CPU A4000 shunt mod. Is it possible? Can we get 3070Ti performance in 3060Ti Aero footprint?

[Runamok81]

Many of us have modded the A4000 card with the Palit StormX or PNY 3060 coolers to make our own tiny "A4000 Aero" gpus.


The OC'd A4000 performs slightly better than the 3060 Ti, but draws much less power. It's power starved.

Shunt modding is the process of adding a resistor to the card in order to increase it's power draw. It was very popular with the A2000.


It's well known that the A4000 is power-limited 3070Ti card with a smaller PCB. Techspot does a great job breaking down the differences between them here.
Some relevant quotes ...

In short, the RTX A4000 uses the same GA104 silicon as the RTX 3070 Ti, meaning it has 6144 CUDA cores, 192 TAUs and 96 ROPs

On that note, the A4000 was fed just 770 millivolts under load whereas the RTX 3070 Ti was fed 1040 millivolts, so that's a substantial difference in voltage there, and it's what enables the 3070 Ti to run at much higher frequencies, but it also blows out power consumption, as does the use of GDDR6X memory. Unfortunately, Nvidia doesn't allow you to tinker with the voltage of the A4000, or at least I haven't worked out how to yet.

Previously, I didn't think shunt modding the the A4000 would do much because it only has a 6-pin PCIe plug, but youtubuer Wiltshire Tutorials showed that the 8-pin traces on the A4000 are still active and you CAN solder on an 8-pin and it will work!


Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how to shunt mod the A4000? With the 8-pin power plug it may be possible to restore that 3070Ti performance and keep the 3060 Aero size.

I've seen a some whispers on reddit that it is possible, but I can't find any serious evidence that anyone has ever shunt modded the A4000. SFF crew, help me out. Do you think it's possible to shunt mod the A4000?

 

[Runamok81]

Found a generic shunt modding guide for all nVidia cards on overclock.net forums.
Seems like a good starting point? https://www.overclock.net/threads/t...many-other-nvidia-gpus.1608437/#post-25428806

Find the appropriate resistor and test with liquid metal?

 

[Runamok81]

Another option that crept up is possibly flashing the A4000 VBIOS with a 3070 Ti BIOS.
There are a few of them here = https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/?model=RTX+3070+Ti

 

[Runamok81]

I know I am talking to myself here, but I got a good response on overclockers forum here

https://www.overclock.net/threads/a4000-shunt-mod-is-it-possible-can-we-get-3070ti-performance-in-3060ti-aero-footprint.1803615/#post-29123612

Including identifying where the resistors are.

 

[Runamok81]

Update! The 16GB 3070Ti SFF card is possible!

Overclock forum, user jkgventures (https://jkgventures.tech/) just modded an A4000. They've got it up to 3070Ti performance.

https://www.overclock.net/threads/a...n-3060ti-aero-footprint.1803615/post-29139988
Benchmark results = https://www.3dmark.com/spy/35765582

Overclock post = https://www.overclock.net/threads/a...n-3060ti-aero-footprint.1803615/post-29139988

 

[AMv8-1day]

Don't worry, you definitely aren't the only one following the Overclock.net thread!
The overclock.net user is currently selling the service, cooler included, for $150 on their crypto mining mod site.
Really wish I could get my hands on a Densium 4 case right now to make all of this worth it.

#Edit
Not quite related, but probably of interest to anyone else here, the recently released RTX 4070 is showing great promise as a potential Densium 4+ option. The Founders edition cooler is 240mm long, but the PCB stops well short of that, at least ~220mm, with a couple of 225.5mm AIB cards popping up from Zotac. Zotac is using a seemingly unnecessarily long twin cooler design on a much shorter PCB, although I don't believe it's the same reference design as the Founder's Edition, as that one has a circular cutout for the second fan.
Getting the design down to Densium 4 size may still be out of reach, but I think 4+ is pretty possible!

 

[rfarmer]

You can now buy a A4000 with the shunt mod, might be just a bit pricey.