Brazilian Modders Give 8GB Memory to GeForce GTX 970

[btarunr]

Paulo Gomes, a hardware modder from Brazil, specializes in memory chip replacement mods for graphics cards. In his latest project, he attempted to give the GeForce GTX 970 from a decade ago a memory upgrade to 8 GB, up from its default specs of 4 GB. This was done by replacing the default 4 Gbit (512 MB) 7 Gbps GDDR5 memory chips with 8 Gbit ones. Eight such chips across the GPU's 256-bit wide memory interface results in 8 GB.

It is important to bring up the memory partition controversy of the GTX 970 here. While the GTX 970 is advertised as a 4 GB graphics card, its memory is partitioned into two chunks of 3.5 GB and 512 MB. NVIDIA came up with no other reason for this than for better segmentation with the GTX 980. Given this partitioning, the modded GTX 970 should have at least 7 GB operating at full speed—larger than the 6 GB of the GTX 980 Ti.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[mclaren85]

Aren't they also supposed to alter the bios? It shouldn't be so easy to just solder new vram and to expect to function normally.

 

[ilyon]

Sounds more like a 7+1 than 8 to me...

 

[Broken Processor]

Over 200 points higher than highest benchmark in the database.

 

[LittleBro]

And what's the point in modding VRAM on 11 years old GPU?
I can see point doing it with RTX 5070, 5070 Ti, 5080, RX 9070 ...

 

[Melvis]

Cool! I still have 2 GTX 970's, I would like the upgrade please!

 

[Gigaherz]

And what's the point in modding VRAM on 11 years old GPU?

Its affordable.

Aren't they also supposed to alter the bios? It shouldn't be so easy to just solder new vram and to expect to function normally.

Prolly. But given that the mobile 900 units were fine with double the memory of desktop, I doubt it was harder than changing a few a digits.

 

[LittleBro]

Its affordable.

Where on earth would GTX 970 utilize 8 GB VRAM? That card has not enough power for modern 1080p gaming.

 

[Gigaherz]

Where on earth would GTX 970 utilize 8 GB VRAM? That card has not enough power for 1080p

Username checks out. 900 series cards once were marketed for 4K lol.

 

[LittleBro]

Username checks out. 900 series cards once were marketed for 4K lol.

4K low details non-AA gaming at 20-30 fps? Who are you fooling? This GPU was never intented for 4K gaming. It's Radeon 570/480 performance class.

MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming 4 GB Review

MSI's GTX 970 Gaming is probably the best GTX 970 on the market. It comes overclocked out of the box, with an amazing noise-less cooler for light gaming, one that is also extremely quiet with even the most demanding titles. Temperatures are great, too, so you should definitely consider this card...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[john_]

And what's the point in modding VRAM on 11 years old GPU?
I can see point doing it with RTX 5070, 5070 Ti, 5080, RX 9070 ...

It's fun I guess. Also it costs almost nothing if the mod fails, while also it's more experience for the person doing the mod at low cost. If you want to get experience in car engineering for example, you don't mess a Ferrari, because it will cost you. You start with a Lada.

It also answers the question "how much better that X GPU would have been with more VRAM". And believe me, Nvidia (or AMD, or anybody else testing versions of their products) knows what an 8GB GTX 970 could offer and probably that's why they cut the VRAM in that GPU. Because back then the GTX 970 was the best seller of that series and if it was coming with more VRAM, those bought it would have kept it more, meaning, lost sales for Nvidia. Nvidia always gives power with limited VRAM, to win benchmarks today, make the card obsolete tomorrow. They know what they are doing.

 

[LittleBro]

It's fun I guess. Also it costs almost nothing if the mod fails, while also it's more experience for the person doing the mod at low cost. If you want to get experience in car engineering for example, you don't mess a Ferrari, because it will cost you. You start with a Lada.

It also answers the question "how much better that X GPU would have been with more VRAM". And believe me, Nvidia (or AMD, or anybody else testing versions of their products) knows what an 8GB GTX 970 could offer and probably that's why they cut the VRAM in that GPU. Because back then the GTX 970 was the best seller of that series and if it was coming with more VRAM, those bought it would have kept it more, meaning, lost sales for Nvidia. Nvidia always gives power with limited VRAM, to win benchmarks today, make the card obsolete tomorrow. They know what they are doing.

I get it, it's fun or hobby. What I don't get is why they do it with such old GPU.
Their modding work might have been of much higher value with RTX 2000 and newer cards. That's what I meant with my first post.

 

[DaemonForce]

And what's the point in modding VRAM on 11 years old GPU?
I can see point doing it with RTX 5070, 5070 Ti, 5080, RX 9070 ...

Proof of concept or real world strat, it's cool.
Today I snagged a card slightly older than my RX580, Pascal generation.
People have obviously made many weird 4GB variations of a 2GB GP107.
Is it a needed upgrade for current workloads? Nah. Core/speed are no change.
Does it matter for squeezing more life out of something that was suffocated of memory? YES.

At some point mods like this will reach the GTX10/20 series when it becomes dime on the dollar affordable.
That's gonna be when the real fun starts. AHOC will have some super exciting moments again.

 

[Gigaherz]

4K low details non-AA gaming at 20-30 fps? Who are you fooling? This GPU was never intented for 4K gaming. It's Radeon 570/480 performance class.

This is incredibly funny, as both the 570 and 480 were released with what you claim as "unnecessary" 8gb specifically with high resolutions in mind.
Btw your linked Test shows the 970 playing AAA of its time at highest details in 4K with 30fps which was very much accepted for consoles at less than 1080p resolution of the era.

The 970 was the affordable way to do 4K when it came out.

 

[john_]

I get it, it's fun or hobby. What I don't get is why they do it with such old GPU.
Their modding work might have been of much higher value with RTX 2000 and newer cards. That's what I meant with my first post.

Probably they mod newer cards also, but this got much more attention because of the card, one of the most VFM cards, in the last 10-15 years, from Nvidia.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Where on earth would GTX 970 utilize 8 GB VRAM? That card has not enough power for modern 1080p gaming.

People are happily buying RX 570/RX 580 2048SP, these have roughly the same performance. The GTX 980 should actually be a little faster, never really got anywhere because the 8 GB model was ultimately cancelled, while AMD's card lingered and due to crypto, eventually became the best selling GPU of all time.

 

[wNotyarD]

I get it, it's fun or hobby. What I don't get is why they do it with such old GPU.
Their modding work might have been of much higher value with RTX 2000 and newer cards. That's what I meant with my first post.

Don't you worry about that, the same team modded a 3070.
They do it because they can, simple as that.

 

[LittleBro]

This is incredibly funny, as both the 570 and 480 were released with what you claim as "unnecessary" 8gb specifically with high resolutions in mind.
Btw your linked Test shows the 970 playing AAA of its time at highest details in 4K with 30fps which was very much accepted for consoles at less than 1080p resolution of the era.

The 970 was the affordable way to do 4K when it came out.

Dude, in that linked review is written:

Each game is tested at the following settings and resolutions:

• 1600x900, 4x Anti-aliasing. Common resolution for most smaller flatscreens and laptops today (17" - 19").
• 1920x1080, 4x Anti-aliasing. Most common widescreen resolution for larger displays (22" - 26").
• 2560x1440, 4x Anti-aliasing. Highest possible 16:9 resolution for commonly available displays (27"-32").
• 3840x2160, No Anti-aliasing. 4K Ultra HD resolution, available on the latest high-end monitors.

Without AA you can't really talk about highest details, right?

Also, don't talk about how 30 fps was acceptable for consoles. Stick to the point. You said GTX 900 series (970 being part of it) were marketed for 4K gaming (back in 2014).
No, GTX 970 was not introduced as GPU for standard/native 4K gaming. We can start talking about reasonable 4K gaming with GTX 1080 Ti or more like RTX 2080 Ti.

RX 480 and RX 570 were both released in 4 GB and 8 GB versions. GTX 970 had 4GB, or more like 3.5 GB lol.
Sure, 8 GB VRAM was a bit pointless back then when an AAA title was unable to fully leverage 4 GB of VRAM.
8 GB was much more suitable for crypto mining, though.

 

[N3utro]

And what's the point in modding VRAM on 11 years old GPU?
I can see point doing it with RTX 5070, 5070 Ti, 5080, RX 9070 ...

To train to do it on more expensive models

 

[Veseleil]

@LittleBro you can't figure out that people do these kind of projects because they are enthusiasts, and not because there's money to be made or for w/e other reason? The same type of people that take any non-special car from 60's, 70's, give it a 3x more powerful engine, better brakes, suspension, transmission, interior. And all that without touching the exterior?
Just because it doesn't make sense to you, doesn't magically makes all that effort a waste.

 

[Macro Device]

Without AA you can't really talk about highest details, right?

AA is the opposite of adding detalization. It's supposed to remove unwanted content, not to add the wanted one. Want most details, go as up in resolution as you can and use as good of models, textures, normal maps, and whatnot as you can. Improve lighting, get better motion stability. AA at 4K is a questionable idea; at 8K upwards it definitely does more harm than good.

And don't tell me your recent title looks like garbage if you rip TAA off. They look like garbage without TAA because they were designed to run with TAA and not because TAA improves anything. In a healthy market, antialiasing will become regarded as "why bother" at the point we have 4K as a de-facto resolution, not 1080p that's currently most common. Try playing some older title with high quality texture mods at 1080p + SMAA and compare that to 4K + zero AA. The latter will almost always look sharper, have more details and much more stability. Because AA is a crutch for lower resolutions. Part of the reason Apple don't bother antialiasing fonts in their operating systems.

 

[TheDeeGee]

And what's the point in modding VRAM on 11 years old GPU?
I can see point doing it with RTX 5070, 5070 Ti, 5080, RX 9070 ...

It can do PhysX.

 

[PixelTech]

I was unfortunately one of those who got scammed with the 3.5GB. I got my check.