graphic cards Can RTX 3070 VRAM be upgraded to 16GB? Found someone that did it.

[EnsoGaming]

I recently upgraded my GC to a Gigabyte 3070 8GB Gaming OC, only to later realize I am getting short on its VRAM with maxed out settings on some newer games. Being a Chip level repair tech myself I couldn't help but wonder if we can replace the 1GB chips to 2GB chips and tweaking the BIOS effectively doubling the VRAM. 

I found a guy who did exactly the same and was successful, but he did it 2 years ago and he faced some issues with the bios. I couldn't find any further development after him. I would love to know if there are any Modders in the community that did or want to pursue this goal for their GPU. Attaching the links I found below, if someone can understand Russian please help me translate his G-Drive and find this updated bios for me. Thanks.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/16gb-rtx-3070-mod

https://www.pcgamer.com/modder-gives-rtx-3070-a-16gb-upgrade-before-nvidia-has-the-chance/

link to his youtube video: 

 

He also has done the same for many other cards if you check his page.

His G-Drive link from video (NSFW): -link removed by staff-

[Hinjima]

3 minutes ago, EnsoGaming said:

I recently upgraded my GC to a Gigabyte 3070 8GB Gaming OC, only to later realize I am getting short on its VRAM with maxed out settings on some newer games. Being a Chip level repair tech myself I couldn't help but wonder if we can replace the 1GB chips to 2GB chips and tweaking the BIOS effectively doubling the VRAM. 

I found a guy who did exactly the same and was successful, but he did it 2 years ago and he faced some issues with the bios. I couldn't find any further development after him. I would love to know if there are any Modders in the community that did or want to pursue this goal for their GPU. Attaching the links I found below, if someone can understand Russian please help me translate his G-Drive and find this updated bios for me. Thanks.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/16gb-rtx-3070-mod

https://www.pcgamer.com/modder-gives-rtx-3070-a-16gb-upgrade-before-nvidia-has-the-chance/

link to his youtube video: 

 

He also has done the same for many other cards if you check his page.

His G-Drive link from video (NSFW): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YE_c9kOpGgEGPWxhU4zJR1GAyS3lA0m3

This guy did it as well.  So yes, its possible.

[Phantomcorgi94]

5 minutes ago, EnsoGaming said:

I recently upgraded my GC to a Gigabyte 3070 8GB Gaming OC, only to later realize I am getting short on its VRAM with maxed out settings on some newer games. Being a Chip level repair tech myself I couldn't help but wonder if we can replace the 1GB chips to 2GB chips and tweaking the BIOS effectively doubling the VRAM. 

I found a guy who did exactly the same and was successful, but he did it 2 years ago and he faced some issues with the bios. I couldn't find any further development after him. I would love to know if there are any Modders in the community that did or want to pursue this goal for their GPU. Attaching the links I found below, if someone can understand Russian please help me translate his G-Drive and find this updated bios for me. Thanks.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/16gb-rtx-3070-mod

https://www.pcgamer.com/modder-gives-rtx-3070-a-16gb-upgrade-before-nvidia-has-the-chance/

link to his youtube video: 

 

He also has done the same for many other cards if you check his page.

His G-Drive link from video (NSFW): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YE_c9kOpGgEGPWxhU4zJR1GAyS3lA0m3

i was able to find a folder labelled gpu bios. i am currently downloading and will try find the file itself

[EnsoGaming]

14 minutes ago, Hinjima said:

This guy did it as well.  So yes, its possible.

Thanks, just reached out to him. I feel he followed Vik-on's guide too, and seemingly did not need to change the bios. I am truly surprised.

[EnsoGaming]

14 minutes ago, Phantomcorgi94 said:

i was able to find a folder labelled gpu bios. i am currently downloading and will try find the file itself

are you able to understand the Russian titled folders? Google translate doesn't but should have worked in google drive. Wait, I think I can try using the phone app camera to translate. Why didn't I think of this before!

[Shimejii]

51 minutes ago, EnsoGaming said:

I recently upgraded my GC to a Gigabyte 3070 8GB Gaming OC, only to later realize I am getting short on its VRAM with maxed out settings on some newer games. Being a Chip level repair tech myself I couldn't help but wonder if we can replace the 1GB chips to 2GB chips and tweaking the BIOS effectively doubling the VRAM. 

I found a guy who did exactly the same and was successful, but he did it 2 years ago and he faced some issues with the bios. I couldn't find any further development after him. I would love to know if there are any Modders in the community that did or want to pursue this goal for their GPU. Attaching the links I found below, if someone can understand Russian please help me translate his G-Drive and find this updated bios for me. Thanks.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/16gb-rtx-3070-mod

https://www.pcgamer.com/modder-gives-rtx-3070-a-16gb-upgrade-before-nvidia-has-the-chance/

link to his youtube video: 

 

He also has done the same for many other cards if you check his page.

His G-Drive link from video (NSFW): -link removed by staff-

Can you do it? Yes, Should you do it? No. There are more issues at play here then just that, Every driver update has the chance to brick the card and it not function, as well as other issues.

 

You dont have much options in terms of High VRAM GPUS from nvidia for reasonable pricing sadly.

[Winterlight]

Can you upgrade ? - Yes

Do you have enough experience do that ? - Probably not.

8 Gb is very fine if you play at 1080-1440p with High settings and don't use RT it have no problem in any AAA games.

I seen very misleading video about 8 Gb

For example they show that Hogwarts Legacy with 3070 Ti can't run actually High and have a lot artefacts that is not true at all.

I had 2080 that is worse than 3070 Ti and have same 8 Gb VRAM and it run Hogwarts Legacy no problems at 1440p + High over 100 FPS without any artefacts.

Sure 8 Gb VRAM is not enough run with RT ON in most case but that GPU anyway at best can run just single form of RT not all ON.

[TCatTheLynx]

Problem:NVIDIA PW management not working properly

Solution: NVIDIA Control pannel-PWManagement-HighPerformance

 

No other bugs spotted.

[EnsoGaming]

10 hours ago, Shimejii said:

Can you do it? Yes, Should you do it? No. There are more issues at play here then just that, Every driver update has the chance to brick the card and it not function, as well as other issues.

 

You dont have much options in terms of High VRAM GPUS from nvidia for reasonable pricing sadly.

Well, I heard Diablo 4 is bricking stock GPUs. So it is still possible to brick it without upgrading it, lesser chance I agree. But I am willing to take the risk.

[EnsoGaming]

5 hours ago, Winterlight said:

Can you upgrade ? - Yes

Do you have enough experience do that ? - Probably not.

8 Gb is very fine if you play at 1080-1440p with High settings and don't use RT it have no problem in any AAA games.

I seen very misleading video about 8 Gb

For example they show that Hogwarts Legacy with 3070 Ti can't run actually High and have a lot artefacts that is not true at all.

I had 2080 that is worse than 3070 Ti and have same 8 Gb VRAM and it run Hogwarts Legacy no problems at 1440p + High over 100 FPS without any artefacts.

Sure 8 Gb VRAM is not enough run with RT ON in most case but that GPU anyway at best can run just single form of RT not all ON.

What makes you assume I do not have experience to do that? I am a chief tech at a computer refurbishing company. 

[EnsoGaming]

1 hour ago, TCatTheLynx said:

Problem:NVIDIA PW management not working properly

Solution: NVIDIA Control pannel-PWManagement-HighPerformance

 

No other bugs spotted.

as the user above mentioned, does it take driver updates? And any of your modded GPUs face any issues with software?

 

[TCatTheLynx]

21 hours ago, EnsoGaming said:

as the user above mentioned, does it take driver updates? And any of your modded GPUs face any issues with software?

 

There are hundreds of cards modified by me and none of them had ran into software bugs.Working well on Win10 Win11 Winser Linux even MacOS.No need for specific driver.Actually there is a original 3070Ti-16GB Engineering sample available in China,so it’s not likely for NVIDIA to cancel GA104’s support of 16GB VRAM by  driver updates.

[EnsoGaming]

23 hours ago, TCatTheLynx said:

There are hundreds of cards modified by me and none of them had ran into software bugs.Working well on Win10 Win11 Winser Linux even MacOS.No need for specific driver.Actually there is a original 3070Ti-16GB Engineering sample available in China,so it’s not likely for NVIDIA to cancel GA104’s support of 16GB VRAM by  driver updates.

That makes sense. Did you try turning the resizable bar option on? I saw the screenshots in your original post and it was disabled. 

[TCatTheLynx]

13 hours ago, EnsoGaming said:

That makes sense. Did you try turning the resizable bar option on? I saw the screenshots in your original post and it was disabled. 

That should be no problem.

[EnsoGaming]

On 4/15/2023 at 4:38 AM, TCatTheLynx said:

That should be no problem.

okay thanks!

[Aut0g3n]

On 4/12/2023 at 11:47 AM, Shimejii said:

Can you do it? Yes, Should you do it? No. There are more issues at play here then just that, Every driver update has the chance to brick the card and it not function, as well as other issues.

 

You dont have much options in terms of High VRAM GPUS from nvidia for reasonable pricing sadly.

You should be careful about cybersecurity issues with Russian Moded BIOS downloads. They’ve been extremely active lately due to the situation in Ukraine.

[QuantumSingularity]

Is it worth it though? All the effort, time and money, when somethin like 6950XT comes out of the box with 16GB and costs less than a 3070 while a the same time performing like a 3090?

[EnsoGaming]

4 hours ago, QuantumSingularity said:

Is it worth it though? All the effort, time and money, when somethin like 6950XT comes out of the box with 16GB and costs less than a 3070 while a the same time performing like a 3090?

For someone who already owns a 3070, it is worth it. Well at least for me, I have experience doing chip level repairs.

[BobbyG2]

On 4/14/2023 at 6:08 PM, TCatTheLynx said:

 

Thinking of trying this mod on my 3070.  :)

 

Did you ever put together a guide? Would GDDR6X be possible, or would it require regular GDDR6?