It’s pretty much an open secret that NVIDIA is expected to launch a 12GB variant of its Turing-powered GeForce RTX 2060 card within the next couple of weeks, as a way of alleviating the current chip shortage. In the case of one Russian modder, we’re guessing that the anticipation of waiting was just too much, to the extent that he decided to jump the gun and simply increase the GDDR6 amount on his existing RTX 2060, quite literally.
The modder, who goes by the handle VIK-on, posted his project on his YouTube channel, showing off and speaking at length about why and how he modified his single-fan, blower-style, ASUS RTX 2060 Turbo. Specifically, the process requires Vik-on to swap out the card’s six existing 1GB memory modules, which were fabricated by Samsung.
Vik-on explains that he ultimately settled on Samsung’s K4ZAF325BM-HC14 ICs, which are double the memory capacity at 2GB. And in case you’re wondering: yes, a heat gun was obviously involved, because how else do you soften and melt the ball grid array at the base of each integrated circuit (IC).
On a side note, we should point out that not all memory chips will work in this IC swap-out, the reason being that each GPU is usually designed to only support a select number of memory chips. More importantly, the specifications of those chips are rarely ever shown to the public, if ever.
In VIK-on’s case, it’s clear that the conversion on his RTX 2060 Turbo was successful and did work, as evidenced by the details that appeared when he ran a quick cryptomining test with the card, which seemed rather decent. But while he didn’t actually show off any gameplay footage with the modified card, it stands to reason that the extra GDDR6 memory on his souped-up RX 2060 would undoubtedly provide some measure of improvement, especially in some of today’s more demanding AAA titles.
(Source: Tom’s Hardware)
