Modder creates the GeForce RTX 3070 with 16GB VRAM that never was

nanoguy

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Why it matters: A modded GeForce RTX 3070 shows the untapped potential of the Ampere card when equipped with 16 gigabytes of VRAM. Newer AAA games have much higher requirements in that department, but Nvidia has yet to adapt its more affordable offerings to this new reality.

When Nvidia launched the GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card with only 12 gigabytes of GDDR6X memory, gamers were understandably less than willing to part with $600 of their hard-earned money to get one. The card does sell well in the US and some parts of Europe, but the modest amount of VRAM it comes with is a sign that Nvidia has either learned nothing from the RTX 30 series launches or is simply too focused on the AI craze to care about gamers.

This allowed AMD to extoll the value of its mid-range and high-end RX 6000 and RX 7000 series cards, all of which come with more VRAM than Team Green equivalents. We recently explored the importance of ample VRAM in an up-to-date comparison between the Radeon RX 6800 and the RTX 3070, and the results are telling – the eight gigabytes of VRAM on the RTX 3070 are holding it back and making it look like a low-end product when running newer AAA games, while the RX 6800 has aged much better and even manages better ray tracing performance in some titles.

One can only wonder what the RTX 3070 would have been like with 16 gigabytes of GDDR6, and it turns out YouTuber Paulo Gomes recently turned on his hot air soldering station to find out. Replacing the VRAM modules and grounding some resistors effectively doubled the card's GDDR6X memory, and it didn't require any BIOS or driver modding to have it recognized in software.

After some quick testing, Paulo found that he needed to set the card to work in high-performance mode to prevent random flickering or black screens when running 3D applications. Otherwise, the results are quite interesting despite only featuring one game – Resident Evil 4.

The modded card not only achieved a higher average frame rate but also went from single-digit one percent and 0.1 percent lows to more respectable values around 60 and 40 frames per second, respectively. The testing was done at a resolution of 2,560 by 1,080 and VRAM usage went over 12 gigabytes at times.

If anything, this serves as a reminder to vote with your wallet when companies decide to apply the shrinkflation model to their products. Thankfully, gamers appear to have wised up to Team Green's shenanigans and aren't rushing to buy cards like the RTX 4070 at their current price, and this along with AMD's move to reduce prices on some RX 6000 series offerings will hopefully lead to further price cuts in the future.

In related news, the RTX 4060 Ti and the Radeon RX 7600 are tipped to arrive in a few weeks, possibly at a price point that is more in line with their capabilities.

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Hmmm - a graphics card with a memory slot would be nice. You could buy with say 8GB then update to 12 or 16 later. Yes I know it's not DDR5 and trace length etc to the GPU need to be very specific, but its not beyond the whit of man surely? I guess it doesn't benefit nVidia (in fact may hinder them as you hold onto a product longer) so will never happen.
 
Hmmm - a graphics card with a memory slot would be nice. You could buy with say 8GB then update to 12 or 16 later. Yes I know it's not DDR5 and trace length etc to the GPU need to be very specific, but its not beyond the whit of man surely? I guess it doesn't benefit nVidia (in fact may hinder them as you hold onto a product longer) so will never happen.


CAMM-enabled GPUs? What a dream.
 
Great article.
Another YT is exposing Nvidia planned obsolescence of their middle and low entry videocard market.
It is worthing to do the same for 4070 and 4070 ti, give them 16GB or 24 GB RAM and make them selling better (y) (Y)
 
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Hmmm - a graphics card with a memory slot would be nice. You could buy with say 8GB then update to 12 or 16 later. Yes I know it's not DDR5 and trace length etc to the GPU need to be very specific, but its not beyond the whit of man surely? I guess it doesn't benefit nVidia (in fact may hinder them as you hold onto a product longer) so will never happen.
There is one legitimate reason why memory slots on GPUs won't work today and that's the coolers. The coolers have to be so big to cool the GPU that clearance, airflow and reassembly become an issue. It's certainly possible but nVidia could do what AMD is doing and spend the extra $20 to put enough memory on the card in the firstplace so that this isn't an issue.
 
WOW! Now THIS is modding. All of us thinking we're cool adjusting multiplier settings and penciling a de-lidded Athlon should be ashamed. Hah!

Seriously I'm about done with nVidia... used to love them but they've taken advantage of the gamer then discarded us. Plus I had one of their driver updates kill my 780 GTX years ago. I never thought that was really possible, but it was the driver update for sure. I am still bitter about that. I shamefully have a 2060 Super now but I've been wanting to upgrade soon and am looking at team red again. Hopefully they got their driver issues sorted out because back in the day, especially when they were just ATi, drivers were junk in most of my experiences.
 
Hopefully they got their driver issues sorted out

This is a trend topic going against them for years from nv future fans.

AFAIK their hw software support was getting better always with time due to their connection to console hw.
It does make sense, right? Same hardware in the super optimised console does bring benefits to them.
 
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Nvidia should be ashamed of themselves, were talking what like 20$ more for the extra ram all while they are charging more then ever and they cant even give us that.
F
 
It makes no sense. 8GB is plenty for 99.99% of games in 1440p maxed without RT.

RE4 has zero issues on 3070 8GB fully maxed out at 1440p, without RT - and the RT implementation in RE4 is laughable at best, makes pretty much zero difference, yet slams 8GB cards. Without RT, no issues and 3070 easily beats 6700XT on ultra/maxed. If in doubt, look up Techpowerup's RE4 test. Even in 4K, the 3070 does fine and still beats 6700XT like it's supposed to. Both average and minimums.

The other game people is talking about, is TLOU, the worst console port in years that officially has issues with Nvidia 3000 series, and people act like it's a good showcase for VRAM testing :joy:

Pretty much zero games in 1440p, on SETTINGS a 3070 can ACTUALLY RUN WELL, has problems with VRAM.

3070 still beats 6700XT in all pretty much games, including new ones.
6800 non-XT was never a 3070 competitor. It was priced 20% higher.

Atomic Heart looks alot better than TLOU or RE4 and it uses like 5-6GB in 1440p completely maxed out. Even in 4K, it runs fine on 8GB cards, with ~7GB usage.
3070 beats 6700XT by 25/33% in both 1440p and 4K here on average, and very easily wins in minimum fps as well.

Want to talk about that, or pretty much any other game, except TLOU and RE4 with RT? Lmao

Alot of VRAM never saved a weaker GPU. This is why 3070 continues to beat 6700XT even tho it has 12GB VRAM. These GPUs had similar pricing at launch.

When 12GB is actually needed in alot of games in 1440p, not even 6700XT can play them on high anyway. GPU is too weak. And guess what, VRAM usage lowers then.

8GB will be fine for years for 1440p gaming still. Unless you are trying to break it on purpose and run settings that don't run well on the card anyway. Every GPU can be put down to it's knees, even 4090.

Try Cyberpunk with newest RT patch on 4090 in 4K, you will be looking at 20-25 fps average. 7900XTX does 5-6 fps in comparison. Who cares tho?

I am confident that my 3080 with 10GB will have zero issues in 1440p for a looong time. Soon it's 3 years old and VRAM has not been a problem in any game, not even in 4K.
 
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It makes no sense. 8GB is plenty for 99.99% of games in 1440p maxed without RT.

RE4 has zero issues on 3070 8GB fully maxed out at 1440p, without RT - and the RT implementation in RE4 is laughable at best, makes pretty much zero difference, yet slams 8GB cards. Without RT, no issues and 3070 easily beats 6700XT on ultra/maxed. If in doubt, look up Techpowerup's RE4 test. Even in 4K, the 3070 does fine and still beats 6700XT like it's supposed to. Both average and minimums.

The other game people is talking about, is TLOU, the worst console port in years that officially has issues with Nvidia 3000 series, and people act like it's a good showcase for VRAM testing :joy:

Pretty much zero games in 1440p, on SETTINGS a 3070 can ACTUALLY RUN WELL, has problems with VRAM.

3070 still beats 6700XT in all pretty much games, including new ones.
6080 was never a 3070 competitor. It was priced 20% higher.

Atomic Heart looks alot better than TLOU or RE4 and it uses like 5-6GB in 1440p completely maxed out. Even in 4K, it runs fine on 8GB cards, with ~7GB usage.
3070 beats 6700XT by 25/33% in both 1440p and 4K here on average, and very easily wins in minimum fps as well.

Want to talk about that, or pretty much any other game, except TLOU and RE4 with RT? Lmao

Alot of VRAM never saved a weaker GPU. This is why 3070 continues to beat 6700XT even tho it has 12GB VRAM. These GPUs had similar pricing at launch.

When 12GB is actually needed in alot of games in 1440p, not even 6700XT can play them on high anyway. GPU is too weak. And guess what, VRAM usage lowers then.

8GB will be fine for years for 1440p gaming still. Unless you are trying to break it on purpose and run settings that don't run well on the card anyway. Every GPU can be put down to it's knees, even 4090.

Try Cyberpunk with newest RT patch on 4090 in 4K, you will be looking at 20-25 fps average. 7900XTX does 5-6 fps in comparison. Who cares tho?
I got a 6750xt and the 3070 is deffinatly not better, speak facts next time pls
 
3070 beats 6700XT, the end.

It even wins in 4K 1% minimum lows, by 14%, across 25 games

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/asus-geforce-rtx-4070-tuf/36.html

I bet you don't have 3070 :joy:
who even uses a 3070 for 4k gaming, you must be mad, ever heard of biased reviews? this dude doesnt read the revisions from when the drivers got revamped, sure the 3070 was better than the 6700xt before the new driver updates, but now the 6700xt is closer to the 3070 ti than the 3070 imo
 
who even uses a 3070 for 4k gaming, you must be mad, ever heard of biased reviews? this dude doesnt read the revisions from when the drivers got revamped, sure the 3070 was better than the 6700xt before the new driver updates, but now the 6700xt is closer to the 3070 ti than the 3070 imo
3070 is not for 4K gaming, zero last gen cards are. It was an example to show that not even in 4K on high settings, 8GB is a problem.

Drivers updates? Lmao. 3070 got driver updates as well.

It changes nothing. 3070 beats 6700XT and still does, by 12-15% in most games on average, in 1440p.

Go check my link, 4K on high settings, 3070 beats 6700XT by more than 25 PERCENT and this is in 1% minimum fps, across 25 demanding games.

Yep, 4 more GB changes nothing. Because GPU itself is weaker.

Whats even more funny, is that 3070 Ti 8GB performs on par with 6800 16GB in 4K 1% lows, same link...

Youtubers ramble about VRAM usage right now, to get views. Nothing else.
However, hopefully, Nvidia will put more VRAM on 5000 series.

12GB is more than fine for 1440p.
16GB is plenty for 4K.

GPU power is more important tho.
 
3070 is not for 4K gaming, zero last gen cards are. It was an example to show that not even in 4K on high settings, 8GB is a problem.

Drivers updates? Lmao. 3070 got driver updates as well.

It changes nothing. 3070 beats 6700XT and still does, by 12-15% in most games on average, in 1440p.

Go check my link, 4K on high settings, 3070 beats 6700XT by more than 25 PERCENT and this is in 1% minimum fps, across 25 demanding games.

Yep, 4 more GB changes nothing. Because GPU itself is weaker.

Whats even more funny, is that 3070 Ti 8GB performs on par with 6800 16GB in 4K 1% lows, same link...

Youtubers ramble about VRAM usage right now, to get views. Nothing else.
However, hopefully, Nvidia will put more VRAM on 5000 series.

12GB is more than fine for 1440p.
16GB is plenty for 4K.

GPU power is more important tho.
well at least it aint activly struggling with newer games lol, making the 6700xt able to keep going, and the 3070 almost obsolete (vram limit)
 
Please stop you two! Jesus H Christ!
They are both decent cards, very little in it. Not worth arguing about, you are obviously both very happy with what you have.
 
Hmmm - a graphics card with a memory slot would be nice. You could buy with say 8GB then update to 12 or 16 later. Yes I know it's not DDR5 and trace length etc to the GPU need to be very specific, but its not beyond the whit of man surely? I guess it doesn't benefit nVidia (in fact may hinder them as you hold onto a product longer) so will never happen.
I remember they had some with memory slots back in the 90's🤣🤣
 
I remember they had some with memory slots back in the 90's🤣🤣
I also miss the days where you could SLI or Crossfire multiple cards and it worked perfectly, even driver support for game profiles, don't need to buy the most expensive card just slot in 2 or 3 mid range cards.
 
Hmmm - a graphics card with a memory slot would be nice. You could buy with say 8GB then update to 12 or 16 later. Yes I know it's not DDR5 and trace length etc to the GPU need to be very specific, but its not beyond the whit of man surely? I guess it doesn't benefit nVidia (in fact may hinder them as you hold onto a product longer) so will never happen.
Used to be that way. You could add memory to a graphics card with DIP memory chips, inserted into vacant sockets on the board. Dual In-line Package. Could even push graphics memory up to 4MB.
 
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