Noise, Overclocking, 2D Quality

The PowerColor X800 GTO VIVO carries the same standard cooling system as installed on the PowerColor X800 GT, so its noise characteristics are exactly the same. The noise is not very low, but remains in a comfortable range all the time ?the speed control system never increased the speed of the fan during our tests. It means the GPU was effectively cooled and its temperature was always within the acceptable range.

In our attempts to overclock the PowerColor X800 GTO VIVO we at first increased the GPU frequency to an impressive 480MHz (almost a record for the R430 chip!), but the graphics card soon began to hang up in tests. By reducing the GPU frequency to 450MHz we made the card stable and it normally passed all of our trials. We call this an excellent result anyway since an overwhelming majority of ATI R430 chips can only work at 420-430MHz at best. The memory performed up to our expectations and was stable at 550 (1100) MHz ?there were visual artifacts at higher frequencies. So we didn’t witness a marvel this time around like we did with the GeForce 6800 GS.

The 2D image quality the graphics card provided was high and up to today’s standards, but with one reservation: only one DVI output of our sample of the card worked. When attached to the other one, the monitor reported lack of signal. A PowerColor representative said to us that it was not a defect of our particular sample. That was a problem of incompatibility with some mainboards. Unfortunately, the Intel Desktop Board D925XCV and ASUS A8N-SLI Premium mainboard models that our testbeds are based around are in the incompatibles list, too. The problem may be solved in newer BIOS versions, so the owner of a PowerColor X800 GTO VIVO and people who want to buy this card may want to keep track of the BIOS updates on the manufacturer’s website.