Why does no-one design removable VRAM?

[Bittenfleax]

I have always though this, why don't they just make it so you can add sticks of VRAM (just like you can do with normal RAM)? 

 

Surely if someone did this they will get lots of sales because people could get like 16GB of VRAM on a lower end card without paying $2000. Is it "impossible" for GPU manufactures to do?! 

[Enderman]

Space restrictions and cost.

Look at how much space those chips on the card take up. Then look how much space your RAM takes up.

[Lolzious]

They want you to buy a cheap card, then buy an expensive card with more VRAM. That means more money for them. Not only would it be expensive to develop.

[manikyath]

because in general Vram is placed closer to the gpu for latency reasons, as well as the added cost of a connector, the need for standardizing a module for GDDDR5 memory, added size for the card, etc etc.

 

^ simply doesnt weigh up to the few cases where you'd actually even want to change the amount of Vram, since mostly cards come with the amount they were designed for, less would bottleneck the chip, more would be wasted.

[Bittenfleax]

They want you to buy a cheap card, then buy an expensive card with more VRAM. That means more money for them. Not only would it be expensive to develop.

 

 

Space restrictions and cost.

Look at how much space those chips on the card take up. Then look how much space your RAM takes up.

Very true. But it could be possible right? About the space, they could just make smaller RAM sticks/modules like Laptop RAM? (or even smaller)  

[Denned]

The problem would be compatability. It would introduce yet another thing they have to compensate for, which would probably mean overall worse performance.

[Bittenfleax]

because in general Vram is placed closer to the gpu for latency reasons, as well as the added cost of a connector, the need for standardizing a module for GDDDR5 memory, added size for the card, etc etc.

 

^ simply doesnt weigh up to the few cases where you'd actually even want to change the amount of Vram, since mostly cards come with the amount they were designed for, less would bottleneck the chip, more would be wasted.

Hmm true, that is a good point. 

[Lolzious]

Very true. But it could be possible right? About the space, they could just make smaller RAM sticks/modules like Laptop RAM? (or even smaller)  

Yup could be very possible. It's like oil, they can make the entire world run on renewable resources, but that would mean less money

[Briggsy]

With the industries inevitable move over to HBM, GPU memory won't even be accessible, even if you previously had the technical know-how and the right tools to change/add/remove GDDR5 chips.

[Enderman]

Very true. But it could be possible right? About the space, they could just make smaller RAM sticks/modules like Laptop RAM? (or even smaller)  

the problem is the connectors would take up a lot of space on the card, meaning they would have to be vertical like RAM, and that would make the GPU take 4+ slots...

[SubVersa]

it was done before, i just cant remember the name of card >_< it was back from the sdram days or something.