Unleashing the Power of an RTX 2080 with 16GB VRAM: Discover the Boost in Gaming Performance and FPS!

When it comes to achieving the highest FPS in gaming, the graphics card is the component with the most significant impact on performance, especially when playing at high resolutions. Although GPUs have advanced over the years, NVIDIA’s VRAM memory has barely improved, and many of their graphics cards still use 8 GB. For example, the RTX 2080 from a few years ago performs similarly to a current 8GB RTX 4060, but thanks to some modders, VRAM has been increased to 16 GB, improving gaming performance.

NVIDIA has not been making much progress in adding memory to their graphics cards in recent years, even though games increasingly require it. More and more titles demand over 8 GB of VRAM, even when playing at low resolutions like 1080p. Ultra textures in many games are starting to consume significant amounts of graphics memory, which could be a problem for those not meeting these requirements.

Modifying an RTX 2080 with an added 16 GB of VRAM

NVIDIA already used 8 GB in their GTX 1070 and GTX 1080, but even the RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 continued to use 8 GB. Furthermore, the subsequent generation of RTX 3070 also used 8 GB, and the RTX 3080 was not a significant improvement with its 10 GB. Finally, in the current generation, we see a significant change, with NVIDIA’s mid-high range, such as the RTX 4070 and RTX 4080, using 12 GB and 16 GB, respectively.

The problem of inadequate memory in modern games when increasing graphics and/or resolution is quite tedious, as we may have a more than capable graphics card, but we are still limited by VRAM. Paulo Gomes is a YouTuber who specializes in making graphics card mods by adding more memory, like the 16 GB RTX 3070 we saw last year.

This time, we have an older and slightly lower-performing graphics card that is still capable of playing current games: an EVGA RTX 2080. This card is modified to increase its VRAM from 8 GB to 16 GB. The YouTuber relies on AliExpress to purchase 8 chips of 2 GB GDDR6 memory from Samsung, costing around €140 for new memory and €112 for used memory.

The 16 GB of memory allows for a +10% increase in average FPS, although the improvement is much greater in minimum FPS

This price seems reasonable for upgrading memory to 16 GB, but as you can imagine, modifying the GPU is the most painstaking part, depending on one’s experience. The original 8 chips of 1 GB memory need to be desoldered, pins cleaned, solder balls placed using the GDDR6 stencil, and finally, new memory chips soldered. The graphics card is then identified as an RTX 2080 with 16 GB of VRAM, ready for use in games or applications to observe the changes.

The performance difference is tested using Resident Evil 4 Remake, a game known for its high memory requirements. The modified 16 GB RTX 2080 achieves an average of 69 FPS, with minimum FPS (1% lows) remaining around 60 FPS and dropping to 45 FPS. Meanwhile, the original 8 GB RTX 2080 achieves an average of 63-64 FPS, with minimum FPS frequently dropping to about 3 FPS. Although there is only a 10% difference in average FPS, the improvement in minimum FPS is substantial, eliminating stuttering caused by insufficient memory.