There are many ways to damage a graphics card, but it happens as severely as in this example only rarely. To repair the €750 RTX 5070 Ti nonetheless, a technician must be very creative.
What condition is the graphics card in? A broken RTX 5070 Ti graphics card arrived at a PC components workshop in Brazil. It can be purchased new in Germany starting at around €750, as a price comparison shows (via idealo). While most cards have rather minor, sometimes invisible issues, the damage on this specimen was hard to overlook. There was a large hole right in the middle of the card.
How the hole was created and how such a thing can even happen is unclear, but for technician Paulo Gomes, the graphics card presents a challenge. In his YouTube video, he documents the repair.
Frankenstein’s Graphics Card Monster Takes Shape
How did he repair the card? After the analysis, the technician quickly realized that a large part of the “Voltage Regulator Module (VRM)” is missing in the RTX 5070 Ti. This means that power no longer reaches the chip, and the card therefore does not work.
To solve the problem, the graphics card modder came up with the idea of using the VRM module from an old AMD Radeon RX 580 to direct power to the chip. His idea was to connect the two graphics cards with cables and thus bypass the damaged area.
Talked about and done, and after some tests and much trial and error, the construction of Frankenstein’s graphics card monster was actually successful. However, it wasn’t easy. Because the cards from AMD and Nvidia operate differently in their power management, the technician had to change a lot for the project to work.
How good is the solution? In the end, the graphics card displays an image and works again after the modification. However, since the solution relies on cables, it is likely not permanent. A small contact break or the accumulating heat from two graphics cards that are directly next to each other may render the makeshift solution ineffective.
It is also unclear how strong the RTX 5070 Ti really is with the VRM of the RX 580. The hardware modder did not conduct a benchmark and a proper stress test was also omitted. Hence, it would not be wise to use the card as a true solution for continuous operation. Nevertheless, it is astonishing that the project was successful.
The fact that a badly damaged graphics card could still be made operational with the help of a donor card shows how well the technician knows graphics cards. This undertaking would likely not have succeeded for everyone. Another reason for damaged graphics cards is too small cases, yet in this example, it worked: Player squeezes €2,700 graphics card into a much too small case, community astonished that this “madness” works
