upgrade memory in 8800 GTS?

[leckig]

Is it possible at all? Can the 320 MB be upgraded to 640 MB?

I would love to hear some opinions about that!
greg

 

[apt403]

Anything's possible. But you would have to drop some serious cash to get the proper ram chips for the upgrade. Which ever IC company Nvidia is dealing with to get the ram isnt going to sell just one set of chips, the minimium order is usually a 1000. Also, the 8800gts uses BGA (ball grid array) memory, so somebody with the proper tools and knowledge would have to perform the upgrade. Cell phones use a bunch of BGA chips, and some cell phone repair places will reball chips, so having one swap one set of IC's for another would prolly be do-able. For a price.

In the end it's more trouble then it's worth, since you would end up paying thousands of dollars to get the hardware and have a guy "install" the new ram. I mean, if you're going to spend that kind of cash, you should just buy an 8800 Ultra, it's only a couple bucks more.

 

[Cabletwitch]

In real world terms, no. Its cheaper, faster and easier just to upgrade to a better card, but the extra memory wont really see you gaining much unless you run the car with a 30" monitor maxxed out. Just stick wit the 320Mb version for now, and enjoy it.

 

[tsf]

Plus, what the hell would you do with all the other ram chips?

umm....give it to us for free??

jokes aside, i think its not worth going through all the hassle. u can buy the 640mb version with a few extra bucks.there r plenty of chances u could mess up and i dont think warranties would cover u!

nice thought though.

 

[prozac26]

To keep it short:

No.

 

[Whizzard9992]

Is it possible at all? Can the 320 MB be upgraded to 640 MB?

I would love to hear some opinions about that!
greg

No, it's not possible. The video memory is in no way, shape, or form, modular.

You'd have to print your own PCB, de-solder the components off of your old card, and re-solder them on to the new card. If you can pull that off, then you'd be superman (Or TheGreatGrapeApe )

 

[djplanet]

I agree with prozac and Whizzard. It's not a question of how much of a hassle it would be. It's impossible. Period. You have no way of knowing how Nvidia routes communication between the RAM and the GPU, regardless of your soldering skills. In all likelihood the chips are machined on by, uh...machine. Therefore, doing so by hand would be impossible as you could never emulate that precision. This process would be tantamount to changing a 1 GB DDR2 stick into 2 GB by soldering off its chips and soldering on new higher capacity ones. It just don't work, suh.

 

[leckig]

great replies guys, thanks!

I am still curious: was this ever possible? I remember old VGA and sound cards had something that looked like empty memory bank or a place to mount an extra chip - what was it?

 

[Whizzard9992]

great replies guys, thanks!

I am still curious: was this ever possible? I remember old VGA and sound cards had something that looked like empty memory bank or a place to mount an extra chip - what was it?

A lot of old cards had empty DIP sockets. I always assumed they were for memory upgrades, but I never used themmyself.

I remember a lot of the older 3COM NICs had them, too.