Albatron 7600GT 560/1400 MHz	1105	0.347	0.562
?	?	?	?	?

You can see that even though it has a 128-bit memory interface, the 7600 GT dominates the Doom 3 score. It is ten to nineteen frames faster in every single resolution. It works out at up to 22 per cent faster. The situation changes when you turn on the FSAA 4X and 8X aniso as the score will then be tight. The Albatron 7600 GT will win at 10x7 but just by three FPS, or less than a frame on 12x10, while ATI wins by 0.2 and 0.6 FPS on the two top resolutions. I would call it a tight.

Far Cry is really balanced but Nvidia can score a frame or two faster it is again really close. Sapphire's X1800 GTO dominates with the FSAA and Aniso on. It can score up to eleven frames faster, or should we say, 22 per cent faster, so it is a pay-back time there.

The Albatron 7600 GT again dominates in Quake 4. Nvidia just loves ID Software, I wonder why? It can get up to eleven frames faster but at least at 10x7 the cards are competitive. The Sapphire X1800 GTO comes back with FSAA and Aniso on. It scores from two frames at 10x7 to ten frames faster at 20x15 resolution.

FEAR with no FSAA suits Nvidia. It can run up to ten frames faster but averages five frames faster than the Sapphire X1800 GTO card. Sapphire again smashes Nvidia with FSAA 4X and 16X Anisotropic on and runs from eight to four frames faster. It is interesting to note that the 128-bit card can match the 256-bit one at 2048x1536 resolution.

Battlefield 2 without effects is tight and Nvidia is winning this one but by less than one fps at 10x7 and 16x12 and up to four at 20x15. The ATI-powered X1800 GTO card smashes the 7600 GT when you turn the effects on. It can run almost 20 frames faster - again the magical 22 percent.

Albatron's 7600 GT is 370 3Dmarks faster in 3dmark03, Sapphire X1800 GTO is 851 marks faster in 3Dmark05 and Albatron is just slightly faster than X1800 GTO in 3Dmark06. In Shader model 3.0/HDR test, Sapphire scores a little bit more but it loses on SM 2.0 overall score.

In Short
It all makes for a mixed conclusion. It is not easy to choose between these two cards. The price is now about the same, if Sapphire card comes a little bit better equipped with CDs and cables. Based on card performance I can recommend the Albatron 7600 GT card if you want to play without FSAA and with Aniso off. On the other hand, if you want to play the game with your $/€200 card and FSAA and Aniso on, you should buy Sapphire's X1800 GTO as it is clearly a better choice.

Nvidia did a good job with the 7600 GT and made a nasty competitor, but ATI can match it at least with the FSAA and Aniso effects on. People usually should play with 4X FSAA on but, as you know top gamers turn it all off just to be able to get more frames. The 7600 GT is great chip and it took Nvidia to introduce a dissected Fudo R520 chip to match the performance.

Sapphire's card has Avivo, a good choice for video. Both cards can work in Crossfire/SLI mode. You just need two of the cards and it will run, no master card is needed.

So we can recommend either card but if you don't play with FSAA on, go for Albatron Geforce 7600 GT, if you prefer the visual quality then the Sapphire Radeon X1800 GTO is the better choice. ?

Words and tests by Fuad Abazovic and Sanjin Rados.