I made an 8GB GTX 970 (kinda)

If you're like me, you've been stewing for the last 8 years over nVidia short changing their GTX 970 customers on VRAM. Or, maybe you just wanted to see a cool soft-modding project that doesn't make any real financial sense, but can still turn a low power workstation card into a half-decent gaming GPU? Either way, in this video I tried to mod the Quadro M4000 at a BIOS level in order to reach GTX 970 clock speeds.

Maxwell II BIOS Tweaker (not Editor, as I said in the video):

Guides:

00:00 Making my own 8GB GTX 970
00:37 Background: History of the nVidia GTX 970
01:47 The Quadro M4000
03:10 Disclaimer: don't do what I did
03:47 Adventures in BIOS Modding
06:56 Gaming Benchmarks
06:59 Benchmarks: God of War 1920x1080 Original, FSR
07:51 Benchmarks: Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade 1920x1080 High
08:33 Benchmarks: Elden Ring 1920x1080 Maximum, Medium
09:13 Benchmarks: Forza Horizon 5 1920x1080 High, FSR
09:53 Benchmarks: Halo Infinite 1920x1080 Low
10:59 Benchmarks: Cyberpunk 2077 1920x1080 Medium, FSR
11:41 Benchmarks: Rainbow Six Extraction 1920x1080 High, 50% Scaling
12:23 Benchmarks: Splitgate 1920x1080 Epic
13:00 Benchmarks: Call of Duty Vanguard 1920x1080 Low, FSR
13:50 Benchmarks: Fortnite 1920x1080 Competitive
14:24 Benchmarks: Apex Legends 1920x1080 Low
14:54 Benchmarks: Call of Duty Warzone 1920x1080 Low, 67% Scaling
15:32 Benchmarks: Fire Strike & Time Spy
15:44 Comparison chart: M4000 Stock vs. Modded
16:53 Comparison chart: M4000 Modded vs. MSI GTX 970
16:17 Conclusion: Did I REALLY make an 8GB GTX 970?

S P E C S
This GPU was tested on what I think is a good example of a mid-range system in 2022. Specs are as follows:

T E S T S Y S T E M S P E C S
(Affiliate links)

P A T R E O N

O T H E R V I D E O S

A D S
The following links are affiliated. Everything costs the same to you, but I get a commission. Please only click these links if you want to help me out!

G E A R
Audio:

Video:

C O N T A C T
Twitter/Insta @IcebergTop10s

#nvidia #quadro #modded

[mikeswem]

Congrats. You just made the world's first GTX 965.

[Tonba]

The virgin "1080 ti isnt enough anymore its basically low end Ewaste" vs the CHAD "The 970 still stands on its own two legs"

[chemalii]

Nice quality, consistency, content, and channel… you are criminally underrated!

[jesuschrist]

And i remember my entire office using 970s flashed to work as quadros :)

[Kyle-pjvc]

Sold this for $100 back in 2020 before the 3080 launch to help pay down for my 3080, amazing card served me well for many years.

[WSS_the_OG]

Nicely done. I commented on another video of yours some time back about this very card, and that I also did the BIOS mod OC with it. I don't think you could have hoped for a better result. Without physically changing the cooler to something better, shunt-modding it, your results were (I think) great! I paid a lot less for mine that you paid for yours, so I wasn't nervous about BIOS modding it.

Great video!

[prizrak-br]

I don't know why Nvidia insists on making really powerful GPUs with low VRAM, they always have the minimum required to run current titles with nothing to spare (except fort the 10 series) maybe some sort of planned obsolescence but I don't know if that is really the case because it scares away buyers at the same time.

I for once really wanted to get a 3070 or 3070Ti but with 8GB of VRAM it's just not worth it, I couldn't afford a 3080 and since I play at 1440p the 3060 wasn't exactly in my radar so I went the AMD route for the first time in my life and got a 6700 XT, so I don't know if Nvidia is exactly profiting from that decision.

I guess there are a lot of Nvidia fanboys out there that will only buy from them no matter what crap they put out "bEcAuSe dRiVeRs AnD nVeNc" but is it really enough of them to make those awful decisions worth it?

[gingerwitch]

I just discovered this channel yesterday, and I have to say, you are extremely underrated. Your photography is so professional, and your content is amazing. I wish luck to you and your channel :D

[anorris]

This experiment was ridiculous, and I love it. Thanks for this fun GPU ride. 😁

[grizzlyindustries]

You did pretty well in the bios modding. Changing the scalers are just a crap shoot in all honesty. And getting better performance on lower power is pretty much all we can ask for.
As someone running the Tesla M40 12gb, the guides I followed and now having a better understanding of Nvidia settings. I use the Tesla M40 for gaming but also for video upscaling and compression. Especially with the Video2x program where the extra vram definitely helps speed up the upscaling from a entire day to half a day when programmed correctly to even utilize the Tesla card.
I got my card also for $100 US exactly. Main reason I got the Tesla was because at my workplace they still run the old Teslas but got rid of all the other Quadro cards. Quadros are finicky with it's drivers and harder to maintain from what our IT department said. Yet, Teslas have pretty good driver support when mixed with the right hardware(intel 6th gen onboard graphics or a cheaper separate GPU), and you set up 4g decoding in your bios along with enabling full control of your Nvidia control panel and either changing registry edits to enable hybrid drivers and run off of internal graphics(I use UHD 630 from my i5-8400) or just using another GPU.

All in all. It was first harder to understand. But thanks to my coworkers, I am better able to understand the Tesla, the Nvidia settings, and it's working specifically for my needs and will continue to be for recording and editing(if I can get to that) cause my brother used it and noticed it worked great for his editing needs when I cleaned up his system at one point.

Loving the videos as always when I can catch up to them.

I also noticed your running an Ezcap capture card. I'm wondering if you are experiencing what I'm experiencing with my Ezcap 324 PCI-e card. The sound will cut out cutscene dialogue in games on my PS4 and Nintendo Switch. Luckily I use my motherboard's internal sound chipset and run a simple 3.5mm audio cable for analogue audio through the PS4 controller or Switch tablet itself and then I'm able to record. You said your USB Dac/Amp was having issues. I'm wondering if you are experiencing what I am cause I'm about to test and see if it's the capture card. I'm gonna run it through another system in a dell prebuilt with an i3-8100t and GTX 1050 2gb to see if it still happens to be the capture card, the maxwell cards themselves(whether drivers or hardware), or OBS software.

[laszlozsurka]

My congratulations on making the world's first GTX 960 Ti

[SPNG]

Interesting video, always nice to see some coverage on these older professional cards. The M4000 may not perform exactly like a 970 but it's also not quite as much of a power hog! Overall I'd rate it 3.5 out of 4!

[trdman]

You did not failed, very good improvement and fun to watch too...

[stefankachaunov]

Haaa, I've been running the exact same setup for 1 year, I love it!

[TalkingToBirds]

Wow I can't believe you don't have a bigger audience! Your videos are so helpful and high quality

[shadesofbeige]

All things considered, I'd say you did pretty well. Cool idea.

[pineapplepizza]

Great videos! Exited for the future modding videos

[emircosic]

i just love ur narration and ur sense of humour. love this channel. keep up the good work.

[mjdevlog]

With a determination, this channel with great video quality will blow up.

[Swoger]

which gpu should i get? a brand new gt 1030 2gb, a second hand rx 550 4gb oc edition or a second hand gtx 1050 2gb?