Packaging

Sapphire packs this card in their standard box displaying the now-standard alien and a few badges displaying the features.

The bundle that Sapphire includes with their X1800 GTO fits their standard mold and includes all of the usual connectors found in a Sapphire product, plus a couple. These include two (Sapphire usually includes one) DVI to VGA adapters and an extra video output cable with both S-Video and Composite connections. While Sapphire has done well to include the four-games-in-on a single CD with the option of demoing all four of games and owning the full version of one, the games in the mix are the same as they have been since Sapphire launched the program last year. The options are Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Richard Burns Rally, and Tony Hawk Underground 2. While these are all commendable titles, they are all relatively old games, and Sapphire could do well to update these soon. Granted, most people don't buy video cards for the game bundles, but an up-to-date game selection would help make Sapphire stand out more than they already do.

The Card

The PCB used is identical to that used on X1800 XL boards, although Sapphire have replaced the cooler with a larger, and what would appear to be more efficient design. The cooler uses copper fins similarily to the X1800 XL, but the fan is significantly larger. This will hopefully lead to less whine and more heat, as the X1800 XL was notorious for being an extremely hot, and relatively noisy card.

The X1800 GTO uses the standard R520 core found in the higher end X1800 XT and X1800 XL, but has 4 of the sixteen pipes found on the X1800 XL disabled. Some X1800 cards are reported to be unlockable, Sapphires cards however, are not. The X1800 GTO uses the same 256 bit external memory bus found on higher end X1800 cards and has all of the core features found on all X1800 cards. The X1800 GTO features a 500 MHz core clock and a 1000 MHz memory speed, putting it behind the 7600 GT in terms of raw speed. The key difference however is the 256 bit memory bus on the X1800 GTO which should provide some noticeable gains. Read on to see how the two compare!