Frankenstein GeForce RTX 3080 Spotted With 20GB VRAM And 4090 Cooler

Recently, a user on the Chinese site BiliBili discovered and subsequently reviewed a Frankensteined NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, but outfitted with 20 GB of GDDR6X instead of its original 10 GB specification. Like other modified GPUs with more VRAM we've seen in the past, this was accomplished by using both sides of the graphics card for mounting additional VRAM modules. The BiliBili user, who has a handle roughly translating to "Graphics Card Girl," gave the card a showcasing and review, including showing what it looks like with its cooler removed, the surprisingly-pretty custom retail box it came in, and most importantly actually putting it through at least some benchmarking. The only benchmark was the common synthetic benchmark 3DMark Time Spy, but the modded RTX 3080 could now turn around better results than even a current gen GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB. Not bad for such an old higher end GPU, which typically trades blows with the newer midrange GPU, and not winning to quite this extent.


Further inspection of the Franken-GPU revealed that the card, branded as a Fengo NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 20GB, reveals use of a rebranded cooler taken from the PNY NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, complete with 16-pin power support. This makes sense, considering the fact that both GPUs are originally based on the NVIDIA GA102 graphics chip. Unlike other modded GPU projects we've seen, this one is also being sold as a mass-market product for the Chinese market, targeted squarely at gamers with its aesthetics and waifu box art. Graphics Card Girl does note it will likely have high AI market appeal too, though, thanks to the larger VRAM pool.

This custom GeForce RTX 3080, originally spotted by Uniko's Hardware on Twitter, marks an interesting step forward for the Chinese GPU market. No longer are these modified GPUs so ultra-custom that they're being deployed as private modifications. Instead, the tools in hand are now allowing them to be sold as retail products altogether, though we imagine inventory won't be particularly high for them, especially considering China's fierce GPU demand.