Your 1660 could get a needed boost with this mod
We wouldn't recommend doing this if you're new to the scene or not certain of what you're doing
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If you’ve been thinking of upgrading you might not need to just yet, as the NvStrapsReBar mod for GTX 16 and RTX 20 series GPUs enables ReBar boost for an increased performance. As the technology was limited as to what GPU could use, the modder has pushed the motherboard into allowing you to get a bit more out of the aging cards.
Resizable bar came out alongside the Zen 3 CPUs and RX 6000 cards and so was limited in what GPUs are able to use it. It is also a key tech to enable Intel Arc graphics cards to perform to their full potential. Without support for older cards, there is a bit of lost potential, the developer terminatorul has released the NvStrapsReBar patch to get around the limitations.
It is a rather technical and dangerous thing to attempt so it is suggested you know what you are doing before trying it. The mod patches your motherboard UEFI firmware to set the BAR size to automatic or manual. But this does pose some danger to your motherboard as it may brick it due to rewrites done on it.
How the mod works and its limitations
Previously ReBar was limited in what GPUs could use it due to the vBIOS not supporting it. As we saw Nvidia released new vBIOS to its 30 series to support it whilst the 40 series supported it from the get-go whilst AMD GPUs have utilized it since RDNA 2 with smart access memory.
The vBIOS on Team Green cards is encrypted and digitally signed so it’s hard to enable it via the usual BIOS way. As such this mod is needed to patch it in. But it still is limited to the 16 and 20 series GPUs and can’t quite get to the Pascal picks.
However the mode should allow drivers and systems to optimize the resources available. But even still the gains might not be enough to bother risking your system’s stability and working order.
