The modding community is well acquainted with the ins and outs of the RTX 30 series. Skilled repair centers can work wonders on severely damaged GPUs, whether it’s replacing the GPU or memory, fixing broken paths, or even implementing upgrades. However, the feasibility of each mod depends on both time and financial considerations, as not all modifications are practical.
Modders have achieved successful modifications to GeForce RTX cards, such as doubling their memory capacity, even in the absence of corresponding SKUs from NVIDIA. The complexity of these mods varies, ranging from firmware tweaks to component adjustments. The end result is the creation of intriguing cards that wouldn’t have made it to the market otherwise.
Paulo Gomes’ team recently undertook a unique modification. Initially, their focus was on refurbishing a problematic EVGA RTX 3070 card with issues like a broken GPU, HDMI port, and a troublesome memory channel. In an unconventional move to address the memory channel problem, they chose to disable it, deactivating two memory chips (2x 1GB). As a result, the card’s memory was reduced from 8GB to 6GB, making it the first-known 3070 with this altered memory configuration.
In their second video, the team chose a different approach. Acknowledging the card’s initial constraint with a 192-bit memory bus, they pushed boundaries by upgrading the memory to a 12GB capacity. Despite the perception of this mod as complex, the groundwork had been laid, making the task significantly simpler than the initial restoration of the entire card.
Once again, the team had to undertake the reballing process, but this time it was exclusively for the memory chips. After excluding the two modules associated with the disabled channel, the team tested whether the GPU passed the memory test, which it did successfully. The last step involved adjusting the straps to enable support for Samsung 16Gb (2GB) modules.
The card operates effectively in Windows, with GPU-Z accurately displaying the updated memory settings. Crucially, the card exhibits improved performance due to its expanded VRAM capacity. When compared to the 6GB configuration, the card with a 12GB capacity now demonstrates 70-80 FPS, a notable increase from the previous 50-60 FPS, particularly evident in Resident Evil 4 with high image quality settings – a game renowned for its demanding VRAM requirements.
Currently, there’s the capability to revive and frequently enhance cards that originally lacked such configurations. The presence of broken GPUs, memory issues, or a disabled path doesn’t necessitate the immediate disposal of a dysfunctional GPU. As frequently emphasized by repair experts, the key consideration isn’t whether something is repairable, but rather the associated cost.
