AMD's Radeon HD 6790, launched this Tuesday, is something of an odd card. The 'Barts LE' chip borrows design ideas prevalent in the HD 6850 and HD 6790 but puts them together with a last-generation HD 5770 firmly in mind. Head back to our original review to learn more.
While we're not fans of the card's high-ish power-draw and don't take too kindly to AMD chopping the back-end ROPs down to 16 on what really is a mid-range GPU, solid overclocking potential and the tantalising possibility of flashing it into, perhaps, a Radeon HD 6870 make it a reasonable choice for £100.
But it seems as if AMD's ensured the HD 6790 remains a mid-range GPU by physically deactivating any dormant parts of the architecture.
"It is not something that should be possible [unlocking the inactive parts] on the 6790. Those SIMDs are fused off," said Even Groenke, a graphics products manager at AMD, reports Xbitlabs, and it puts a dampener on folk looking to use this GPU as a cheap(er) means of gaining more performance by BIOS flashing and unlocking the inactive SIMDs and ROPs.
Are you bothered that the HD 6790 seemingly can't be unlocked? Does it factor into your buying decision? Let us know what you think.
