Hardware modder VIK-on got famous for installing additional memory on GeForce RTX 2070 and GeForce RTX 3070 graphics cards. Now, he has seemingly proven that it is possible to install 22GB of memory on a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GPU board.
VIK-on obtained a faulty Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti card he needed to repair by resoldering the GPU, fixing broken PCB traces, and installing a new memory chip. Along the way, he has proven that it is possible to install 22GB of memory on Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.
Installing higher capacity memory chips on a graphics card is a fairly easy task if you have a graphics card, new memory chips (which usually means another card), a professional soldering station, and skills. What is harder is finding an appropriate firmware that supports a particular GPU as well as higher-capacity memory chips.
Nvidia's TU102 chip definitely supports more than 11GB of memory installed on the company's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card as Nvidia also has the TU102-based Quadro RTX 8000 board with 48GB of memory. Therefore, the key challenges for VIK-on were to repair the card and find an appropriate firmware that supported 22GB of memory. The modder used a relatively simple strap mod (that deceives the GPU BIOS into thinking that there is more memory installed). The mod worked and the system booted, but was not very stable.
VIK-on could not procure 16Gb GDDR6 memory chips, so he could not build a 22GB version of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Yet, he proved that it is possible to do so with appropriate chips, hardware, and skills.
