buy some DDR RAM module with sufficiently fast and compatible memory chip

500 MHz at default (would probably need 4 ns chips)

Such modules does not exist. You can cannibalise some dead cards.

Xpertvision Geforce 4 MX440

Not worth it.

You're right, the fastest DDR SDRAM is 5 ns, which is 200 MHz (400 MHz effective). Maybe that could suffice.

Did you ever touch the heatsink?
Then you'll notice there is no headroom for overclock, at least not when passive cooled.

I'm not planning to overclock the GPU as it runs at full speed alresdy.Will the GPU get hotter when overclocking just memory? Even then to me the heatsink feels quite cool so I think there is a room for more juice. There is optional fan connector on the board but I would like to stay passive as this is the main reason why I got the card.

Oh yes, it will get hotter!

The Quadro NVS280, which is usually passive and technologically almost identical to GF 4/440, gets scorchingly hot even when system idles.

Paar wrote:

I'm not planning to overclock the GPU as it runs at full speed alresdy.Will the GPU get hotter when overclocking just memory? Even then to me the heatsink feels quite cool so I think there is a room for more juice. There is optional fan connector on the board but I would like to stay passive as this is the main reason why I got the card.

You could add a large heatsink, I use a Zalman VF-700 on my GeForce4 Ti. If ventilation inside the case is good there's a possibility you don't need to run the fan. Alternatively the fan on the VF-700 is very quiet if you use a speed reducer (basically a resistor on the Vcc line).

I will probably use 5 ns memory chips to boost memory to 400 MHz. I'll try to run it without any modification. If it overheats I'll try to use some bigger passive solution.

I will probably use 5 ns memory chips to boost memory to 400 MHz

DDR400 is mostly, if not all, is high density. So 8 chip equals 256mb or even 512mb. I doubt GeForce 4 MX can understand such high density chips.

retardware wrote:

Did you ever touch the heatsink?
Then you'll notice there is no headroom for overclock, at least not when passive cooled.

Not true. The MX460 came with a higher clock speed as stock. If the heatsink is very hot, then add a fan...

DDR400 is mostly, if not all, is high density. So 8 chip equals 256mb or even 512mb. I doubt GeForce 4 MX can understand such high density chips.

Right, chips used for system memory (DIMMs) tend to be larger and with narrower data bus than the ones intended to be used on video cards. The producers of cheap video cards with slow RAM tend to use these general purpose chips though, and that's how we end up with low end cards that have huge memory (like a GeForce 6200 with 512MB). BTW, GF4MX can go up to 128MB at least.

I'm interested in seeing somebody succeed at upgrading memory on a video card. (never tried it myself, since I have little experience soldering SMD parts to begin with)

I think the safest bet would be to find chips that match the ones already on the card, except with a higher speed grade. At least any manufacturer-specific properties of the chips should be compatible then. Another possibility would be to find a similar video card and see what chips it uses, and grab the BIOS from it as well.

FWIW, I have a GF4MX card with DDR-400 on it using these chips: Elpida DD2516AKTA-5C-E (I believe these are 16MB*16bit)

I have tried to find suitable memory module but have hard time to find 128MB 400MHz stick with 8 chips that are 16MBx16. There may be 256MB stick with 16 chips but haven't find those either. There are some suitable chips on eBay but it's 3 USD for one chip so it's not worthy price-wise.