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Weird GTO2!

Street

Street

Street

Soldato
Joined
17 Jan 2005
Posts
8,710
Location
Liverpool
My housemate has recently bought a Sapphire X800 GTO2 for his new PC. I told him it could be flashed to turn it into an XT. Now I thought that flashing unlocked the pipes from 12 to 16 and also raised the clocks. I checked in ATI Tool and it said that it already had 16 pipes unlocked, so I checked in Tray Tools and it gave the same answer...

Am I wrong in thinking that the GTO2s had 12 pipelines or has he got a special card?
 
the gto2 was the biggest con sapphire has ever made... dont get me wrong, its a good card and i still own one, the first supposedly "limited edition" batch were great, they came with 12 pipes unlockable to 16 pipes and all clocked to mad speeds, scoring 6200 + on 3dmark05

when that batch ran out, that should have been it, no more GTO2,s but oh no, revised versions have spewed forth, some with 16 pipes already enabled, some with crap memory, some with an R430 core which my old cyrix could probably clock higher than, instead of R480.

and on they continue, sapphire built up hype with good cards for the first batch and are now milking it for all its worth with inferior versions.
 
Sapphire never made any claimes about the overclockability or the ram used on the card. only that the cores could be unlocked. I dont even know if they themselfs gaurenteed the unlocking. i'm sure they didn't.

Its no different to any other manufacturer producing any other piece of hardware. You get good batches, bad batches and cost effective batches. Doesnt matter now anyway, i stopped recommending them once the price rose to £150 and the x850xt powercolor became so cheap.

They just arent viable anymore IMO.
 
ahha cheers for clearing that one up:) I'll have a look and see if its got an R480 core on it and might stick the 850XT bios on it at some point.
 
The first revisions with the red PCB were the ones based on the R480 core and came with only 12 pipes unlocked. These were the ones with exceptional overclocking ability (I have mine at 660/1270 and scored 7626 in 3dmark05 with it).

The later revisions (I think we are on revision 3 now) come with a blue PCB, 16 pipes already unlocked and are literally X800XL's (R430 core).
 
My housemate has recently bought a Sapphire X800 GTO2 for his new PC. I told him it could be flashed to turn it into an XT. Now I thought that flashing unlocked the pipes from 12 to 16 and also raised the clocks. I checked in ATI Tool and it said that it already had 16 pipes unlocked, so I checked in Tray Tools and it gave the same answer...

Am I wrong in thinking that the GTO2s had 12 pipelines or has he got a special card?
Click to expand...

Perhaps your housemate received a returned card with a flashed BIOS???

Sapphire were/are taking the michael with the GTO2 IF the current cards are poor clockers, as they were sold on the basis that they were good clockers when first released (at least that's what most retailers lead us to believe). Surely most if not all cards since the first batch(es) sold on the strength of their 'fabled' ability???
 
As said above you can get GTO2 cards with 16 pipes allready unlocked.

Also AFAIK Sapphire never made any claims re overclocking ability, nor ability to open the 4 extra pipes. The fact that your card comes with 16 pipes enabled should actually be considered as a bonus. As the cards are lsited as having 12 pipes.

Having said that & being an owner of one of the first batches of GTO2 cards, yes they were sold to many on their likelyhood (certainty) of opening up to 16 pipes & overclocking to X850XT / PE levels, as mine does. The cards at the time were only slightly more costly than a standard Sapphire GTO card & much less than either an X800XL, much less an X850XT. As such i am not bitter about Sapphire releasing many more cards (than what we thought would be a limited edition), but they are just trying to clear their inventory of X800/X850 cores, & we who baught / buy these cards are getting a little more speed for our money.


(Now i only wish i had baught a X1800XT card a few weeks back)
 
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