Extreme modder seeks to double the Vram capacity of 5700XT
Bake at 180°C for 20 minutes.
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A user on Reddit takes on the task of upgrading the memory in their Liquid Devil 5700XT to create a 16gbit 5700XT.
A Reddit user by the name of Zacsmacs posted to the r/overclocking subreddit detailing an ongoing project to install a little upgrade to his Liquid Devil 5700XT, this upgrade goes far beyond the standard overclocking that we are used to seeing on this subreddit. It has to be one of the most intricate and involved processes we have seen in the aid of squeezing a little more out of an older GPU.
By the way, don’t try this at home, it’s not like baking a cake, Zacsmacs presumably knows the risks. We’re not liable for any damages or voided warranties that attempting this will probably cause.
As detailed in the post, the aim is to remove the current Micron 8gbit 14gbps memory chips and replace them with new Samsung 16gbit 18gbps GDDR6 memory. The transplant has not quite been completed yet, but the old memory chips have been successfully removed from the GPU’s PCB, after being baked in the oven like something you see on the Great British Bake Off.
Thankfully, the removal mostly went off without a hitch, the foil was used to protect some plastic components and Aluminium polymer caps to stop them from degrading. The only unintentional damage sustained was some scratches on the “cheap” solder mask, as Zacsmacs describes it. But no tracers or important connections were damaged as far as they could tell. They also say that the solder mask damage can be easily fixed with a UV solder mask kit that will arrive shortly.
If the transplant is successful, then Zacsmac may have the first 16gbit, 18gbps RX 5700XT, a GPU that isn’t too remarkable nowadays in its standard form will be transformed into a marvel to behold. We’ll also be following this process closely to see what kind of performance gains are for an upgrade of this caliber.
How will the upgrade affect performance?
We spoke to our resident GPU expert, Seb, on the matter, and he expects at least a 5-15% uplift in FPS and smoother gameplay in games that require more video memory. The idea of upgrading Vram is to allow the GPU to load and store more textures and other assets the GPU needs to call upon when gaming.
When that gets full, there’s nowhere to store new assets, and the memory is purged to make room for the required data. And as you guessed it, this process is slow (relatively speaking). Ideally, GPUs will be able to one day load the entire game into memory at once.