SteamDeck upgrade to 32gb of ram

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If I'd try that, I'd end up with no RAM at all..

Can we go back to the good old days where our devices had openings for RAM and storage upgrades please?
Especially for things like this.
- Since when did small handheld devices have openings for RAM and storage upgrades?
  
  Laptops always used to. Even most of those don't any more.
  Apple are certainly the worst offender here (want 2TB storage in your iPad Pro, that'll be an extra £1250 please), but they're not alone.
- I just don't think most / any connectors are going to be compatible with modern ddr speeds. Even doing the layout on these smd pads takes a lot of work to make it right. You'd be taking a major speed downgrade which would limit your performance way more than this ram amount upgrade overcomes.
  Quick Edit: storage is another beast entirely where I agree with you completely. Looks like steam deck you can upgrade the ssd and it's at least way easier than this. Comparable to a laptop.
  
  Wouldn't be a speed downgrade for the steamdeck, for future generarions I would agree. I think thickness is the primary factor.
- I'd love a standardized tiny socket like the MMC modules or something alike. A DIMM socket would be far too large.
  Even though upgrading RAM in a steam deck wouldn't be that useful it increases the ability to repair it.
  
  Yeah, we'd need some sort of modular RAM size that's small. No idea why we have 2TB of lightning fast storage and it's the size of a postage stamp, but the RAM sticks are still more or less the same clunky sizes we had 30 years ago.
- Apple Silicon has entered the chat.
  "No."
- Sure, if you want your device to be half an inch thicker, and more expensive.
  
  Steam deck is already a brick, would anyone notice?
  
  The chips themselves are the most expensive parts usually, much more than a socket and additional daughterboard. And if they were all modular you can reuse those chips for other devices!
  Also, even back in the chunky early 2000s IBM Thinkpad days I never really minded the size or weight, that's just my own opinion though.

This is awesome, but beyond my skill level.

Impressive!

If that’s real that’s one hell of a feat to pull off
- I'm sure it is. People have done it with graphics cards. You basically drop 2GB modules in place of 1GB (or 4 instead of 2 or whatever).
  
  ah hell don't tell me this. this is my problem. i bought my current GPU without realising it doesn't have enough VRAM to drive ray tracing at 4K but it's fine for everything else at 4K.

Absolutely insane. I love it.

I hope phone screen fixing guys are shopping malls will start doing this kind of ram upgrades soon
- If they only replace screen there is a chance they will be able to do so, because modern iphone screens require a chip from the screen to be removed from the original and soldered in the new one.

We just got a BGA rework machine at work, and I could do this

52 comments