Introduction

When you get an email from a tech company saying we will have a new and secret graphics card to send you on the 15th of September, you instantly become interested at the prospects. Especially with all the rumors floating around at the moment, it tends to make you lean towards it being the release of the highly anticipated R520 (now known as Radeon X1800) or Crossfire Multi VPU.

As most people already know, sadly for our excitement it wasn't the X1800 nor was it Crossfire, though it was another mid-range graphics card known as the Radeon X800GTO. It's the next level up from the X800GT which was only released a few weeks ago. ATI's latest graphics card is designed to compete against nVidia's GeForce 6800 standard which has been in the market for sometime now.

While a lot of people feel that it is a bit late to be releasing new cards into the current generation mid-range market, ATI must feel different though because there is also rumor of an X800GTO2 coming out as well. Soon ATI will release their next generation cards including the X1600 which will effectively replace the X800GTO in only a few weeks, which is worth keeping in mind.

Continue on as we take a close look at the GeCube Radeon X800GTO and we'll compare it against the X800GT at standard and overclocked clock speeds. We should also add that this card will be widely available very soon - we figure ATI are trying to follow nVidia's foot steps and have new cards ready at launch.