The next card out of the Nvidia 8800 series that I plan to voltmod and bench is the 8800GTX. For those of you out there that are new to the game or have not come across volt modding before let me quickly explain what Volt modding is all about and why we do it.
What is volt modding and why do it you may ask? Well in a nut shell, volt modding is when you remove resistance to the FB pin on the controller that controls the voltage that is supplied to the GPU core or memory. Just like a CPU you can gain extra performance by supplying extra voltage.
Now before I get started, This is article is not intended to be a volt modding guide(that will come a little later) but rather a log of my progress while doing the mod to the 8800GTX. If you plan to give volt modding a go you need to understand that performing the voltmod will void any and all warranties of your video card. You – and only you – are responsible for any damage caused indirectly (or directly) by any modifications.
Right with the disclaimer out of the way lets have a look at some of the tools I use to do the mods.
Magnum 2002 variable temperature solder station.
20W x 10x Mag light
Very thin solder, various trim-pots also known as variable resistors(VR) and for the mod wire I use an old IDE ribbon cable
The Asus 8800GTX I will be modding is a reference design card and a quick search on the google engine I was able to find several tested mods. No need to pull out the multi-meter other than to test and verify that the mods were correct.
Front of the card
back of the card with the planned mods marked
Closer look at the vGPU mod points
and the vMEM mod points
Completed Read points
For the read points I used a old female molex connector from a old PSU. This method is not necessary but I find it a lot easier to work with when the time comes to monitor the voltages while adjusting the VR
That is all for part 1. In Part 2 I will complete the vMem, vGPU mods and remove the stock cooling.
Thanks for reading.