can this card be unlocked...

[Shadowkull]

didnt buy it yet but its a hella deal.. thing is 1 review says it can and the other says it cant...

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=201701063

help plz

[jjcom]

no, those cards do not unlock, unless ATI has changed something. It's still a pretty good card, it uses the R480 core and has 1.6ns memory on it.

[Shadowkull]

should i just get a x800xl then?

[bikr692002]

It can be, but you have to connect the pipes with a hardmod

[Shadowkull]

care to elaborate?

[bikr692002]

I don't know what elaborate means... but yeah... The second or first review said it can't be unlocked by a flash because the pipes are lasered... so just connect the lasered pipes, I've heard of it done before...

[infrared]

same here, there are ways of doing it, but it's tricky as hell and there's no guarantee it'd work.

I've heard you can bridge the lazer cut, and if the fuse data looks good, you can then go ahead with the bios flash, but i think there's a way of doing it that doesn't involve reconnecting the cut.

Shadowkull: Ideally you need a card like the x800gto2 from sapphire, that uses a guaranteed R480 core. The pipelines are easily unlockable with a bios flash, and the clock speeds are insane! I personally wouldn't recomend the x800xl as there's not much overclocking potential.

[jjcom]

I can't reccomend the X800XL either...a X800GTO2 would be great though :) Also, on ATI.com, you can buy a refurb X800Pro for I think it was 150bucks last time I checked. It's only 12 pipes, and probably wouldn't unlock, but for 150bucks it ain't bad. R423 core, clocked to 475mhz, memory is at 450 (900). You could probably get 520/550 out of it. :)