Unlocking not overclocking...

[lcandy]

Hi, this is my first post in these areas In another part of the forum, I've been getting help designing a new system. I've been pointed in the direction of a few HIS products that look really suitable for my needs, but one in particular.

This is the HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1800 GTO ICEQ3 SILENT TURBO for £140.94 Including VAT from this page: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/X1800_Series.html

Although this card seems good value for money, compared to a 7600GT or GS (my original idea), it seems like there is apparantly more you can get out of it than just some more MHz. It's got 12 pixel pipelines but because it's just a rebranded XT (or something), there's an easy way to unlock those extra 4 pipelines?

My question to you guys (Im way out of my depth here, no experiance in overclocking GPU's), is this easily possible, if so, how? If I buy it to go in my system, will it be good value considering the alternatives and that I literaly can not spend any more money on it than that? My only other alternatives are a HIS X1600 or a passive cooled X1600 solution from Asus. Otherwise its back to the 7600GS which is looking very unatractive now.

Any help is really appreciated, thanks in advance

 

[Architecta]

The X1800GTO can be unlocked giving you an extra 4 pipelines, effectivly making it a X1800XL. It is quite easy to do, requiring only a few tools to do and there are plenty of walkthroughs for it.

X1800GTO -> X1800XL

details about it can be found in that link.

 

[lcandy]

Thanks a lot!! That looks really easy, and a good way to improve an alreay really good card. 8)