"Unlocking"

[Edward Lee]

I hear this term being thrown around quite frequently and I'm curious as to what excactly this means.
On one hand I figure it means overclocking. But then again I hear it means to "unlock pipes" that run the graphics card.

Forgive me for sounding like such an ameture. But can someone tell me what these pipes are? And what kind of physical transformation happens when a graphics card is unlocked? Finally, how can I tell if I have "Unlocked" my graphics card.

Thank You

(This is a serious question. I'm really curious)

 

[Staz]

Think of pipe as lanes on a highway. While all lanes share the same speed limit, the more lanes you have, the more cars that highway can handle without slowing down.

The 6800 series GPU was built with 16 pipes(lanes), but on the 6800nu, they "closed" 4 of those pipes(lanes) down, so it's only using 12 of them. Unlocking refers to reopening those 4 pipes(lanes).

 

[cmp1223]

From what i've read about the 6800 series, the other four pipes are either damaged or otherwise compromised, or software disabled. A program like rivatuner "softmods" the pipes back into working order. So there is a (good) chance it wont be unlockable.