Just bought a ATI X850 Pro graphics card last week and was able to unlock 4 pixel pipelines and OC to XT speeds. The card was on sale at Best Buy for $229. Unlocked, it performs like the $399 XTPE. If you replace the stock cooler, you can exceed XTPE performance easily. 3DMark05 score jumped from 4300 to 6000 with unlock.

12/15/2005 2:35:02 PM

you can also buy the x800gto2 from sapphire or x800gto from connect3d or something and do the same thing. their cards are like $179

12/15/2005 2:45:59 PM

how does one "unlock" a video card? is it software or hardware "unlocking"?

12/15/2005 5:21:39 PM

You can only do this with AGP, NOT PCI-E

12/15/2005 5:22:21 PM

you can do this with pcie as long as you buy the right brands. the x800 pro vivo pci-e does in fact have the extra pipes laser cut

12/15/2005 8:14:45 PM

^^Depends entirely on the card in question.

Read up on specific models to see if it's possible. Even if it is, buying a card with the intent of unlocking pipes is a risk, because not all of them are in working condition.

The Sapphire X800GTO^2 is one of the best deals, if you get it unlocked and OC'ed...but because of the popularity for overclocking, the prices on them shot up fast and they were out of stock everywhere for awhile.

12/15/2005 8:39:32 PM

He started the thread for the 850, which I have read to be locked in the PCI-E cause the pipes aren't there

12/16/2005 8:55:06 AM

Yeah, that was right for the one in the first post. But since the second broadened it (and there are other cards out there that can be unlocked), I thought it was worthwhile to note.

The thing about the PCI-E X850s is that they were based on an entirely different design that only had 12 pipes on the board, so there's no way to "unlock" something that isn't there.

[Edited on December 16, 2005 at 9:03 AM. Reason : which is what you just said, but anyway]

12/16/2005 9:03:26 AM

Opps my bad, I didn't even read smoothcrim's post, I just skimmed through gearhead's.

12/16/2005 9:11:39 AM