Sapphire Radeon X800GTO PCI-E
 

From the default clock speeds of 400/490 MHz for Core and RAM respectively, we obtained a rather impressive 533/573 MHz - a nice +133MHz on the Core and a respectable 83MHz on the RAM. That's what I love about mid range videocards - they may not be the fastest around but they sure do make overclocking a rewarding experience in most cases; luckily the Sapphire X800GTO was one of these cases.

Direct URL: http://www.3davenue.com/1401.html

which x800gto????
 

i was thinking about getting either a sapphire or gecube radeon x800gto. THey're both great value at only £120 but which is the better deal???? From what i can tell, the sapphire x800gto is just the regular edition (not fireblade) but i think it comes with a free game and an excellent overclocking utility. On the other hand, the gecube equivelent has the distinguished uniwise pipe cooling technology. Please could somebody help me make this tough decision!!!!!!!! Or does anybody know a site which has performance benchmarks of the the two?

Thanks in advance

Make sure your Dell power supply is good enough when you upgrade :)

i'll check thanks

TRMN8R
Please post your questions here so that others can offer to help rather than sending me PMs;)

You have a micro board and case; using two slots card may help reducing heat plus your Prescott is not thermal efficient.

As for Power supply you should read the manual came with Dell to find out more.:)

got a PM from him also; but I don't know which card would be better, get the one which is cheapest/easiest for you to buy which offers best warranty conditions

Sorry LAZYMAN! But do you mean I need an extra pci-e slot to accomodate the silent-pipe thing that comes with the gecube radeon x800gto or what?

Not necessarily, check with Gecube support to see if you need a free PCI slot next to the video card

But as a rule of thumb, always leave one slot open (at least) next to your VGA card to accommodate cooling:)

My pc only has one pci-e slot:(

leave open " a slot" doesn't matter if it is PCI-e/PCI/ISA :) the slot is not used éy ;)

Ah right! Thank You

No need to apologize, just a thought that more people could offer you assistance this way:)

Like Jmke said it is always better to leave the slot below the graphic card empty. By the way, silent heatpipe is good only if you have excellent case ventilation. If you plan on overclocking, graphic card with fan will surely be more quiet than the Prescott HSF specially in a mini case to keep the CPU temp under "control".

If my case is poorly ventilated (it isn't great), is the fan on the x800gto still much of a benefit if I intend to overclock?

That's anyone's guess:) Overclocking is not a gurantee. A willing GPU or CPU does not leak much heat; an unwlling one can do not much even you put in sub-zero temp, which is always my take :)

A guru is just a plain guy without good products :D

I found out that my psu is 350w and that im not supposed to use a graphics card that runs higher than 75w in my pci-e slot!

Do you guys know if most graphics cards comply to this 75w limit for the pci-e slot?

Also, I couldn't get any specific power info on the x800 but apparently the new geforce 7800s require at least a 350w psu so I presume a more humble x800gto will be fine on my setup, right?

A 350W PSU does not provide an abundance of power nowadays. I think you'll be able to pull a X800GTO is you have a brandname 350W PSU, but not much more.

I'm lookin at the connect3d model now which has a decent sucess rate of modding to 16pipelines.

Do you reckon the psu is "brandname" if it is just the standard psu that came with the dell dimension 8400 about about 8 months ago?