The modding community is great at finding ways to extend the life expectancy of aging tech, and recently, an optimistic group of Brazilian modders attempted an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 VRAM upgrade. Their goal was to double the VRAM to 16GB, hopefully allowing the non-super RTX 2080 to perform better in modern games.
At the time of its release, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 was among the best graphics cards available, but that was all the way back in 2018. Games are now becoming far more memory-hungry, so there’s plenty of reason to hope that an RTX 2080 VRAM upgrade will greatly extend the otherwise still capable card’s life, and it appears that early results show promising results.
In a video posted by Paulo Gomes to YouTube, it’s explained that the mod is a customer request, and they sent their EVGA RTX 2080 after purchasing the required memory modules to complete the upgrade. In short, this isn’t a modding service that you can easily access if you’re in Brazil, it’s just a deal that was arranged between the modders and the customer.
An initial test is done with the card on Resident Evil 4 at the maximum settings, and this shows a VRAM usage of over 13GB, which for an 8GB card is going to cause problems. The frame rate average is in the mid-60s, but the 1% lows sit at a dismal 3-4 fps.
Once the modding is complete, the RTX 2080 is once again tested, and the results are impressive with its new 16GB VRAM installed, despite not having much impact on the overall fps average.
Instead, the 1% lows have skyrocketed to around 60 fps, meaning the visual stuttering is all but gone. So while the overall performance doesn’t necessarily improve in terms of a higher fps, as there’s only less than 10% frame gain, it’s a far more stable experience and will be much easier on the eye. It’s a shame the modders didn’t test a few more games for comparison but this does ultimately prove what more VRAM can and can’t do for some gaming performance scenarios.
If you’re thinking about making a graphics card switch, then you’ll need our guide for how to build a gaming PC and we can take you through the process step-by-step.