Enthusiasts have been hard at work trying to increase the pixel-pushing potential of the RTX 2080 Ti from a couple of generations ago. In recent news, a modder has pushed the total VRAM capacity of the card from the 11 GB buffer to a massive 44 GB after populating 22 of the 24 slots in the PCB with 2 GB Samsung GDDR6 memory chips.
Theoretically, the upper limit should have been 48 GB. However, since the 2080 Ti needs only 11 of them, the remaining VRAM slots on both sides of the PCB (front and back) are disabled out of the box.
This mod was possible because the RTX 2080 Ti shares the same PCB as its bigger workstation-focused brother, the Titan RTX. The last Titan-branded card comes with a total of 24 VRAM slots. However, only half of them are populated with 2 GB GDDR6 VRAM chips, and the remaining are left empty.
Did the RTX 2080 Ti 44 GB VRAM mod work?
The RTX 2080 Ti with 44 GB VRAM worked just fine, as shown in the GPU-Z and DirectX screenshots shared by Twitter leaker and industry insider @wxnod. TechPowerUp's GPU-Z successfully recognized the modded GPU as an RTX 2080 Ti with 44 GB of GDDR6 memory.
However, the quadrupling of the VRAM didn't help improve the memory bandwidth of the graphics card. With 14 Gbps of 11 GB GDDR6 memory running at 1750 MHz, the 2080 Ti delivers a total bandwidth of 616 GB/s. The modded card delivered the same 616 GB/s while operating on a 352-bit bus.
In addition, this modded card won't be any good in video games since the drivers and the onboard vBIOS won't work properly with these modifications in place.
The 2080 Ti continues the legacy of the GTX 1080 Ti. Back when it was launched in 2019, the card used to be an absolute beast. It was incredibly expensive as well, with an introductory price tag of $999 and the Founder's Edition GPU retailing at $1,199. It was later overpowered by a much cheaper RTX 3070 in the very next generation. However, every 2080 Ti was built exceptionally well, and PC gamers will always have a soft spot in their hearts for the GPU.