i was thinking about a way if graphic card companies could make a device for expandable vram modules? like asus did with a ssd by going through the pci-e slot.could they implement it through the pci-e for the bandwidth speed? or hook it in a way like SLI/Crossfire?
reason why id like to see if it can be done is cause of.........Skyrim mods lol.
i figured if the could find a way to make this a physical product we could buy 4gb 8gb or even 16 gb versions.
please let me know what any of you guys think and see if it realistic or wishful thinking
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820785002R (link of asus ssd)
That sounds to me like it would add too much latency to the access times but it's an interesting idea. This could maybe be realized with a discrete slot for Vram on the motherboard in the future but another point is that GPU's usually come equipped with the vram they need to utilize their horse power not more and not less.
Wishful thinking.
Maybe slots on the card like Striezel suggest, but through PCIe or the Crossfire/SLI connector would be silly. If that idea would work then why not just expand VRAM with main memory? Because bandwith. Compare PCIe 4.0 x16 bandwidth at around 32GB/s to the GDDR5 memory bandwidth of a GTX 980, a cool 224GB/s. Plus using now you're reducing the effective bandwidth between the CPU and the GPU because the bus time would have to be divided between talking to CPU and talking to this VRAM expansion card. Added latency because of interconnect length isn't helping either.
awwww thats a shame be awsome if it could be possible
Would have to redesign how vram is implimented on a gpu but not a bad idea. People used to solder memory chips to 780's and flash the titan bios over it to get cheap titans but that was stopped with the 780 ti
Why can't we just have swappable or upgradeable memory for gpus on the card? Add some discrete slots similar to how we have m.2 (In shape) and let the customer just install extra ram if needed. Just let us stick another memory chip onto our 980 (Or whatever) just like we stick ram into our motherboards if we need more.
Because companies want you to buy their latest card at 2gb, and then 6 months later buy their new exact same model with 4gb because the latest game they sponsor uses MFAA.
There is also the issue of the bandwidth on the bus. You could put 8GB's of vram in a GTX 660 but the bus wont be able to keep up with so much memory. It will be better than loading stuff from a HDD or memory like it does when your vram is full but still no where near what you need. Again, Would require a new standard for vram.