6800 GS AGP -- Rivatuner'ing it.

I got my 6800 GS AGP, and am very happy with it. I have read that it is possible to unlock the extra pixel shader and 4 pipes using Rivatuner, but if you see artifacts, that I should just turn them back off.

My question is this: I'm very pleased with this card's performance (Oblivion works so well!). If I unlock these things, and don't immediately notice artifacts in the game, but they turn out to be damaged, can that do anything bad to the card? I know you want to turn them off if you see artifacts since that would be distracting. I just don't want to do something that might end up permanently damaging something if I don't happen to be observant enough.

If everything works well enough that you don't see artifacts my guess would be that the card will be fine.

Best bet is to run something really strenuous (3DMark06 might be a poo-poo benchmark, but it works your graphics card a good workout) in a loop. If you come back after a while (say an hour or so) and still don't see anything odd, pat yourself on the back and enjoy the extra performance. If you encounter lock-ups or artifacts, simply disable the shader and extra pipes again.

Well, I finally worked up enough nerve to give it a try. It didn't take long to realize my card was definitely one of the necessary crippled ones! Little black dots all over the windows desktop after rebooting. I quickly turned everything back off, rebooted (anxiously), and then was relieved to have everything back to normal (no dots). It would have been nice to have the extra oomph, but I'm very happy with this card as is. Next stop, PCI (in 2 or so years).