Is this a good card if u unlock it and oc it to x850 speeds? do u need a floppy drive to unlock it? this or 6800 gs. same price.

No, a CD or a USB-drive is enough.

Some guides for you:
http://www.techpowerup.com/article [...] vidcard/34
http://www.techpowerup.com/article [...] idcard/127

Would it be better to get a x800 Pro Vivo or x800 GTO2 to unlock and overclock?

An unlocked x800 gto2 will beat a x800 pro. But if you really want the video-in you should pick the x800 pro vivo.

can u use thumb drives to flash the bios? i might newegg it or ebay already unlocked card.

The last X800GTO2 cards were both Dual DVI/VIVO, and already 16 pipeline-unlocked. Right out of the box. That's offset by a general inability to clock as high as the first batch (Oct/Nov 05). Ergo no BIOS mods required.

See this.

Note: ignore the morons who believe it's an R430 core part. It's not.

Actually DOS Will Boot Off Of A USB Thumbdrive

No, there are new Sapphire X800GTO2s with R430-core and all 16-pipes already unlocked.

No, they're called X800GTO2. Made by Sapphire. Like the one I have sitting here. Version 2 has 16 pipes, dual DVI and VIVO-- though it's not mentioned in any spec sheets.

There are plenty at the link in my original post, though.

ATItool mistakenly reports it as R430. It's lying.

ATItool mistakenly reports it as R430. It's lying.[/quote]
Ok, didn't know that. What about the already open 16-pipes, is that also false information?

Nope, that's true. Both ATITool and Futuremark (in the resultbrowser) mistakenly detect the GTO2 as an XL, presumably due to similar stock clockspeed and 16 pipelines.

@wusy: yeah, Anand reviewed them recently. The PowerColor part seemed to be showing itself as an R430.

Anyway, the original point was: there's no need to "unlock". Just add cooling and ramp up clockspeed.

The Sapphire GTO2 has the same core as the x850. And can be unlocked to the same specs and the x850xt and some can clock to x850xt PE specs.

What is difference between a X800 GTO and an X800 GTO2 ?

what does the2 stand for?

The r430 and r480 both can have up to 16 pixel pipelines. The r480 is the core of X850 model cards, and the r430 is the core of X800 model cards, including the 16 pipeline XL cards.

ATITool and Futuremark probably detect the GTO2 with the r430 core as an XL because they are both based on said core. It detects my Sapphire GTO2 as an ATI Radeon X8 pro, with the r480 core and unlocked BIOS (if it reads any information from the BIOS).

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/ [...] Id=1708130

??

(double take) That's called circular reasoning.

Sadly, anyone who has taken the time to look at what's written on the die will tell you otherwise.