The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 was a top dog back in 2014. But users soon found out its 4GB VRAM promise was a bit of a lie. Only 3.5GB worked at full speed, while the remaining 0.5GB crawled along. This made for some pretty frustrating gaming sessions, with drops in performance and unexpected freezes.
Gamers were not happy, and NVIDIA even faced lawsuits over the issue. But now, a decade later, a group of Brazilian modders has figured out a fix. Paulo Gomes, Jefferson Silva, and Felipe Triana swapped out the memory modules on the GTX 970, getting rid of the original architecture’s limitations.
Beefing Up the GTX 970
They replaced the 512MB memory chips with 1GB modules that run faster. This boosted the card’s total capacity without making it unstable. The results? A huge performance gain. Before the mod, the GTX 970 scored 800 points on the Unigine Superposition benchmark in 8K resolution. After the upgrade and a bit of overclocking, it nearly doubled its score to 1,500 points.
This means the GPU can handle demanding games and apps much more smoothly, even at high resolutions. It’s a testament to the creativity and skills of the hardware enthusiast community, which can breathe new life into old components. The upgrade also highlights the importance of robust GPU memory specs for consistent performance over time.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 still gets support from NVIDIA, even after all these years. With the right tweaks, it seems this old hardware can stay relevant for a long time. Check out this video to see the modding process in action.