Support NeoGAF

[Unknown Soldier]

I'll contact ASUS support tomorrow. Just double checked online and the card is registered properly with its serial to my account. Hopefully they will be helpful.

I feel disappointed a lot. You can argue all you want the card is still fantabulous but it still not what they advertised. If it's a 4 GB card it should be able to use all 4 GB at full speed and not only 3.5 GB. It doesn't help that GPUZ also displays the wrong info. Feels really shady and more than an honest mistake.

I don't agree with Nvidia apparently hiding the segmented memory from the public.

That being said, they did something like this with the 660 and 660 Ti and the thing still worked fine. I guess we'll see when people study the benchmarks more carefully but in the end I only paid $298 for my Zotac 970 and for me the thing was only a stopgap between my old 680 and a card that can deliver consistent 60 fps performance in 4K resolution so I'm not going to lose sleep over this.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Here come the AMD fanATIcs to shit up the thread. How about we keep this thread about the 970 instead of the 290(X).

I'm not necessarily disagree but as a pretty loyal Invidia guy, I must say that the snobbery from that site is worse than most of the stuff I've noticed from AMD folks. But who the hell cares about that junk lol

 

[XBP]

So 30fps + is now unplayable and at 4k you need a nvidia compatible monitor . . .

Sure ok, but I'm still not getting a 3.5 gig card initially sold as a 4 gig card that early trades with a cheaper card with actually 4gigs of video memory, not just 4gigs pr.

For me? Yes. I cant stand the screen tearing and judder that would bring. So unless you lock the frame rate to 30, I would rather get a freesync/gsync monitor than play at those frame rates.

 

[Nakazato]

So realisticly is it worth my hard earned money to buy one. I'm about to move from 270 to this and will only be playing in 1080p

 

[LiquidMetal14]

So realisticly is it worth my hard earned money to buy one. I'm about to move from 270 to this and will only be playing in 1080p

Yes.

 

[Quadraphonic]

So realisticly is it worth my hard earned money to buy one. I'm about to move from 270 to this and will only be playing in 1080p

Do you plan on keeping it around a while?

The core problem is that as soon as anything uses more than 3.5GB of VRAM, the card basically goes to shit. This was known day 1 and Nvidia lied to you and everyone.

If you keep it under that limit, you'll be fine, but no one knows about the requirements in the years to come and how fast that limit will be hit.

Imagine it like a pantry. 87% of the pantry is fine, but the entire thing will collapse if you ever put a soup can on this one shelf. Are you fine remembering that limit and keeping an eye on it? Or would you rather spend $300 on a product that lets you fill it up to the advertised space?

 

[Salaadin]

Imagine it like a panty.

You're into some weird shit

 

[Nakazato]

Do you plan on keeping it around a while?

The core problem is that as soon as anything uses more than 3.5GB of VRAM, the card basically goes to shit. This was known day 1 and Nvidia lied to you and everyone.

If you keep it under that limit, you'll be fine, but no one knows about the requirements in the years to come and how fast that limit will be hit.

Imagine it like a panty. 87% of the pantry is fine, but the entire thing will collapse if you ever put a soup can on this one shelf. Are you fine remembering that limit and keeping an eye on it? Or would you rather spend $300 on a product that lets you fill it up to the advertised space?

Good point I just might be the money to the side. For 980 or wait till next year when I need a total overhaul

 

[XBP]

Do you plan on keeping it around a while?

The core problem is that as soon as anything uses more than 3.5GB of VRAM, the card basically goes to shit. This was known day 1 and Nvidia lied to you and everyone.

If you keep it under that limit, you'll be fine, but no one knows about the requirements in the years to come and how fast that limit will be hit.

Imagine it like a panty. 87% of the pantry is fine, but the entire thing will collapse if you ever put a soup can on this one shelf. Are you fine remembering that limit and keeping an eye on it? Or would you rather spend $300 on a product that lets you fill it up to the advertised space?

It doesn't go to shit though. Yes the performance is affected but lets not exaggerate whats happening.

 

[Quadraphonic]

The plus side to this is after this fallout the card could get discounted pretty quickly since there is a design flaw. So buying now, regardless of if you want to get it or not, is a fool's errand.

 

[rav]

Good point I just might be the money to the side. For 980 or wait till next year when I need a total overhaul

I got an EVGA card, so I emailed them about stepping up to a 980, but will sit tight for a bit until I hear more about it from NVidia.

 

[Puppet Shadow]

The plus side to this is after this fallout the card could get discounted pretty quickly since there is a design flaw. So buying now, regardless of if you want to get it or not, is a fool's errand.

I'm looking to pick up a new card around April for GTA V, and will probably grab a 970 if it goes down in price a bit. I only play at 1080p, so I'm not too concerned with this issue, but man... I hope nvidia gets raked over the coals for this deception.

 

[Trogdor1123]

I assume that Nvidia is going to offer some kind of "return" option for people right?

That would just make sense though...

 

[Mad Season]

so I'm in a shopping pickle.

I have a sapphire 3GB 7950. Do I get the 970 as my next card or the 980? Hardcore gamer FPS etc but I game 1920x1080 (1080p)

help!

 

[Allnamestakenlol]

Wonder if the visible effects of this issue can be mitigated by a gsync monitor. I have one being delivered tomorrow (4k res, no less, to use w/ 970 sli), so I guess I'll find out.

Edit: Nvm, realized I only have about 4 days left to return my 970s. Returning them in the morning. A pair of 980s should be on the way. Bleh, feel like I'm rewarding nvidia for this crap.

 

[Sax Russel]

It doesn't go to shit though. Yes the performance is affected but lets not exaggerate whats happening.

But, come on bro, then we wouldn't have a thread! Sheesh.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

I assume that Nvidia is going to offer some kind of "return" option for people right?

That would just make sense though...

I doubt it unless there is a giant backlash, which there isn't yet.

 

[bootski]

so I'm in a shopping pickle.

I have a sapphire 3GB 7950. Do I get the 970 as my next card or the 980? Hardcore gamer FPS etc but I game 1920x1080 (1080p)

help!

if money isn't an issue, the 980, no question. more cores, higher clock speed, more effective ram and bandwidth.

 

[rav]

so I'm in a shopping pickle.

I have a sapphire 3GB 7950. Do I get the 970 as my next card or the 980? Hardcore gamer FPS etc but I game 1920x1080 (1080p)

help!

If I didn't also just buy a 4k monitor I wouldn't be planning to get a 980 now. I'd wait a week to see what's going on from Nvidia. I'd be concerned as more and more higher resolution textures would still push you over the limit even in 1080p.

At the most the dust should settle in a couple weeks.

if money isn't an issue, the 980, no question. more cores, higher clock speed, more effective ram and bandwidth.

Agree.

 

[opticalmace]

so I'm in a shopping pickle.

I have a sapphire 3GB 7950. Do I get the 970 as my next card or the 980? Hardcore gamer FPS etc but I game 1920x1080 (1080p)

help!

How soon are you buying? Personally I am waiting to see what the new AMD cards are like (I currently have a 6950), but both Nvidia cards are really good. Here in Canada the 980s are super overpriced, so I would lean toward the 970, but I would wait for more info about the effect of the memory thing first.

 

[jimmypop]

It really depends how bad it gets, how nVidia continues to respond and the markets assessment and reaction to it.

Remember. IBM once had a relatively healthy hard drive division and one product with a high failure rate essentially put it under and they sold up to Hitachi. Just saying...

I'm going to guess you haven't looked at NVidia's financials lately. They'll be OK. Trust me.

 

[Bricky]

So at this point, The take away I am getting is the following. Nvidia lied about the cards being 4GB they are actually 3.5GB with a shitty over flow of 500MB. When it hits the 500MB of overflow, The game running becomes a slide show for a few seconds? And if you want a Nvidia card with true 4GB buy the GTX 980? If so these has made my purchase in the next 2 weeks a simple one.

No, if that or any other easily noticable performance issue was there all of this would've come to light much earlier.

if money isn't an issue, the 980, no question. more cores, higher clock speed, more effective ram and bandwidth.

While this is the obvious choice when money is no issue, there is no reason to start recommending an 980 over the 970 for gaming at 1080p even after this entire shitstorm.

The 980 has become better value relatively since we now know you're getting a bandwith/VRAM upgrade too, but the 'Fast 3.5GB + Slow 0.5GB' GTX 970 remains a great price/performance card. Perhaps not quite as great or future-proof as previously implied, but still a good buy.

It would be smart to wait a bit for the dust to settle before making a decision if you're looking for a new card because this story isn't over yet (prices might even drop slightly because of this entire ordeal), but to quote the pcper and AnandTech articles:

The performance of the GTX 970 is what the performance is. This information is incredibly interesting and warrants some debate, but at the end of the day, my recommendations for the GTX 970 really won’t change at all.

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.

 

[cheezcake]

The misleading hardware specs (ROPs and L2 Cache) are pretty solid grounds for legal action, at least under Australian Consumer Law. Wonder how NVIDIA will try pacify the angrier of the 970 owners.

 

[Mad Season]

How soon are you buying? Personally I am waiting to see what the new AMD cards are like (I currently have a 6950), but both Nvidia cards are really good. Here in Canada the 980s are super overpriced, so I would lean toward the 970, but I would wait for more info about the effect of the memory thing first.

Most likely end of February timeframe

 

[bootski]

Most likely end of February timeframe

oh then you're good to sit and wait. by then i'm sure it'll be a less muddy picture.

While this is the obvious choice when money is no issue, there is no reason to start recommending an 980 over the 970 for gaming at 1080p even after this entire shitstorm.

The 980 has become better value relatively since we now know you're getting a bandwith/VRAM upgrade too, but the 'Fast 3.5GB + Slow 0.5GB' GTX 970 remains a great price/performance card. Perhaps not quite as great or future-proof as previously implied, but still a good buy.

both the 2 high performing games i tested personally would see a solid benefit to the 980 over 970 in 1080p (Shadow of Mordor and Far Cry 4). there's evidence that quite a few others would see non trivial increases @ 1080p as well in COD:AW, AC:Unity, Star Citizen was mentioned; pretty much anything that can crank up the mem usage. Assuming Mad Season is in the US, the price difference is a lot less hefty than it is in Canada (250CDN upgrade from the MSI 4g 970($420) to 980($670)). there's also good reason to believe that even though the 970 is performing well now, a key flaw has been exposed so early in it's life and is only going to get more glaring as more games are released that push the limit on textures and VRAM usage. price/performance, the 970 is the way to go but for just that extra ~200 you're getting a beast of a card that's good for at least a couple years in the 980, for ~500USD.

 

[Applecot]

The misleading hardware specs (ROPs and L2 Cache) are pretty solid grounds for legal action, at least under Australian Consumer Law.

I think you'll find its alot more grey than that. Keep in mind that the breaches would need to be dealt under civil law; and any legal breach would need to fulfill several criteria for damages to be determined (Much like negligence, etc). Knowledge of the changed specs doesn't inherently introduce a fault in the product as it doesn't actually raise any issues with the products ability to perform to expectations.

ie: It still performs as well as you would expect from media benchmarks; therefore there is a less strong case under the ACL. I would argue at best you would get an apology from NVIDIA regarding incorrect specs. Fine would depend on whether you could prove that NVIDIA was intentionally misleading.

Allowing consumer refunds may be possible but I personally would doubt it. Again the performance of the card has not changed. Merely our perception of the card.

Honestly anyone whinging about how it stutters at 4K Shadow of Mordor of something has grossly overestimated how good this card would be with 4gb of full speed VRAM.

 

[Rafterman]

I'll contact ASUS support tomorrow. Just double checked online and the card is registered properly with its serial to my account. Hopefully they will be helpful.

I feel disappointed a lot. You can argue all you want the card is still fantabulous but it still not what they advertised. If it's a 4 GB card it should be able to use all 4 GB at full speed and not only 3.5 GB. It doesn't help that GPUZ also displays the wrong info. Feels really shady and more than an honest mistake.

With this I agree. My contention is that that a lot of people are acting like the 970 is now junk or still won't be a good card this time next year, which I absolutely don't believe.

I have an EVGA 970 SC, it's two months old, but it's not eligible for a Step Up. I just posted on their site that all 970's should be eligible due to this issue, which I think is more than fair. At the end of the day I still think the 970 is the best card out there for the price, but people were absolutely lied to and something as small as a paid upgrade isn't out of the question should they choose to do so.

I don't support full refunds or any other extreme measure, but extending the Step Up shouldn't be too big a deal for them. What other brands should do I really don't know.

 

[Applecot]

Imagine it like a pantry. 87% of the pantry is fine, but the entire thing will collapse if you ever put a soup can on this one shelf. Are you fine remembering that limit and keeping an eye on it?

Worst and most hyperbolic analogy ever. The GPU doesn't fail / crash once it hits 3.5+GB. It merely has some performance issues. It's not like people have to adjust how they 'run their GPU' based on this knowledge. The control of the VRAM allocation is entirely driver based anyway.

It's more like a pantry that has one really high shelf that can be used, but is seriously problematic to use. Most tech sites seem to agree at this point that it could cause problems in performance, but very edge case scenarios since it would be limited by the performance of the processing units (eg shaders) anyway.

 

[Spineker]

This is class action territory, yes? So why is nobody considering it?

Nvidia put 4GB in big letters on the front of the fucking box. That is not what we got.

 

[Rafterman]

This is class action territory, yes? So why is nobody considering it?

Nvidia put 4GB in big letters on the front of the fucking box. That is not what we got.

That's exactly what you got. There are arguments to be made, but this isn't one of them.

 

[Fularu]

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?

He bought a 4GB card, not a 3.5 GB card which will drop to a crawl whenever he goes beyond that. so no, the card he bought isn't the card that was advertised.

Maybe you should stop cheerleading for Nvidia in every single GPU thread for a change.

 

[ZOONAMI]

The biggest piece that people seem to be ignoring is that my gtx 970 is effectively a hardware limited 3.5gb card. It will not go above approx. 3.5GB of usage at 1440p, ultra settings. A gtx 980 in the exact same scenario uses all 4gb. My guess would be that if the 970 was using all 4gb like it should be, its frame rates would only be slightly below (1-5 frames) the gtx 980, instead of 5-20 frames slower.

They have manufactured a gimped card, which was clear from the beginning, but they were deceptive about how exactly they were gimping it. It would have been a better move to just release it as 3.5GB card.

 

[Dryk]

That's exactly what you got. There are arguments to be made, but this isn't one of them.

It's not exactly the same as a 3.5Gb card, but there's a case to be made that it's a lot closer to a 3.5Gb card than a 4Gb card. I'd be willing to bet that you might be able to get one of the EC or the ACCC to let this slide, but not both of them. The ACCC in particular is not amused by "Well it's technically correct" type arguments because Aussie consumer law gives them a lot of ability to use discretion.

 

[pestul]

Now I just realized that I never registered my zotac 970 because it didn't work online with the serial #. Had to prove it to some zotac rep.. didnt bother. I should probably do that tomorrow in case something is offered. :s

 

[Unknown Soldier]

He bought a 4GB card, not a 3.5 GB card which will drop to a crawl whenever he goes beyond that. so no, the card he bought isn't the card that was advertised.

Maybe you should stop cheerleading for Nvidia in every single GPU thread for a change.

Yeah OK. Where's the proof that the card 'slows to a crawl' when it goes beyond 3.5GB? Where's your evidence? You don't even own a 970, do you? If you do, go and find some instances in real-world usage where it 'slows to a crawl' when it's using between 3.5GB and 4GB of VRAM and report back with your findings.

 

[Fularu]

Yeah OK. Where's the proof that the card 'slows to a crawl' when it goes beyond 3.5GB? Where's your evidence? You don't even own a 970, do you? If you do, go and find some instances in real-world usage where it 'slows to a crawl' when it's using between 3.5GB and 4GB of VRAM and report back with your findings.

I do

Now that this is cleared. Am I allowed to be unhappy Nvidia lied to us or should I lick their balls as thoroughly as possible while thanking them as you've been telling us to?

A memory pool that's 1/8th of the other pool's speed will drop your performance to a crawl if you have to use it. Losing 15-20 FPS because of it IS a crawl.

 

[bootski]

I do



Now that this is cleared. Am I allowed to be unhappy Nvidia lied to us or should I lick their balls as thoroughly as possible while thanking them as you've been telling us to?

A memory pool that's 1/8th of the other pool's speed will drop your performance to a crawl if you have to use it. Losing 15-20 FPS because of it IS a crawl.

straight up nonsense. it doesn't do anything like this. there's been a lot of posts in the other thread, including a few from myself that address what does happen, but a 15-20 fps drop is not anywhere close unless you're cranking up settings to make it cross the line, which i had to do with fc4. here is the latest test i did from shadow of mordor crossing the line into the .5GiB partition. yes, there is a performance issue that arises but let's be honest about what it is and not resort to unfounded hyperbole.

 

[mephixto]

So at this point, The take away I am getting is the following. Nvidia lied about the cards being 4GB they are actually 3.5GB with a shitty over flow of 500MB. When it hits the 500MB of overflow, The game running becomes a slide show for a few seconds? And if you want a Nvidia card with true 4GB buy the GTX 980? If so these has made my purchase in the next 2 weeks a simple one.

No. the perfomance just drops 3% compared with a 980 in similar scenario when trying to access those 500MB

 

[Objectively Bad Opinion]

straight up nonsense. it doesn't do anything like this. there's been a lot of posts in the other thread, including a few from myself that address what does happen, but a 15-20 fps drop is not anywhere close unless you're cranking up settings to make it cross the line, which i had to do with fc4. here is the latest test i did from shadow of mordor crossing the line into the .5GiB partition. yes, there is a performance issue that arises but let's be honest about what it is and not resort to unfounded hyperbole.

How come frametime spikes to 50ms (20FPS) but framerate stays at 60FPS (16.7ms)?

 

[Fularu]

straight up nonsense. it doesn't do anything like this. there's been a lot of posts in the other thread, including a few from myself that address what does happen, but a 15-20 fps drop is not anywhere close unless you're cranking up settings to make it cross the line, which i had to do with fc4. here is the latest test i did from shadow of mordor crossing the line into the .5GiB partition. yes, there is a performance issue that arises but let's be honest about what it is and not resort to unfounded hyperbole.

Your max memory usage is 50 megs over 3.5 gb (3626/1024). You're still mostly within the 3.5 GB limit.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

How about we keep this thread about the 970 instead of the 290(X).

Nice edit, and some nerve also. You're often the first to shit on the other GPU manufacturer at first opportunity.

 

[Fularu]

Nice edit, and some nerve also. You're often the first to shit on the other GPU manufacturer at first opportunity.

Dude, be quick, you have to prove you're a 970 owner! ;-)

 

[ugh_the_boot]

These cards are advertised at having 4gb DDR5, not 3.5gb of DDR5 and 500mb of DDR3 video ram. False advertising if ever i've seen it.

I've seen some pretty dumb lawsuits come out of america but heres hoping someone hit Nvidia up on this because it's pretty low and underhanded.

I have been looking at the 970 cards these past couple of weeks as the boost to performace vs price was pretty good, but I cannot in any way support companies who cheat their customers so this has pretty much solidified my decision - stick to PS4 gaming and keep using my PC for internet and Diablo 3.

Easy done!

 

[Rafterman]

It's not exactly the same as a 3.5Gb card, but there's a case to be made that it's a lot closer to a 3.5Gb card than a 4Gb card. I'd be willing to bet that you might be able to get one of the EC or the ACCC to let this slide, but not both of them. The ACCC in particular is not amused by "Well it's technically correct" type arguments because Aussie consumer law gives them a lot of ability to use discretion.

It's not about being "technically" anything. The card has 4gb of ram, and has access to all of it. It's 4gb card. Just because some of the ram is slower than the rest doesn't change that. Like I said, there are arguments to be made, but this isn't one of them.

I do
Now that this is cleared. Am I allowed to be unhappy Nvidia lied to us or should I lick their balls as thoroughly as possible while thanking them as you've been telling us to?

A memory pool that's 1/8th of the other pool's speed will drop your performance to a crawl if you have to use it. Losing 15-20 FPS because of it IS a crawl.

Be unhappy all you like, spreading FUD is another matter. Show me any benchmarks "dropping performance to a crawl" or losing 15-20 fps.

 

[Sax Russel]

Your max memory usage is 50 megs over 3.5 gb (3626/1024). You're still mostly within the 3.5 GB limit.

OK, so you don't believe his tests, like the ones he linked to where his memory usage goes much more into that last 500 megs and it doesn't "slow to a crawl" (now it's not going into the last 500 enough? *dead). You don't believe the various other tests people have done (like here, here, here, or here) or the conclusions from the tech sites today (lol bought off by nvidia amirite lolol), and everyone else that posts anything that isn't sufficiently negative and supporting the "slows to a crawl" bullshit is some corporate ball<verb>er.

Shitposts like that cloud the fact an actual issue does in fact exist. "Slows to a crawl". Hah. Give me a fucking break.

 

[Dryk]

It's not about being "technically" anything. The card has 4gb of ram, and has access to all of it. It's 4gb card. Just because some of the ram is slower than the rest doesn't change that. Like I said, there are arguments to be made, but this isn't one of them.

The way it's been presented has not given consumers any indication that these card's memory control systems perform any differently from any other card's. Nvidia didn't do their due diligence to inform consumers about that aspect of these cards and that sort of deception by omission usually doesn't fly here.

 

[IceIpor]

Sorry to chime in here.. But I think what people should be arguing or researching isn't if using the last 512 of ram causes the 970 to slow to a crawl or drop fps.. But whether stuttering becomes apparent at that point. Which does not show up on average FPS rates.

(Which was a major issue less than a year ago between Nvidia and AMD, if I recall correctly.)

 

[FunkyMunkey]

It's not about being "technically" anything. The card has 4gb of ram, and has access to all of it. It's 4gb card. Just because some of the ram is slower than the rest doesn't change that. Like I said, there are arguments to be made, but this isn't one of them.

It does not have access to it at the advertised speed. There could most definitely be an argument in court that the last 0.5GB being accessed at 1/8 speed does not make up for advertisement as if it's full speed. Nvidia going "well TECHNICALLY all 4GB is accessible" isn't going to mean shit when it's obvious that the card was marketed without consumers being aware of the handicap on the top 12.5%.

Sorry to chime in here.. But I think what people should be arguing or researching isn't if using the last 512 of ram causes the 970 to slow to a crawl or drop fps.. But whether stuttering becomes apparent at that point. Which does not show up on average FPS rates.

(Which was a major issue less than a year ago between Nvidia and AMD, if I recall correctly.)

People are just going to keep quoting the "3% difference" without understanding how averages work. It's been mentioned again and again. Then you have the people saying current games run fine so deal with it, the old benchmarks are still valid so deal with it, it can access 4GB technically so deal with, etc.

 

[potam]

Sorry to chime in here.. But I think what people should be arguing or researching isn't if using the last 512 of ram causes the 970 to slow to a crawl or drop fps.. But whether stuttering becomes apparent at that point. Which does not show up on average FPS rates.

(Which was a major issue less than a year ago between Nvidia and AMD, if I recall correctly.)

Yeah, everyone keeps referring back to the info Nvidia released, which ONLY shows average FPS. That's not the issue. The issue is stuttering when it's trying to access that last 500mb.

And I think what you're referring to is last year or the year before, one site started looking at frametimes in their reviews, and then everyone else started following suit and bringing a lot of pressure to AMD/Nvidia regarding microstuttering on SLI.

 

[daninthemix]

Can't speak for anyone else, but for me had this information been known, I wouldn't have purchased a 970. It's as simple as that.