In Pursuit of Power: RTX 2080 Ti Becomes a Monster in Modder’s Hands

The RTX 2080 Ti Hall of Fame graphics card already ranks as one of the most powerful models in the RTX 20 series, yet architectural constraints of the TU102 chip always left some potential untapped. Modder Jiachen Liu decided to address this with a radical approach – he installed a full Titan RTX chip along with 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on the RTX 2080 Ti board, while also increasing the power limit from 300 to 900 watts.

The result is impressive: the modified card scored 18,038 points in the 3DMark Time Spy Extreme test. By comparison, the average result of two Titan RTXs in SLI is about 17,000 points, while the RTX 3090 typically scores around 14,000. And all this is achieved with a single video card.

The standard RTX 2080 Ti features 4,352 CUDA cores and 11 GB of GDDR6 memory. The Titan RTX, in turn, offers 4,608 CUDA cores and 24 GB of memory with a 384-bit bus. However, Nvidia never allowed partners to release extreme versions of Titan with a powerful power subsystem like the HOF accelerators and efficient cooling. Liu circumvented this issue by combining the Titan RTX chip and memory with the RTX 2080 Ti HoF’s PCB and cooling system. According to Liu, this configuration made achieving a stable frequency of 2150 MHz possible, which would have been unattainable on the stock Titan RTX board.

Despite recent developments in the GPU industry, with formidable competitors like the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT showcasing new levels of performance and power efficiency, creativity in the modding community continues to thrive. Modifying existing hardware to surpass factory limitations remains a vibrant part of the enthusiast scene, as evidenced by recent innovations and performance boosts achieving status symbols among tech aficionados.