Nvidia's Unreleased RTX 3070 Ti with 16GB VRAM Brought to Life by Modder
Nvidia's unreleased RTX 3070 Ti with 16GB of VRAM has long been a topic of interest among enthusiasts. The company was expected to release this version, but it ultimately settled on an 8GB variant instead. However, Brazilian YouTuber fmklab has managed to recreate the 16GB version using an RTX 3070 PCB and a transplanted 3070 Ti core.
Fmklab's creation uses GDDR6 chips from Samsung, which presented a challenge due to the need to reconfigure the memory straps. This process allowed the card to use its entire 16GB VRAM capacity, but it also resulted in decreased memory bandwidth compared to the stock GDDR6X.
The modder tested his creation by running a local LLM on the GPU and found that it allocated nearly the entire 16GB pool. He also ran Unigine Superposition benchmark, scoring 5,367 points, although this is lower than most real 3070 Ti runs due to the decreased memory bandwidth.
While fmklab's creation is a successful experiment, it's worth noting that a current-gen Blackwell option with superior efficiency and feature set would be a more reasonable choice for those looking for better performance and future-proofing.