is this normal for gpus?

[strange13930]

I reapplied thermal paste to my gigabyte windforce 1060 6gb and noticed there where two extra solder points for vram. Is this normal for gpus? Is there any way I can utilize them?

[Levent]

Yes. GDDR5 SDRAMs are 32bit each, meaning in order to have 6gb VRAM on that card, they are using 6x1gb vram modules. 6x32 is also 192, if you connect the dots you can see how that indicates ram layout.

[strange13930]

Just now, Levent said:

Yes. GDDR5 SDRAMs are 32bit each, meaning in order to have 6gb VRAM on that card, they are using 6x1gb vram modules. 6x32 is also 192, if you connect the dots you can see how that indicates ram layout.

there are 8 solder points for memory but only 6 are used

[Darkseth]

It's possible the PCB is also used for a GTX 1070, which is 256bit with 8gb Vram.

 

[strange13930]

7 minutes ago, Darkseth said:

It's possible the PCB is also used for a GTX 1070, which is 256bit with 8gb Vram.

 

do you think there's a way I can use them? I don't trust myself to solder new stuff on so I would probably send it somewhere.

[Blue4130]

On 4/8/2025 at 2:41 AM, strange13930 said:

do you think there's a way I can use them? I don't trust myself to solder new stuff on so I would probably send it somewhere.

Use them for what? What do you think you will gain? The vram is what it is.

[strange13930]

51 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

Use them for what? What do you think you will gain? The vram is what it is.

I don't know how much adding more vram would mess with the gpu.

[Blue4130]

52 minutes ago, strange13930 said:

I don't know how much adding more vram would mess with the gpu.

You can't just add random amounts of vram to a GPU. They need to be tied into the GPU bus. The 1060 is 192 bit bus, so using 1 gb chips that are 32 bit each, you get either 3 or 6 gb cards. If you put chips on those unused pads, they would not connect to the gpu die.