Steam Deck 32GB RAM Upgrade 

What's the speed of the ram?

@@totallyworksperfectly5424 from steam themselves "16 GB LPDDR5 on-board RAM (5500 MT/s quad 32-bit channels)"

@@totallyworksperfectly5424 K3LKCKC0BM-MGCP

​@totallyworksperfectly5424 as long as its ddr5 the speed will be set to the lowest clock speed of the chips, so buy fast ram

So you made the performance WORSE?>?

Yeah

That, or use a locked boot sector that checks the hash before booting like every other a-hole vendor out there... Steam has a monopoly for a reason... They actually care about gaming. 😊

​@doublewhopper67 they functionally do have a monopoly. It's not only about having no competitors. You can have 10 competitors and still have a monopoly if you have too much market share. Valve has 75% market share of PC games according to enterpriseappstoday.

Steam have said in the past it's your device your all grown ups have fun, and that's why I own a 64gb one with a 2tb upgraded ssd but am definitely thinking a ram upgrade could be an idea as especially in Starfeld ram seems a bit of a bottleneck

Those were the bane of me installing the 2nd m.2 slot in my MSI GL65 Leopard laptop. lol

Haha yeah if only. Just a theme my friend put on there on Windows 11.

the taskboar is called retrobar

I loved the look of vista too. Shame it was hated so much

it got me too dont worry xD

it was a jumpscare tbh

wait till they start putting amd 5700u's into the steam deck that will be a hell of a thing to see then🤣

Heh "this one looks pretty easy" If I tried I'd end up with a bunch of broken traces, some damaged memory chips, and a dead Stream Deck 😅

@@JeffGeerling You just need to write an Ansible script to do it for you

@@JeffGeerling atleast you can wear a hat and go to dennys.

Because it is

Get gud

i'm more stressed about the tiny shards of metal and debris all over the blue silicone pad.

How's gaming what games you played? Helldivers 2 what's the fps your getting

I heard something about if you upgrade the ram to 32 gb you’ll have to recode something every time the BIOS needs updating? Is this true what’s up with that?

I heard something about if you upgrade the ram to 32 gb you’ll have to recode something every time the BIOS needs updating? Is this true what’s up with that?

How much did it cost you?

@@Fekimeki Parts and labor for 32 GB upgrade along with installing a WiFi 6 card and shipping was $262.

If you notice the GPU is set to 2GB (because he only had 30GB available). I believe the driver is in charge of the GPU and can use as much as it wants too. Of course if there is some system files cached in that RAM you might experience 'hitching' as it evicts or swaps. But with 32GB total I don't see much downside to setting it to 8GB for GPU, thats still 10GB more for the 'system' than you had before.

Shouldn't system already use ram when vram is overflowed?

@@AIFT_Staff Kinda, but allocating vram helps with stuttering in certain games, espeially now that some AAA requires 4gb as minimum. An example is COD MW2 (2022) that with 2gb allocated will stutter from times to times, as opposed to the smooth experience with 4gb

@@milescarter7803 in OEM bios you can set up to 4gb for gpu. and it does change windows to show 12gb system 4gb gpu.... because that's how I run my deck when in windows mode. and I do 2gb gpu for steamdeck side when im actually using steamos. usually with laptops when you have more ram, you can set higher gpu allocation in bios.... so setting 8gb would be sick and still have 24gb left for cpu which is more than enought. the next generation steamdeck should come with 32gb ram, 16gb for cpu and 16gb for gpu. each in quad channel and separated instead of shared.

@@goblinphreak2132quad channel isn’t going to happen for system memory. It’s way too power consuming. Dedicated vram is more likely. But not 16GB. Again too many memory channels for a handheld. 4-6GB @ 128-192 bit controller width of dedicated gddr5 is more than enough for 1080p @ 60. However you would also need more and faster gpu cores so the increase in count and clock speed is going to eat at the power budget as well. Remember these devices are designed for 10-35w TDP, this is split between cpu cores, the memory controller, pcie, integrated chipset (yes it has one) area, and the gpu die and its associated parts as well. It will be incremented improvements for a while. But in 5-10 years we will see something special come out of all this

this^

Yeah

All I need is a pre-heater, I wonder if I can use my space heater set on the lowest setting!? lol

None of these tools are expensive.

This is not something to try for yourself you will screw up the pcb board with small components falling off. You need soldering experience to do this.

Awesome! Yeah, I was surprised it just worked with the native updating utility like that, awesome work there. Do you have a website or link I can add where you may publish pre-patched later BIOS versions and/or more info?

​@@dosdude1and no reply. I feel a troll lurking. This time with pink and orange hair.

Thanks for your work

teach me the ways sensei

With the same soldering skills needed for the ram upgrade, you can upgrade the wifi card as well

Yep, the soldered WiFi module can be upgraded to an Intel AX200-series module for WiFi 6 support, which I actually did on this Steam Deck as well after making this video. Thermals seem OK as they are; upgrading RAM will not affect thermals at all.

i've also seen a heatsink upgrade under the name 'p3r monoblock'.. it replaces the little metal shield over the steamdeck's mainboard as well as the original heatsink

I’ve seen them put in a stronger fan too….dunno if it helps. They never showed it. I just have a case with more grids. That did help abit.

Yes, it’s LPDDR5... For some reason I was thinking it was LPDDR4.

Laser what?

Yeah, what is this Laser machine you speak of??

@@michaelrfx7 He probably meant infrared xD

You can never use too much flux ❤

Laser rework? Sounds like you are an expert. 😅

Yes. The bios update doesn't change the configured speed of the installed ram, only the capacity.

If you have PRO tools then it is easy!

@@AppleReviews nope, it isn't! I'm pretty sure most users here would rip at least 10 pads on the first try and maybe succeed in the 5th or so. Been there, done that! It's a thin line between good bga soldering and missing pads. Also, you have to carefully keep your temperatures and heating times in acceptable areas, otherwise you'll kill something.

​@@dolphhandcremeyeah I'd probably go through 20. Plus 2 steamdecks 😂

yea.. but if you make 1 mistake, it could be very costly. so take it from someone who does surface mount soldering like this guy uses, and its not that easy.. even with professional tools. its an art. you can teach anyone to paint, but only an artist can paint effortless and strides for perfection. you may have a hidden talent for it, you never know..

@@dolphhandcremeexactly. been there also, its NOT easy.

no one use SD for coding

Performance will be nearly identical. If the new ram is 6400 mhz then there will be about a 5 fps increase over stock

​@javiervelez9329 yeah, doesn't seem like it will affect gameplay. Not quite sure what benefit this provides, unless the user intends to do ram intensive tasks like video editing or maybe VM environments?

2nd thought, he appears to using the stock storage.. if that is true, he could stand to gain performance via an NVME upgrade, provided the board can take advantage of the increased speeds?

@@javiervelez9329 I doubt there's a way to change the frequency in the BIOS, and I can practically guarantee it wouldn't automatically overclock the ram either.

@@PauIieWalnuts 2:13 You can literally see an nvme drive in the first clip of the removed board.

🤣🤣😂😂

simple

Prime example of how simple doesn't always mean easy.

@@cavemaneca well from a soldering perspective it really is simple and actually quite easy if you have some experience. normally there are tons of tiny parts beneath the bigger chips, the steam deck is actually really well designed for such tasks.

@@cavemaneca simple and easy are both relative.

Performance would not change if it's the same speeds.

​@@BlackUdon Out of curiosity, does the steamdeck not use any kind of page file? Because if it does, this kind of upgrade would definitely improve performance in situations where a lot of applications are open simultaneously, if only because it reduces the need and use of a page file. If the deck doesn't use a page file, then you're correct there would be no significant performance change.

​@@ixamraxiIf it's windows of course it has a page file. As for linux there's the swap partition. With this mod you could actually just get rid of it.

@@MiGujack3 That's what I suspected. In which case performance would definitely be better in operating systems like windows or linux running on the deck, but perhaps minimal benefit for the original steam deck OS..

Going from 16 to 32 gb, in a modern gaming setting, you will see small yet significant improvement. It will vary game to game, but for the most part you’re not actually increasing the frame rate, you’re increasing the consistency of the upper percentile of frames… which will increase the frame rate. But not that way.. ya know? I’ve tried 16gb, 32gb, 64gb, and 128gb while gaming using a 13900K. Sure, you can do it on a steam deck, but should you? No. Especially considering this is not a multitasking device. Unless you’re a Linux weirdo and using this as some impromptu desktop solution

It's not difficult to understand. More memory means more wiggle room for games = potentially less stutter. As you gain VRAM there's less need to shift resources as they have the space to just stay. If you use Windows that means less reason to use memory compression which means you don't lose CPU cycles on it = more performance. Extra memory helps emulators a lot. You could also run more applications if you use the Deck as a Desktop.

@@MiGujack3 oh, no shit! And sure theory Always does 100% correlate to reality in practice, right???? Ofc I know the plausible benefits to be gained from the mod, but there remain many factors that may still affect performance and make this not worth it performance wise. The best way to say for sure is to test it in real scenarios and see how it goes.

For sure, Vista looked really good. I still use my collection of Longhorn wallpapers after all these years too.😊

Yep you’re right, I pasted the wrong part number. I’ll update that.

@@dosdude1 You rock! This is awesome and absolutely inspired me to try this on my own. Thank you!

Yes the bios is reflashed from time to time!

The proper way would be to know how make the bios mods themselves. I know by experience it's not that difficult but you have to be very careful. Constantly flashing a custom bios based on an old build is not a good idea.

this doesnt require good soldering skills.. did you watch the video? heat to remove them, place new ones, reheat to seat them. this is a simple mod as OP stated.

spoken like someone who has never replaced a BGA chip ​@@XxAtomic646xX

​@@XxAtomic646xX If you think this is simple, you have no idea what you're talking about. It's simple for someone with experience yes. Not for new ppl at all.

The work space at the start tells me I don't think cleaning up is on the agenda, but the flux left on the board was also not a good look.

Good luck cleaning the flux out from under the BGA... 95% of people don't.

I'm untidy but even I clean flux off a soldered board.

yeah, but benefit of the doubt, maybe he cleaned it off camera?

@@MrBradleyykidd I'd normally agree, but the flux was apparent when the deck was partially reassembled.

I'd imagine any game where you fast travel between the same places a lot, or otherwise need to load/unload/reload the same assets a lot will benefit hugely from keeping them in the RAM cache, especially if running the game off an SD card. It should also help speed up switching between game and desktop mode.

same

Winaero. It's a a comprehensive windows modifier and has the aero options, as well as windows 8. I use it to tweak windows overall. Disable telemetry, disable edge, updates, etc.

@@bubbablake3983 winearo only enbales the aero basic theme and has a lot of advanced system options that not everyone needs to be playing with.

Start11

I plan on it soon!

Great to hear. And tnx to you i got my gtx 1060 running on Sierra on a Mac pro 3.1 with web drivers, just last week@@dosdude1

so your patcher still serves as purpose :D@@dosdude1

In most, if not all, instances, any RAM issues are apparent immediately.

*Memtest86 for 24hrs* 👍

Always run a memory test in these cases

If theres no shortage caused by that bad solder, theres a chance you can reball the gpu and solder it right back on

@@HydraInk you can not reball the GPU core to the GPU substrate, you can only reball between the substrate and the main board. PS3, XBOX, ATI, etc. GPUs failed in the late 2000's because of these internal balls failing. You can only replace the GPU.

English pls

It would be good if you tried it with SteamOS to see the performance in games, as tests to see if the increase in ram serves as an improvement when we are using its own software.@@nekominorinya2569

@nekominorinya2569 It will be nice if you test it with SteamOS to see the performance in gaming, like tests to see if the RAM upgrade actually helps when we are using the stock os

@@nekominorinya2569 - just fucking use google translate. the internet is not supposed to be in English only.

I would say the same, though there are edge cases, such as playing primarily games that won't work on windows. The games on the deskop here however should work on linux. Only teamviewer can be problematic, while it does work on linux, it does not work in a flatpak and is incompatible with sandboxing.

As far as I know AMD APU"s have a limit of 2GB Vram for the apu. This would give you 30GB system RAM and 2GB RAM available for the GPU.

ru-vid.comg88ZjosCfKg

​​@@MichaelmaertzdorfI once allocated 8GB of ram to a Vega 11, it can be done by modifying bios settings

The VRAM usage is dynamic

@@David-eg6sd it's a fixed value in the bios.

That's the magic of flux.

Haha yeah Vista is by far the nicest-looking version of Windows. 7 is a close second, which is all I use in the rare instance I need to use Windows for something.