6800 & le unlock pipelines

[dafuzzbudd]

im looking to get a 6600gt or 6800le, maybe regular 6800

i looked around a lot of forums but i couldnt find anyone tell what is a brand that has a good chance of undamaged pipelines. Is there a date or any type of trick to look for when getting one?

and is this mainly how it would be unlocked
le has 8 then to 12?
6800 has 12 then to 16?

Thanks,
Robb

 

[fstime]

Only the EVGA LE can be modded to an ULTRA by unlocking etc, you wont find one, the other brands just suck. Your best bet is a 6600GT which you cant unlock anything or a 6800nu which 50/50 unlock.

 

[dafuzzbudd]

since the 6800 seems to be better than the 6600gt im just gonna try and get a cheap 6800 and hope i can unlock it, if not oh well, ill still have a beter card

and i guess im new to this, but does nu mean stock?

 

[flyboy84]

NU means non-ultra, because initially, only the 6800 and 6800 Ultra were released by nVidia. The 6800GT came along later. The 6800 is a much better bet than the 6800LE (which I think are hard to find to begin with), unless, as said before, you are talking about an eVGA 6800 Limited Edition, which is actually a 6800 Ultra, but didn't make the cut for ultra grade, and was sold a few months back for half the price of an ultra. It was quite a steal, and I happily have one in my machine. The Limited Edition can be modded into an Ultra by flashing it with a different BIOS. There's a whole thread on this in the video forum.

 

[dafuzzbudd]

so.. my initial question remains:

what's a reliable brand that can have the pipes unlocked?

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: dafuzzbudd
so.. my initial question remains:

what's a reliable brand that can have the pipes unlocked?

No way to tell. It's a gamble as they're all of the same cores.

 

[hans030390]

if you find a leadtek, they are usually really high quality...though, maybe not for unlocking pipes...

 

[jayoinoz]

I know this thread is probably dead but...

Last night I used RivaTuner RC15.4 to unlock ALL pipelines on my 6800LE! So from 8 pixel/4 vertex @ 300/700MHzto 16 pixel/6 vertex pipelines @ 350/860MHz.

Aquamark scores up 40% from stock. Played Brothers In Arms and Call of Duty: United Offensive - no artifacts at all. Performance is sweet and temps max out on load @ 69C.

The make? Gainward.

Thank you RivaTuner! And thank you Gainward!

 

[Hyperlite]

Look at my sig, XFX working great for me.

 

[Blazin Trav]

I have a Leadtek, it's great.

 

[xtknight]

By the way, you can't unlock a PCI-E 6800NU.

 

[BillyBobJoel71]

evga cards seem to heat really quickly to high temps when playing games. mine avges 67 degrees when idle, but usually 75 during gamging

 

[leedog2007]

Originally posted by: xtknight
By the way, you can't unlock a PCI-E 6800NU.

Important thing to remember.

 

[BillyBobJoel71]

fixed the temp problem! it was the 1.84 driver tem bug. now i have 76.44 and load is 68 - 71.
only agp can unlock the pipes, because they are acutally on the card itself. i did it to mine, now it has 16 pipes and 6 vps enabled, and a bit of performance boost and higher 3dmark score shows. now i need to overclokc mine over 725