I as wondering if when you softmod a vid cards and lets say a 9800SE to make it run like a 9800Pro.

But then the pipelines break during the softmodding operation and you try to get a new one still under warranty from the you place you got it from lets say it newegg.

Would they have anyway of finding out that you did softmod it and that it would viod the warranty?

I am thinking about getting one of those 9800SE that are possible to be softmodding to a 9800Pro.

Softmodding will NOT break your card, only overclocking can do that! Softmodding the 9800SE involves unlocking the four additional pipelines that are normaly only available on the 9800 Pro. But as ATI uses the same chip for both cards, and there aren't enough broken chips to meet demand, them some good chips (all eight pipelines working) end up on the lower spec cards. These four additional pipelines are disabled by ATI, but softmodding allows them to be enabled again. This is only useful if the four disabled pipelines are not broken, and your chances of getting one of those chips is about two out of three. The 9800 Pro cards have recently dropped in price to almost half their original price, so maybe you should consider getting the genuine article.

softmodding COULD break your card - get one where the pipelines really are damaged and then u have to go through the nasty process of reflashing it to its original settings using a different card in the machine - not nice.
so softmodding can go (seriously) wrong - but it appears to be sucessful many more times than it is unsucessful so dont be affraid to try it. If flashing the card takes it the point where it wont post then no they cant tell if it been flashed so feel free to RMA it.....i think.

Steg

Softmodding in some cases involves using a modified set of drivers ( the Omega drivers for example ). It's called softmodding because it's not as risky as a regular modding.

But if they took the time to disable the extra pipelines, it might be because there was something definitly wrong with them. Furthermore, enabling the extra pipelines might mean your chip will heat up a little more & if the cooling system wasn't adequate to cool the chip with this extra heat production, you might damage the card.

& finally, if the card were to become faulty due to the softmodding, you're the one responsible & it would be dishonest to RMA it as if it was a faulty card from the start.