Chinese workshops recondition Nvidia's old flagship gaming GPU for AI — RTX 2080 Ti upgraded to 22GB for $499

Girl working on a Nvidia GPU
Girl working on a Nvidia GPU (Image credit: Aisawk/Goofish)

The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti was once among the best graphics cards gamers can buy. While some of us may have forgotten about the six-year-old graphics card, the Turing-based flagship is making a comeback in China. Amidst the AI boom, Chinese workshops (via I_Leak_VN) are repurposing the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti into AI accelerators by doubling the memory from 11GB to 22GB.

Ever since the U.S. banned Nvidia from selling its most prominent AI products, such as the A100 (Ampere) and H100 (Hopper), and the flagship GeForce RTX 4090 (Ada Lovelace) in China, it has become challenging for Chinese businesses to get a hold of them. There have been desperate attempts to get around the U.S. export ban, including smuggling GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards from other countries into China or domestic factories recycling previous-generation graphics cards, such as the GeForce RTX 3090 or GeForce RTX 3080.

The problem with salvaging old graphics cards is the stock. With Ada Lovelace having been out for almost two years, it's hard to find any significant Ampere stock around. So, what's the next move? Go back another generation. The Chinese workshops now focus on the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. The only modification they are making to the Turing graphics card is doubling the memory from 11GB to 22GB to turn them into viable AI accelerators. There's a long precedence of user mods that swap out existing GDDR6 chips for higher-capacity ones on Turing. One enthusiast outfitted a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti with 44GB of VRAM not so long ago, so VRAM modification and upgrades aren't something from another universe.

According to the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 22GB posting on Goofish, the seller, who goes back by Aisawk, reportedly utilizes original Samsung GDDR6 chips and high-quality ALPHA OM-367 solder paste for the modification. He also claims that the modified GeForce RTX 2080 Ti will not face any Nvidia driver issues as the graphics card is seemingly supported and working without vBIOS modifications.

The photographs showed that the merchant is utilizing MSI's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Aero 11GB for the project. The reason is likely due to the graphics card's blower-type design, allowing consumers to use multiple graphics cards in the same system. It's not the only model that the seller offers, though. He also shared autographs of a Founders Edition design. Besides selling the altered graphics card, the Goofish seller also offers an upgrade service for $120, which includes labor and materials, for GeForce RTX 2080 Ti owners who want to send in their graphics card for the 22GB modification.

The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 22GB has found its way outside China. eBay seller customgpu_official, an upgrade and repair store in Palo Alto, California, sells a similar MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Aero with 22GB for $499. The store is touting the graphics card as a budget alternative for students and startups that want to get their feet wet in AI workloads. The graphics card is allegedly stable in Stable diffusion, large language models (LLMs), and Llama 2. According to the merchant's website, it has sold over 500 units of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 22GB.

The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 22GB may not be a bad deal. At $499, it has 6GB more memory than a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super, costing $300 less or 2GB more than the Radeon RX 7900 XT with a $400 lower price tag. The obvious caveat with modified products is that you don't know if the graphics card was new to start with and the warranty. 

While the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 22GB offers abundant memory for AI and deep learning training for an attractive price, you never know how long the graphics card will last you. For example, customgpu_official only offers a 30-day warranty with a free exchange for a malfunctioning graphics card. After that period, you're practically on your own. So, while saving a few bucks today, you may lose your entire investment in a few months if you're unlucky.

Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • SSGBryan
    These have been on Aliexpress for quite some time now.
    Reply
  • Notton
    Honestly, that's a pretty good way to reuse old hardware and reduce e-waste.

    I would do the same to LPDDR laptops, if I had the tools.
    Reply
  • Order 66
    I know that the main focus of this is AI, but does the 2080ti have the horsepower to utilize 22GB of VRAM in games? I'm curious to see how it performs in gaming, especially at higher resolutions.
    Reply
  • SSGBryan
    I'm sure it will be able to going forward - texture packs aren't getting smaller.

    OTOH, it has the same amount of CUDA cores as an RTX 4060ti.
    Reply
  • SSGBryan
    Notton said:
    Honestly, that's a pretty good way to reuse old hardware and reduce e-waste.

    I would do the same to LPDDR laptops, if I had the tools.
    There are a whole series of these for sale on Aliexpress; they are sold by Jieshuo.

    There is the 2060m 12gb, the 2070m 8gb, the 2080m 8gb, the 2080ti 22gb, the 3050tiM 8gb, 3060m 12gb, and the 3080m 8gb (although they have completely sold out of 3080m).

    On the AMD side, there is a RX580 16gb (which is an RX 570 w/16gb), and I have seen a 6600m.

    I am debating on pulling the trigger on a 2060m 12gb. I really want to see how this runs Stable Diffusion, and how the Frankendrivers work.
    Reply
  • Pollopesca
    Cool to see old hardware getting a second life...

    ...Painful to see bare boards stacked haphazardly on a wood table.
    Reply
  • razor512
    Order 66 said:
    I know that the main focus of this is AI, but does the 2080ti have the horsepower to utilize 22GB of VRAM in games? I'm curious to see how it performs in gaming, especially at higher resolutions.
    While gaming at higher resolutions will likely not be helped as much, there are games, especially with high res texture packs, that will utilize more than 11GB of VRAM, and with enough VRAM and throughput, the performance overhead is extremely minimal, while having a large benefit to overall image quality.
    Reply
  • fireaza
    Somehow, I suspect that might be a promotional image, and very few, if any of the workers look like that girl. Call it a hunch.
    Reply