Built an MXM(clevo) 3080Ti

[Khenglish]

I converted a Clevo RTX 3060 to be a 3080Ti:

I can't post links because 3dmark blocks viewing scores from unrecognized hardware combinations:



The score is a little bit disappointing. A shunt modded 3080 can beat this (just barely though). I did a 50% shuntmod, but this is giving me OCP throttling and I need to lock the core to 0.84V to avoid it, which is only around 180W. Doing a weaker 10% shuntmod should yield a better result to avoid needing to lock the core voltage.

I'm also having vRAM overclocking issues. The vRAM can only run up to 16.3GHz before the system hard freezes like an NES. With the same vRAM chips the 3060 core could run 17.7GHz. This requires further investigation. I currently have the card set to be 8GB.

I can run more benchmarks if there is something someone is curious in seeing.
 

[Khenglish]

I first tried this on an RTX 3080 board. Unfortunately, the reballing from the seller was faulty and several solder balls detached from the core when soldering to the card, which was visible after removing the core from the card. The core required a reball, but the 3080 pcb died after 2nd core solder cleaning. You can see the power/ground routing got very exposed in the middle. I tried resoldering the core on anyway but it shorted.



This is the 3060 in-progress next to the 3080 prior to removing the 3080Ti core:



As for future mods I do hope to fix the vRAM clocking and finish upgrading the chips for 16GB. Currently only 3/8 chips are 2GB.

In theory a 30 series pcb can take a 40 series core. They are electrically compatible, but my viewpoint is finding a vBIOS that would take that mod is almost certainly impossible. The 3080Ti mod only works with an Eluktronics vBIOS. All other vBIOS fail, including Clevo. Someone briefly listed an MXM clevo 3080Ti for sale on Ebay and Prema somehow identified it as having an Eluktronics vBIOS from the GPU-Z screenshot, which was extremely helpful.

[Meaker]

See the note about memory straps:

 

 

[Khenglish]

Good find on that video.

 

My soldering thoughts:

• Reballing is a PITA. I have found it easiest to use a direct heat minimally sized stencil since they warp much less. I'll also do an initially heating in a toaster oven with the stencil still in place with a very thin flux coating. The slow even heating prevents solder balls from jumping out. After that the solder balls are tacked down and I do a second heat cycle with the heat gun and much more flux to get good connections.
• I also only use leaded solder balls. They are so much easier to work with than unleaded. They bond at much lower temp, are stronger, wet more easily, and pull and center parts more strongly when molten. In general it's worth removing solder from unleaded preballed parts and reballing with leaded. If I had done this I wouldn't have lost the 3080 board.
• His flux seems less corrosive than mine. Mine causes pcb damage while his seemed to cause none. I should use a different flux
• The GPU glue is terrible. The reason why my 3060 pcb is so discolored is because the glue was still sticking after melting the solder to remove the 3060. I had the core under high temp for quite a long time until I got it off. Once the core is off just scrape off the glue with a hot soldering iron. This is way less dangerous to the board than the way he Dremeled it.
• I only use aluminum foil if plastic components are underneath. Components under foil can still get molten, and the slight pressure of the foil can shift them around.

My perf thoughts:

• I also got the weird vram clock toggling. You can fix it by forcing a fixed VF target is MSI afterburner. You can see my scores are around 1K higher than his in TS, and I was just running 0.84V, which I think is sround 180W, similar to his max.
• My core can benchmark at +240, and is fully stable at +210, similar to his
• I'm curious in is vram clocks. Something is wrong with my setup.

 

[jaybee83]

i saw this thread pop up and my very first thought was: oh, that reminds me of @Khenglish and his previous / legendary 980 / 1080 core swaps! then I saw the OP:

 

 

OF COURSE ITS KHENGLISH! 😄 

[Tenoroon]

On 12/15/2024 at 8:54 PM, Khenglish said:

I first tried this on an RTX 3080 board. Unfortunately, the reballing from the seller was faulty and several solder balls detached from the core when soldering to the card, which was visible after removing the core from the card. The core required a reball, but the 3080 pcb died after 2nd core solder cleaning. You can see the power/ground routing got very exposed in the middle. I tried resoldering the core on anyway but it shorted.



This is the 3060 in-progress next to the 3080 prior to removing the 3080Ti core:



As for future mods I do hope to fix the vRAM clocking and finish upgrading the chips for 16GB. Currently only 3/8 chips are 2GB.

In theory a 30 series pcb can take a 40 series core. They are electrically compatible, but my viewpoint is finding a vBIOS that would take that mod is almost certainly impossible. The 3080Ti mod only works with an Eluktronics vBIOS. All other vBIOS fail, including Clevo. Someone briefly listed an MXM clevo 3080Ti for sale on Ebay and Prema somehow identified it as having an Eluktronics vBIOS from the GPU-Z screenshot, which was extremely helpful.

Nice work my brother. Does the PCIe adapter card work with the 30 series GPUs? I would assume so, but I don't think anyone has ever tested it lol.

[Khenglish]

35 minutes ago, Tenoroon said:

Nice work my brother. Does the PCIe adapter card work with the 30 series GPUs? I would assume so, but I don't think anyone has ever tested it lol.

 

It didn't work, but I also tried it in an older desktop. These 30 series cards are really picky and it may have just hated the old Zen+ system. I also tried it in an M2 adapter to a full pci-e slot on a Zen4 system, but it wouldn't even power on. I couldn't fogure out what signal was missing.

 

Also 30 series is rejected by the P150EM. 20 series works though.