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970's having performance issues using 4GB Vram - Nvidia investigating

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Legend said:
I agree... there's no point getting all het up about this just yet. I have a second 970 on pre-order and I'm not cancelling it... yet. If this DOES turn out to be a serious problem, I'll be able to return, but I'm hoping it can be fixed and I will be able to keep my cards. I really don't want this to snowball in to some massive RMA fiasco... no one benefits from that.
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No one ever complained about using a pair of 3gb GTX 780ti cards.

Even if it turns out the 970 can only use 3.5gb it should be acceptable in 99% of situations as these cards are not as fast as the 780ti at higher resolutions.:)
 
J.D said:
Hang tight, this might not be as bad as people think. It seems this thread or the story of this is what you have the sad face for. Imagine if this information wasn't out, you'd be happy with your cards.

Just wait for information to come out to clarify what is going on here but until then, enjoy your games like you did before you learned about this news ;).
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True. The only game I've ever had issue with was COD AW. And that was with my 7990. It plays perfectly on the 970's. As does every other game I own.
 
Kaapstad said:
Even if it turns out the 970 can only use 3.5gb it should be acceptable in 99% of situations...
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Completely irrelevant. Although you are correct that many games TODAY will not suffer, this will not always be the case, and it is inevitable (if these cards forever remain unable to fully utilise at least 12.5% of their RAM), that future games will suffer as a result. It would only be a matter of time before that happens.
 
Kaapstad said:
I have not run it as I don't own a GTX 970

Yes the community should investigate but not with the help of Furmark, I am sure there are better ways to do it than using a discredited piece of software.
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The test I used is a GPU memory test which granted uses Furmark but does not overheat the gpu core or whatever Furmark is primarily used for. The test fully loads the gpu memory and allows testing of any problems with overclocking or stability.

The 3072mb test is where the problem is hence why I am asking other people to test and post their findings. If gtx 970 owners have a stuttering or slow loading problem but others don't then it is something which can be of help.



Some background info to understand the testing better:

The standard memory usage in windows without this test is about 850mb on my gpu according to MSI afterburner. When Kombuster loads the 2048mb test there is no problem since the total memory usage is only 850mb +2048mb = 2898mb. This is not utilising the last 1gb of memory hence no issue.
Once the 3072mb test loads up it actually starts using the all the gpu memory which includes the upper 1gb where the bandwidth issue is according to the NAI gpu bandwidth test.
If any stuttering/freezing is happening it will be due to the low bandwith of this upper 1gb of memory area.
 
almighty15 said:
They use silly ass quality settings to try and mask the difference.

I would like to the settings run again with lower quality settings so that the cards aren't ALU bound.
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I agree with you if that is a legitimate quote from NV it seems like an almighty cop out to me but hey what do I know other than witnessing it with my release 970 on Shadow of Mordor. Get into a close up fight, none of this stealthing against a horde whilst on ultra at 1080p and watch the frame rate plummet into a stutter fest.
 
Look, man, people need to stop the panic.

So far you've got a heat virus (Kombustor) and a text based benchmark. I've seen posts where people say they have tested games and they are fine.

Unless you've got an actual issue using the things you use (like your games) then just relax and see what unfolds. If there's a recall then you'll be sorted any way.

I've also not seen enough data. People are not testing different drivers they're just lining up like sheep, running that text based app and then all agreeing with each other. Doesn't work like that....
 
davida76 said:
Nvidia comments, says the memory is partitioned differently to the 980:
http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-...sue?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Is it a legit reply from NV, I don't know.
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Hmm. Remember what I found earlier? IE, this -

There are some rumours that the issue is down to uneven SMM binning for the 970's GM204 is starving the memory controller in one GPC, but the one benchmark that reliably shows the data rate drop issue is not particularly compute intensive (it's mainly shunting things in and out of vRAM as fast as possible).

Interesting.....
 
dessimpson said:
True. The only game I've ever had issue with was COD AW. And that was with my 7990. It plays perfectly on the 970's. As does every other game I own.
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Perfect. Enjoy your gaming. Check up on the progress of the situation now and then but don't let it bother you as it doesn't effect you.
 
ye im pretty sure nvidia cant ignore it now
its on every news site & its working its way across youtube now :)
i want to do a youtube from insides kaaps house
is that creepy?
 
Hmm, this issue is causing me to wonder what to do about my pre-order of an OcUK Reference 970. As I see it, my choices are:

a) Keep the pre-order and not worry about it
b) Cancel the pre-order and wait to see what happens
c) Change my order to a GTX 980

I'm inclined towards a) because the best outcome is that it's a non-issue or easily fixed by a software update, while the worst outcome is that it's a hardware problem that Nvidia refuses to fix, in which case I'd still have a 3.5 GB card with 85-90% of the performance of a GTX 980 for 65% of the price.

I'm not keen on b) as the reference 970's price is due to increase by £36 once they're back in stock.

It's tempting to say, what the heck, and just order a GTX 980 to ensure a more future-proof solution, but a reference 980 is £170 (55%) more than the reference 970 for only 10-15% more performance.
 
When I got Mordor I noticed right away that it would seemingly cap at 3.5GB (1440p) and people with 980s were posting 4GB VRAM screenshots. I had no other high VRAM using games to test it against but I remember one person on OCUK 970 thread post about it as he had gotten both a 970 and a 980.

Shows 4GB when running it at 4K now and performance is horrific :p Performance at 1440p is a lot better but still epic stutter during the death animations. I'll have to test it with SLI off as I remember a lot SLI related stutter which may not have been fixed.
 
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