Is it possible to modify GPU's?

[F.E.A.R.]

Considering the current chaotic situation with GPU's and I my self don't see it going back to how it was, I came here to search for answers. Basically can a GPU be modified to be better? Like changing a GTX 1050 TI it's memory with a newer faster one (I used to watch a video on YT some guys changing the memory of a 2080 TI from 14GB to 16 if I remember correctly). It doesn't have to be the memory basically, anything that can make it better. Because of the situation most of the masses are stuck on old GPU's like me.

[LienusLateTips]

Unless you have knowledge/experience on BGA soldering, the most you can do is an OC.

[adarw]

4 minutes ago, F.E.A.R. said:

(I used to watch a video on YT some guys changing the memory of a 2080 TI from 14GB to 16 if I remember correctly)

btw his performance dropped, its because the drivers

[aDoomGuy]

Well vmodding used to be a big thing once but Im not sure if it still is.

[Middcore]

For practical purposes, no.

[da na]

Nah, not really. Past modifying the cooler not much you can do

[dilpickle]

32 minutes ago, F.E.A.R. said:

It doesn't have to be the memory basically, anything that can make it better. 

Such as?

[8tg]

Theoretically yes but doing it is incredibly difficult and expensive. You could do some obscene power mods, install completely overkill coolers and even replace video memory modules with larger ones. Though you would need to write your own vbios, be able to do BGA soldering, source larger memory modules, create your own mounting for larger coolers, know how the power delivery system works, and after all that you could maybe do something like create an 8gb R9 Fury X that performs maybe 20% better than a stock fury x with 4gb of HBM2.

Thats why people don’t really bother with this, it’s not an easy task and unless you have a decent pre existing knowledge of how a gpu works and the circuitry of what you’re work on, it’s not worth even looking into.

[Frugivore8894]

Ah yes let me turn on my spare ASML EUV machine and make my self a new die. 
/s

 

Ok but in all seriousness no you can’t.

[F.E.A.R.]

5 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Theoretically yes but doing it is incredibly difficult and expensive. You could do some obscene power mods, install completely overkill coolers and even replace video memory modules with larger ones. Though you would need to write your own vbios, be able to do BGA soldering, source larger memory modules, create your own mounting for larger coolers, know how the power delivery system works, and after all that you could maybe do something like create an 8gb R9 Fury X that performs maybe 20% better than a stock fury x with 4gb of HBM2.

Thats why people don’t really bother with this, it’s not an easy task and unless you have a decent pre existing knowledge of how a gpu works and the circuitry of what you’re work on, it’s not worth even looking into.

I see, thank you for your answer. I thought it would be easy like bringing your GPU to some technicians, paying as much as needed to make it better (to modify it), but yeah it's not an easy task like you explained. Although I'm curious. Can Nvidia actually boost performance of their old cards like AMD with drivers? Or is it something Nvidia doesn't want to?

[Middcore]

9 minutes ago, F.E.A.R. said:

Can Nvidia actually boost performance of their old cards like AMD with drivers? Or is it something Nvidia doesn't want to?

 

Are you actually asking if Nvidia can release drivers that improve the performance of AMD cards? If so, I think it would be fairly obvious why they don't do this. 

 

If you're asking why Nvidia cards don't seem to improve as much with drivers over their lifespan or "age as well" compared to AMD cards: it's debatable whether that's even true, and to the extent it is you can also make the case that because Nvidia devotes way more resources to driver optimization, their cards are pretty close to the limit of their capabilities at release, whereas it takes AMD a number of releases to "dial in" their cards. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

14 minutes ago, F.E.A.R. said:

I see, thank you for your answer. I thought it would be easy like bringing your GPU to some technicians, paying as much as needed to make it better (to modify it), but yeah it's not an easy task like you explained. Although I'm curious. Can Nvidia actually boost performance of their old cards like AMD with drivers? Or is it something Nvidia doesn't want to?

They do it all the time, it varies by game.  Have you not also seen the videos about newer DLSS versions with at least one game NVIDIA patched via the driver to upgrade it to a newer version that performs better?

AMD generally see more gains because their drivers tend to be more rough around the edges compared to NVIDIA.

[8tg]

30 minutes ago, F.E.A.R. said:

Can Nvidia actually boost performance of their old cards like AMD with drivers? Or is it something Nvidia doesn't want to?

Both companies have done this over time both ways, for reasons mostly unknown but usually the speculation is planned obsolescence or that the specific hardware gets re-introduced multiple times. Such as the HD 7970 and GHZ edition and the R9 280x, etc. 

The other way around being what happened to Kepler, where Kepler cards just got gimped into the ground hard for basically no reason because maxwell really wasn’t any better on the mid range cards. And it happened again with Maxwell when Pascal launched. However they’re now doing the opposite where Turing and Pascal cards are getting decent driver improvements because Turing is getting recycled and their users can’t really buy a new card anyway, so they’re aiming for some kind of long term value thing to have under their name like AMD did with the 7970.

 

But damn, if you have a GTX 770 or something lying around, revert back a low of driver versions because those cards have lost something like 10-15% of their average performance over the years due to software alone. It’s to the point where benchmarks from the era versus now are flip flopped.

[8tg]

And then the other thing there on AMD I forgot about but was mentioned above. The way driver and hardware development works across both companies is different. AMD will take one die and turn it into 40 different gpus and then make one driver that kinda works with all 40 gpus, and over time they specialize features of the driver to be good for specific gpus.

 

Like the RX 470 and 480 to narrow it down super tight. One driver works for both cards despite all the variants. They update the driver later to better utilize the slight differences between the hardware, so you see an overall increase in performance after what originally worked like a Microsoft standard display driver suddenly knows how to utilize the hardware.

This is magnified when you have the same gpu used across multiple generations like the 7970 to 280x, where gpu driver optimizations take place for an even longer period of time and the card the 280x was built on top of suddenly gets modern driver support, making the 7970 even better.

 

And Nvidia is doing that now as they keep working on older Turing dies to make new cards, so older Turing cards are seeing more modern driver optimizations which are overall beneficial.

[Guest]

Oops did I drop that here?

 

Guess that card!!!

 

 

[Lord Nicoll]

9 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Oops did I drop that here?

 

Guess that card!!!

 

 

Fancy meeting you here, pretty sure that's a reference GTX 580

[F.E.A.R.]

1 hour ago, Middcore said:

 

Are you actually asking if Nvidia can release drivers that improve the performance of AMD cards? If so, I think it would be fairly obvious why they don't do this. 

 

If you're asking why Nvidia cards don't seem to improve as much with drivers over their lifespan or "age as well" compared to AMD cards: it's debatable whether that's even true, and to the extent it is you can also make the case that because Nvidia devotes way more resources to driver optimization, their cards are pretty close to the limit of their capabilities at release, whereas it takes AMD a number of releases to "dial in" their cards. 

Sorry I didn't express my self correctly. What I meant was, can Nvidia boost the performance of their GPU's with driver updates just like AMD has always done with their cards. 

 

43 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Both companies have done this over time both ways, for reasons mostly unknown but usually the speculation is planned obsolescence or that the specific hardware gets re-introduced multiple times. Such as the HD 7970 and GHZ edition and the R9 280x, etc. 

The other way around being what happened to Kepler, where Kepler

36 minutes ago, 8tg said:

And then the other thing there on AMD I forgot about but was mentioned above. The way driver and hardware development works across both companies is different. AMD will take one die and turn it into 40 different gpus and then make one driver that kinda works with all 40 gpus, and over time they specialize features of the driver to be good for specific gpus.

 

Like the RX 470 and 480 to narrow it down super tight. One driver works for both cards despite all the variants. They update the driver later to better utilize the slight differences between the hardware, so you see an overall increase in performance after what originally worked like a Microsoft standard display driver suddenly knows how to utilize the hardware.

This is magnified when you have the same gpu used across multiple generations like the 7970 to 280x, where gpu driver optimizations take place for an even longer period of time and the card the 280x was built on top of suddenly gets modern driver support, making the 7970 even better.

 

And Nvidia is doing that now as they keep working on older Turing dies to make new cards, so older Turing cards are seeing more modern driver optimizations which are overall beneficial.

cards just got gimped into the ground hard for basically no reason because maxwell really wasn’t any better on the mid range cards. And it happened again with Maxwell when Pascal launched. However they’re now doing the opposite where Turing and Pascal cards are getting decent driver improvements because Turing is getting recycled and their users can’t really buy a new card anyway, so they’re aiming for some kind of long term value thing to have under their name like AMD did with the 7970.

 

But damn, if you have a GTX 770 or something lying around, revert back a low of driver versions because those cards have lost something like 10-15% of their average performance over the years due to software alone. It’s to the point where benchmarks from the era versus now are flip flopped.

I have GTX 1050 TI. Wait what about pascal GPU's? Why aren't they updating them too since most PC users already have 10 series cards, and many couldn't upgrade to the 20 series because of the little performance boost and because they were overpriced. 

[F.E.A.R.]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

They do it all the time, it varies by game.  Have you not also seen the videos about newer DLSS versions with at least one game NVIDIA patched via the driver to upgrade it to a newer version that performs better?

AMD generally see more gains because their drivers tend to be more rough around the edges compared to NVIDIA.

I know about the new DLSS but compare to AMD the RX 400 and 500 series, the GTX 10 series haven't gotten a performance boost. Not an Nvidia fan boy, it's just that I have an Nvidia card and the GTX 1050 TI is a joke of a card (my PC was pre built, it was gifted to me), and a few years later they released GTX 1650 Super which outperforms the GTX 1050 TI and GTX 1650. Nvidia just rolling around cards trolling the customers. 

[HQuan]

Yes, it possible, but it's... not worth, expensive and you know, risky of damaging the GPU perm.

 

Thing you can modify: Cooler, VRAM chips, chassis, BIOS chip (these are basic thing can be modify).

 

And about the risk, the highest risk is heat when do solder BGA. Since almost everything on the GPU are BGA and SMT, we need a heat gun. Not enough heats can't melt solder or do anything. Too much heats can damage things.

 

/s

[GeorgeMKane]

Considering the shortage and everything, the most I've done with mine is just repaste it for better temps. Generally, a re-paste is recommended after so much time using your gpu anyways, because I've read that factories don't use the best thermal paste and sometimes their usage is not great either.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Lord Nicoll said:

Fancy meeting you here, pretty sure that's a reference GTX 580

EVGA GTX 480, but close enough! 

 

Holds the Fastest Ice Storm, Ice Storm extreme and Ice Storm unlimited in the U.S, along with Sky Diver, 3DMark99 max, 3DMark11 Entry and Extreme, And fastest in the world 3DMark2000.

[dilpickle]

12 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

EVGA GTX 480, but close enough! 

 

Holds the Fastest Ice Storm, Ice Storm extreme and Ice Storm unlimited in the U.S, along with Sky Diver, 3DMark99 max, 3DMark11 Entry and Extreme, And fastest in the world 3DMark2000.

I assume you mean Held?

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, dilpickle said:

I assume you mean Held?

No meaning currently holding. This very moment. 

And the pic was taken at the time it was posted also.

[dilpickle]

1 hour ago, ShrimpBrime said:

No meaning currently holding. This very moment. 

And the pic was taken at the time it was posted also.

Then I assume you are only talking about results compared to other 480 cards.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, dilpickle said:

Then I assume you are only talking about results compared to other 480 cards.

Of course. 

Why on earth compare a 480 to a 3080? 

 

But if you want to, the ICE Storm unlimited scored 241901 pts. 

 

Beat it with your current setup. be my guest!