Modder gives RTX 3070 a 16GB upgrade before Nvidia has the chance

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Modder VIK-on has upgraded his Palit RTX 3070 GamingPro from 8GB of VRAM to 16GB. And, possibly more amazing than that, it works. Well, it does after some time spent trying to get the GPU BIOS to spot the upgrade properly, and eventually with some help from EVGA Precision X1.

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VIK-on has prior form here, after doubling the amount of memory on his RTX 2070, so he clearly knows what he's doing. While he does show you exactly how he achieved this feat, it still looks terrifying, and not something for the faint of heart.

He's uploaded two videos to YouTube (in Russian, so bring a translator) that show exactly how he achieved this impressive feat though if you do want to follow him down the rabbit hole. The first video shows off the physical switch of the eight memory modules from Samsung 1GB modules to 2GB ones, while the second video covers tweaking the memory timings to ensure that it runs without random black screens.

There are a couple of takeaways for this, not least of which is how fearless VIK-on is, but also that the RTX 3070 GPU does actually support 16GB of GDDR6. So maybe 16GB variants of this and other Nvidia Ampere cards will appear when the current stock issues calm down. It wouldn't be the first time we've heard of 16GB variants of existing Nvidia RTX 30-series cards, although the rumour mill has quietened down as to their arrival recently.

The benefits of doing this yourself aren't quite so obvious though, as the boost to performance is marginal compared to the default 8GB card. Big enough to prove the upgrade is working, but not something you'd notice in games. This is because 8GB is generally enough for current games, and even cards with 16GB by default rarely actually use that much.

Still, we can't help but be impressed by this mod. VIK-on even makes it look relatively easy to achieve. Provided of course that your heat gun hand is steady enough and you have Samsung K4ZAF3258M-HC14 2GB memory modules to hand.

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Alan has been writing about PC tech since before 3D graphics cards existed, and still vividly recalls having to fight with MS-DOS just to get games to load. He fondly remembers the killer combo of a Matrox Millenium and 3dfx Voodoo, and seeing Lara Croft in 3D for the first time. He's very glad hardware has advanced as much as it has though, and is particularly happy when putting the latest M.2 NVMe SSDs, AMD processors, and laptops through their paces. He has a long-lasting Magic: The Gathering obsession but limits this to MTG Arena these days.