Ishank

I want to know what is modding a graphics card?

blibbax

Modding can mean a lot of things that are related to changing hardware in ways that the manufacturer did not necessarily intend.

With regard to graphics cards, it might be anything from coating in nail polish to reduce squeaking to some kind of unlocking of shaders to an extreme-overclocking-with-LN2-cooling adaptation.

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Judas

soft modding back in the day was through the use of a software trick.. be it in the drivers or through a hack that would make the current display drivers "think" that a video card was a certain way resulting in what blibbax mentioned to increase shaders or other components beyond the orginal intended specs..

most recent soft modding is a firmware upgrade.... which is a little more hardmodding but kinda between.

Either way... any form of modding at all.. be it soft or hardware.... voids warranty if you got any.

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OldBuzzard

The other 'mod' would be replacing the stock HSF with an after market one to get better cooling and/or a quieter card.

Like my old 3870 X2. It had a huge, HEAVY HSF, with a fan that, when it was running at 100%, sounded like an F4 Phantom on full afterburner. Even then, those rascals ran pretty ot.

Since I was already using a Koolance Exos 2 to cool my CPU, I put a Koolance waterblock on the X2, which cooled it VERY well, and totaly eliminated the fan sound.

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When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

blibbax

My graphics card when new (won from HH!):



And today (Radeon 6850 in background for comparison):



Spot the difference :P

Parts of that original water cooling solution are still in there, cut down with a hacksaw to act as a heatsink for just the VRMs. Then there's a set of stick on RAM sinks, and a triple slot cooler for the GPU itself and for general airflow.

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IvanV

Now I'm going totally offtopic, but why did you remove the watercooling?

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If anyone has Portal 2 and hasn't played the co-op and wants to do me a favour, let me know (PM me or whatever).

blibbax

It was a presealed system, and, in descending order of importance, here are the reasons I didn't like it:

• It was noisy.
• It could only be installed in my case with the radiator in the 3.5" or 5.25" bays, which isn't ideal because:
  • It means blowing hot air over important components.
  • It takes up loads of room.
• I move my PC around a lot, and I wasn't that confident in the build quality of the system, and didn't want a leak.

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Tyrsonswood

Yeah....... hacksaw. That's modding!!!

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IvanV

@Blibb: Fair enough.

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If anyone has Portal 2 and hasn't played the co-op and wants to do me a favour, let me know (PM me or whatever).

blibbax

Yessir :P

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Ishank

So can it be done with my graphics card?

blibbax

What in particular were you considering?

As we've said, there are many forms of modding.

• Your card cannot be unlocked into a higher end model, and does not have any unlockable features.
• It might be possible to softmod it into a quadro, but this would most likely be a downgrade for your uses.
• You can certainly fit a large aftermarket cooler or fit it into a water cooling loop.
  
• If you're both crazy and rich, I'm sure it's possible to overvolt it and rig it up for LN2 cooling.

Why is it that you were wanting to mod the card?

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Ishank

I don't wanna mod my card I just want to know it for my own knowledge!!!!!!!!!!!!

Callandor

Modding is short for modifying, just wanted to add that since no one had said that yet. It can mean doing anything to any computer component that was not done or meant to be done by the original manufacturer. And like blibbax said it depends on what graphics card you have.

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