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Nvidia responds to GTX 970 memory issue

W

wazoo

Member
TheExorzist said:
As if the 980 with 500 MB more/better RAM is more future proof then the 970. I think that at the point the 970 hits it's limits, the 980 will do as well or soon after. So yeah, I'd say you should still stick with the 970.

Not that I am to be misunderstood. The move Nvidia pulled is shitty.
Click to expand...

Exactly. People have to run stressing 4K benchmarks to see a notable difference, forgetting that at that resolution, both cards have 10 digits framerate, both of them.
 
J

Jarmel

Banned
opticalmace said:
PCPer has the first update with info from nvidia: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-Discloses-Full-Memory-Structure-and-Limitations-GTX-970

Apparently Nvidia "accidentally" mislabeled the 970 as having the same number of ROPs and L2 cache as the 980 in all the review material they sent out to tech sites. Funny how they only just noticed it, several months later, when under scrutiny...

They confirm the last 500MB is 1/7th the speed of the first 3.5GB also. Expect detailed benchmarks this week sometime.
Click to expand...

That's a lawsuit right there.
 
F

Faith

Member
I would like to get a refund for my 2 970s but the problem is: what's the alternative right now? AMD? Bad crossfire support. 2 980s? Way too expensive.
 
W

Wereroku

Member
Faith said:
I would like to get a refund for my 2 970s but the problem is: what's the alternative right now? AMD? Bad crossfire support. 2 980s? Way too expensive.
Click to expand...

You could try to contact them and see if you could get some compensation for being lied to. Otherwise no the 970's are still awesome cards and worth the price. Also I don't believe a word about this being an accident. I kind of hope they are sued and someone does discovery on their emails.
 
P

Pafnucy

Member
I'm keeping the card, it's as good as it was a month ago. But I want a free game or something for being lied to, nvidia.
 
S

SpotAnime

Member
Zane said:
You mean when games require more than 4GB of VRAM? Well by then, every card currently on the market will be hosed and you'll have to upgrade anyway.
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No I'm talking about when more games push toward that 4GB VRAM requirement, but not over. What about the day when more AAA games have a 4GB requirement? It's for Ultra now but could be commonplace for recommended settings in the not-so-distant future, certainly within the theoretical and acceptable lifespan of the 970.

Dreams-Visions said:
In short, 970 owners will be relying on Nvidia-provided circus tricks to keep any games that hit between 3.5GB and 4GB of ram from falling deep into the performance shitter.

The good thing is that few games run into RAM requirements this high @ 4K right now. and even less so @ 1080/1200p. This time next year, it may be a problem.
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
L

LilJoka

Member
Dreams-Visions said:
In short, 970 owners will be relying on Nvidia-provided circus tricks to keep any games that hit between 3.5GB and 4GB of ram from falling deep into the performance shitter.
Click to expand...

This was/is my worry.

Although today 1080p games are not hitting 4gb, they can get pretty close while still getting 40-60fps. So in the future it could be worse plus the loss of optimisation from nvidias side.

It definatly shortens the expected life span compared to if this wasn't the case.
 
T

themadcowtipper

Smells faintly of rancid stilton.
Wereroku said:
You could try to contact them and see if you could get some compensation for being lied to. Otherwise no the 970's are still awesome cards and worth the price. Also I don't believe a word about this being an accident. I kind of hope they are sued and someone does discovery on their emails.
Click to expand...

Sure maybe the will give him the cost of the 1.5 vram.........
 
F

Faith

Member
Dreams-Visions said:
In short, 970 owners will be relying on Nvidia-provided circus tricks to keep any games that hit between 3.5GB and 4GB of ram from falling deep into the performance shitter.
Click to expand...
Is that really the case? I tested Star Citizen and look:

scgir34.png
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Nothing out of the ordinary?
 
L

LilJoka

Member
Faith said:
Is that really the case? I tested Star Citizen and look:



Nothing out of the ordinary?
Click to expand...

Looks very good.
But how much is that down to drivers?

At some point nvidia will shift focus to the next series. Then they may spend less time optimising for the 970.
 
F

FunkyMunkey

Banned
opticalmace said:
PCPer has the first update with info from nvidia: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-Discloses-Full-Memory-Structure-and-Limitations-GTX-970

Apparently Nvidia "accidentally" mislabeled the 970 as having the same number of ROPs and L2 cache as the 980 in all the review material they sent out to tech sites. Funny how they only just noticed it, several months later, when under scrutiny...

They confirm the last 500MB is 1/7th the speed of the first 3.5GB also. Expect detailed benchmarks this week sometime.
Click to expand...

BULLSHIT, Nvidia. I hope there's a lawsuit coming if they don't want to somehow compensate people for false-advertisement and purposely misleading consumers.

jimmypop said:
The "false advertising" and "lawsuit" crews are, well, ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Yeah, shame we don't live in a world with consumer-protection laws that state corporations must be honest and forth-coming about specifications and details of things they sell. The 1080p 50" tv I ordered off Amazon was actually 720p 42" and there's nothing I can do about it! /shrug
 
J

jrcbandit

Member
Vamphuntr said:
Next time I buy something for 350$+ I'll automatically assume the company is lying to me because I'm cheap.
Click to expand...

Exactly, being cheap on a gaming video card means going for the $100-150 price range.. Something $340+ should excel in performance, especially running 2. I could have gotten a 980 but SLI 970 is much faster and would have been future proof except we were lied to.
 
THE:MILKMAN

THE:MILKMAN

Member
jimmypop said:
The "false advertising" and "lawsuit" crews are, well, ridiculous.
Click to expand...

You may be right, but I posted yesterday that in the EU they are very strict and gave the Fiesta ST power output (which is a non issue in reality) as an example.

Might turn out for GPUs the rules are different but as I understand this "issue" with the 970, it looks more blatant than the above.
 
0

0.1.1.2.3.5.8.13.21.34.55

Banned
Can't say I'm particularly happy that my 970 sli setup lacks 1/2 a gig a vram. At the moment i've just been using the cards to downsampled dated games @ 60fps (Crysis 1, Deus Ex HR, Max Payne 3, Witcher 2), which have modest vram requirements compared to newer games like Shadow of Mordor.

In the not to distant future, when games with huge vram requirements hit the market... this is going to become a real problem, especially for those of us hoping to downsample or push games at resolutions beyond 1080.

If I had known this, I would have thrown the extra bills towards 980's... We shall see how the Witcher 3 performs on these gpus. They may be listed in the for sale thread come May. However, for the time being, these things are beasts.
 
S

solarus

Member
So would it be possible to request a refund from scan? Idc what y'all say, nvidia lied and this is not the product I thought I bought specs wise, I didn't buy this knowing 500mb of the memory was slow garbage. The 4GB of GDDR5 was a big selling point for me and I was hoping it would last me a long time, next gen games can already eat up 3.5gb+ vram and nvidia was deceptive, fact.
 
T

tuxfool

Banned
In case anyone is interested, here is AnandTech's Analysis. As far as I know it goes into the most detail on the subject.

It also turns out some of the quoted specs of the card (such as L2 cache and ROPS) were incorrect. It also was intentional, but the marketing team was misinformed about some features.
 
L

LilJoka

Member
solarus said:
So would it be possible to request a refund from scan? Idc what y'all say, nvidia lied and this is not the product I thought I bought specs wise, I didn't buy this knowing 500mb of the memory was slow garbage. The 4GB of GDDR5 was a big selling point for me and I was hoping it would last me a long time, next gen games can already eat up 3.5gb+ vram and nvidia was deceptive, fact.
Click to expand...

Call scan and tell them about it and request a refund under the goods and sales act with section regarding false advertisement. That is the only way I see you getting a refund. Let me know how it goes.
 
R

Ryne

Member
Might step up my FTW+ to a 980. Only bought it last week, so I do have a few months to decide.

This news is a bit unfortunate.
 
R

Rafterman

Banned
Naked Snake said:
I didn't reply to this from yesterday, so here goes. Your cry for "conspiracy theories" is unfounded (at least in reference to my post which you were replying to); when I said more data will surface I was not implying that the data will necessarily or even likely show the issue to be a big deal*. I'm fully aware and have maintained that it can go either way, which is why I haven't made a judgement on the matter either way and have been asking people to wait.

But if I were a betting man (which I'm not), I'd say it's not looking good for Nvidia right now. Time will tell. All we need is thorough tests and benchmarks showing frametimes comparing 970 and 980 in multiple games and under specific conditions to determine how much and what kind of an impact this issue has on performance in current games. Which is exactly what I was referring to when I said "data will undoubtedly surface very soon" (based on the amount of attention this has gotten, hardware sites and enthusiasts will be eager to beat each other to the punch in presenting said tests). Unfortunately I don't think it will be possible to definitively tell how it will affect future games though, until those games are released and tested.

*At the end of the day it being a big deal or not is entirely, and rightfully so, subjective. People have the right to be pissed about Nvidia not being transparent about this, even if its real-world effect turns out to be minimal.
Click to expand...

What about the whole part where the people who were being level headed were paid Nvidia plants? Or your latest hit:

This post will rile up the corporate apologists/undercover marketers
Click to expand...

GTFO here with that nonsense. Just because some of us aren't all "the sky is falling" doesn't make us paid plants.

Here's quotes from the Hardware sites that are saying what many of us said, while it's bullshit that Nvidia wasn't more upfront it's not nearly the big deal many of you guys are making it out to be. I guess they are paid shills also?

For those of you that read this and remain affronted by NVIDIA calling the GeForce GTX 970 a 4GB card without equivocation: I get it. But I also respectfully disagree. Should NVIDIA have been more upfront about the changes this GPU brought compared to the GTX 980? Absolutely and emphatically. But does this change the stance or position of the GTX 970 in the world of discrete PC graphics? I don’t think it does.
Click to expand...

But so far with this new information we have been unable to break the GTX 970, which means NVIDIA is likely on the right track and the GTX 970 should still be considered as great a card now as it was at launch. In which case what has ultimately changed today is not the GTX 970, but rather our perception of it
Click to expand...
 
N

Naked Snake

Member
Man, the shitstorm going on at Nvidia's forums right now, yikes.

Rafterman said:
What about the whole part where the people who were being level headed were paid Nvidia plants? Or your latest hit:



GTFO here with that nonsense. Just because some of us aren't all "the sky is falling" doesn't make us paid plants.

Here's quotes from the Hardware sites that are saying what many of us said, while it's bullshit that Nvidia wasn't more upfront it's not nearly the big deal many of you guys are making it out to be. I guess they are paid shills also?
Click to expand...

Opinions man, how do they work.
 
V

Vamphuntr

Member
Is the bios in the card wrong too? On the nvidia forums people are claiming GPUZ still shows the advertised specs while they are obviously wrong now.
 
B

Bricky

Member
jimmypop said:
Sure, whatever. Such a concentration of attorneys on GAF!
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Nvidia might very well be in trouble. Not sure about the US, but Europe has excellent consumer-protection laws.

Misleading actions

A practice is misleading if it contains false or untrue information or is likely to deceive the average consumer, even though the information given may be correct, and is likely to cause him to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise. Examples of such actions include false or deceiving information on:

  • the main characteristics of the product (its availability, benefits, risks, composition, geographical origin, results to be expected from its use, etc.)
Click to expand...

You expect a full, equal-bandwith 4GB card as a consumer when you see a 970 advertised to have that amount of VRAM. Reviews and the likes gave the same impression (because they were apparently supplied with wrong information) and as far as I'm aware there was no way to know about this before users discovered the problem themselves. Europe doesn't fool around when it comes to cases like this, and there is no reason they'd make an exception here.

While I personally don't consider the VRAM issue itself that big a deal, wrong specifications are and the law is the law.
 
cyberheater

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
S

Salaadin

Member
Some guy on the forums is claiming that nvidia support alluded to some kind of compensation for this.

Probably a free game. Tbh, I don't want a free game. I want the gtx 970 I bought 4 months ago.
 
R

rav

Member
Well, from the AnandTech article it seems like they're at least prioritizing the 3.5GB of faster memory access for things like the framebuffer and even after it's over 3.5GB the most recently used textures and things.
And hell the framebuffer in 4k is only 33.2MB. Maybe things aren't as drastic as I'm feeling right now. I'd be interested in seeing an option to turn off the last 1/2 gig in the driver. But I guess it'd just swap to system ram at that point and be slower anyways.

I'm not happy, but I'm not pissed either.
 
U

Unknown Soldier

Member
Salaadin said:
Some guy on the forums is claiming that nvidia support alluded to some kind of compensation for this.

Probably a free game. Tbh, I don't want a free game. I want the gtx 970 I bought 4 months ago.
Click to expand...

So you bought a card 4 months ago, you're happy with it, and it has been performing in line with your expectations, but suddenly now it isn't?
 
M

Maintenance

Member
Thank god I waited for the 8gb version.

Watch that have only 7 or 7.5gb available.

And for christ's sake people, this isn't unreasonable bitching. The card is stuttering, not working as intended because of that last 0.5gb.

At least is what I think I understood reading the thread.
 
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