PowerColor X800 GTO 128MB 256-bit Video Card Review - Video Out Features and Heatsink
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Before getting into benchmarks, I want to show the video out features and the card’s cooling all at once here.
The PowerColor X800 GTO 128 MB has integrated display adapters for CRT (left) and DVI (right). I like the way they set this up, because most people buying this kind of card only have one monitor and only need one type of connector or the other. Cards with dual-DVI would require most people to use a CRT-DVI converter. Providing one of each eliminates converters for any single-screen setups. It still supports two screens if you plug in the nice red converter that PowerColor included in the package, but people with two DVI displays are probably looking at more expensive video cards anyway.
In the middle of the two VGA plugs is the integrated S-Video TV output, which supports up to 1024x768 resolution. The packaging has a converter to change the S-Video to composite if need be, so there will be no need to run to Radio Shack and buy extra parts.
You can see the heatsink pretty well here; it's a nice solid one. A few heatsinks from other manufacturers don’t cover the memory or are fixed loosely to the board. I've even spoken to people who had heat spreaders will off of GPUs. Thankfully this card seems well constructed and durable, so I'm not worried about any of those defects.
It covers the GPU and memory, and it seems to be secured to the card very tightly. Back by the fan, the heatsink is flat, but the air moves over it well. The name plate on top helps to channel the air the fan pushes, and the fins up close are more than sufficient at getting rid of the card’s heat. The noise from the fan is minimal too. I can't hear it, and it's placed in a pretty quiet system. I doubt you’ll be able to find better stock cooling in this class of video cards.
Like I mentioned on the last page, this heatsink may have been designed for the X800 GT, which seems to be a hotter card. PowerColor’s website shows the X800 GTO 128 with a more generic heatsink that appears to be aluminum (shown below).
If PowerColor has started using higher quality heatsinks on this line of cards, that’s great news. Good cooling should aid us in overclocking, and it could be one of the things to make this stand out above other 128 MB GTOs. Now let’s see how far this card will oc.
Next: Overclocking >>
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