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

[Cyber-Mav]

doubt ocuk will loose any money on this, they will just add up the losses and then pass the bill on to nvidia at the end of the month.

 

[~>Dg<~]

doubt ocuk will loose any money on this, they will just add up the losses and then pass the bill on to nvidia at the end of the month.

yes they wont lose a penny. nvidia will reimburse or give deals in future. they want ocuk to sell and are obviously a partner.

ocuk has handled this pretty well.

 

[Gibbo]

doubt ocuk will loose any money on this, they will just add up the losses and then pass the bill on to nvidia at the end of the month.

They won't pay it though, so yes we foot the bill, unless certain partners have a change of heart.

 

[jwilliamson47]

I'm either going for the 295x2 or 8GB 290x in crossfire.. hmm decisions.

 

[Touche]

I must inform customers that 970 performance is absolutely mind blowing and is the best all round performance card sub £300, the only faster single GPU card is the 980, but cost a lot more and the extra performance does not justify the extra cost. This makes the 970 still the performance bargain at sub £300! The stuttering some customers are experiencing, some customers are not experiencing or are also experiencing on other GPU's, so this does mean that issues some are experiencing are simply down to drivers/system configuration, so do try different drivers and updates first. Then some games simply run poor on all GPU platforms. So please bear in mind as 970 is the card everyone was raving about only a week ago, nothing has changed, it is still the same awesome product it was previously and still is. But if you are truly unhappy then please contact OcUK returns in regards to your 970 purchase (all brands).

Here are some performance stats:
BUT guys before just saying here have your money back you should be talking the customer through the following to try and prevent the refund in the first place:
• There is no issue with the 970 product, this is by design from NVIDIA in the 970 GPU
• There is a $220 delta in the price of the 970 vs. the 980
• There is only a 3% performance delta of the 970 vs. the 980
• If Direct Customer has an irate customer that wants to return the board, let the customer return it.

In order to try and assist further we have included some performance data below so that you can see actual testing results between the GTX 970 and the GTX 980.

Shadows of Mordor: GTX 980 GTX970
<3.5GB settings: 2688x1512 Very High 72FPS 60FPS
>3.5GB settings: 3456x1944 Very High 55FPS (24%) 45FPS (-25%)
Relative performance difference: 1%

Battlefield 4:
<3.5GB settings: 3840x2160 2xMSAA 36FS 30FPS
>3.5GB settings: 3840x2160 135% res. 19FPS (-47%) 15FPS (-50%)
Relative performance difference: 3%

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare:
<3.5GB settings: 3840x2160 FSMAA T2x, SS off 82FPS 71FPS
>3.5GB settings: 3840x2160 FSMAA T2x, SS on 48FPS (-41%) 40FPS (-44%)

As you can see above the relative performance difference varies from 1% in Shadows of Mordor, to 3% in Battlefield 4 or Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The performance differences between a 970 and 980 in the above examples remain a constant 15-19%, regardless of memory usage.

First, I want to say that you are doing an exceptional customer support and deserve the highest praises for taking care of you customers.

I have to jump in on the above, though, as it is really misrepresenting the 970 issue and you keep posting it repeatedly. The problem isn't the framerate, it is frametimes and the resulting stuttering that comes from the card desperately trying to stay in the faster 3.5 GB section and/or letting the game use the full advertised 4 GB of RAM. That practically stalls the GPU as it has to wait for memory data. New games, and especially upcoming ones, use more and more RAM for various reasons (unoptimized ports, true graphical improvements...). What required ultra high and slow setting before to up the RAM usage is becoming the norm at lower demanding settings and resolutions. There are already reports of games @ 1080p slowly increasing the RAM usage and hitting the 970 troubled 3.5-4GB region. 970 either has to act like a 3.5 GB card or suffer from its limitations.

There are numerous test with latest drivers and game patches, as well as older ones, showcasing the 970's issues. There are also comparisons with downclocked 980 to the same computing power as the 970 and illustrating the deficiencies of the gimped 970's memory configuration that doesn't show in the fully enabled 980 which 970 was advertised as matching.

Again, I would like to thank you for your excellent support, but please stop downplaying a problem that is very real.

Here are some of the examples:

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Assassins Creed Unity test:

4690K @ 4400
GTX 970 G1 @ 1595/7400

Two runs, about 8-10min each, did some parkour in the same area (tried to stay into populated ones), killed some templars, helped some guys being F*ed up by nvidia...i mean...thugs, opened some chests, all of that.

First run at 1440p and second at 1080p. All settings besides resolution remained the same.

note: on the 1080p run I opened the menu twice, hence the two frametime spikes (the menu is pretty damn heavy). On the 1440p run I remembered and kept it on game play all times.

Spoiler

comparing my 1460MHZ OC'd 970 to the stock 1316MHZ 980. both MSI Gaming 4g cards Shadow of Mordor @ 1080p/60; every setting maxed w/ HD texture pack GTX 970

970:

Spoiler

i shrunk the graph down. it looks like there was something maybe wrong with the monitoring as it doesn't really show ANY movement in gpu/mem usage for a long period of time. i'll redo one tmrw and throw it up. final thoughts remain the same.

the stuttering and tearing are gone and the card now uses the full bank of memory. there's not much more i can say about that. Shadow of Mordor is the only game i'm aware of right now where you can hit the 3.5GiB mark without affecting performance too badly. if games stay on this trend and barring nvidia doing some serious magic with the driver update, the 970 is not where you want to be going forward, from my experiences with it.

980:

Spoiler

 

[Smok3y]

I'm either going for the 295x2 or 8GB 290x in crossfire.. hmm decisions.

I'm going 290X 8gb.

 

[Bailey]

Will you be re-selling the 970's as B-Line products or do they go into the ramgate incinerator (I'd quite like to buy one if the price is right!)

Note: First post in this thread however I have followed it VERY closely at work. Good job guys. If people don't speak up how will anyone hear

No official word what will be happening as of yet.

Hi Bailey. Contacted Support this morning via webnote, they said there was an RMA raised for me and that all info was attached in the email they recently sent but i've had no other email? I will be coming into the shop hopefully tomorrow, so I presume I just show you or someone the email I received back this morning because that's all i've got plus my reciept.

RMA emails are generated within 24 hours so it should be with you very shortly

Bailey

 

[RavenXXX2]

I'm going 290X 8gb.

Nice, 8GB should see you good for a few years.

 

[jwilliamson47]

I'm going 290X 8gb.

Great choice! The Powercolour one is 3 slots!

 

[Smok3y]

No official word what will be happening as of yet.



RMA emails are generated within 24 hours so it should be with you very shortly

Bailey

Thanks.

 

[ED209]

thanks for the list of makes supporting OCUK, will help me make decisions on what brand to go for.

excellent work from OCUK and the amount of effort that has been put in to this.

this just confirms where I will be buying my parts from in future

 

[Smok3y]

Great choice! The Powercolour one is 3 slots!

Was looking at the MSI tbh but not sure now after the 970 debacle.

 

[Gibbo]

Hi there

Update:

Palit apologise about the delay and wish I'd not be so hasty in the future but have come to decision to support any RMA's that come to OcUK for their brand. Top work Palit and thank you.

 

[jwilliamson47]

Hi there

Update:

Palit apologise about the delay and wish I'd not be so hasty in the future but have come to decision to support any RMA's that come to OcUK for their brand. Top work Palit and thank you.

Well done Palit!

 

[enigma27]

I'm going 290X 8gb.

I was thinking this...

but are they not actually slower than the 970?? the 8gb I will never use as i game at 21:9..

don't think there is any reason to do anything. My SLI 970 do me just fine..

did some testing last night and could not really get many games to use anywhere near 3gig.. even TR using DSR @ 4k and all on Ultra was only reporting 2.8 gig used and it ran smooth.. thats with 2xAA and Multisample

 

[Dervious]

I do not, but I am a hardware reviewer, and spoke to various retailers, customers and seen Nvidia's response on forums, twitter and other public media. Apart from OCUK, most retailers are just dismissing the issue and you will not get a refund. If Nvidia were taking an active role to fund any of this, do you think Gibbo would have to push the vendors this hard?

If you`ve bought a GTX970 from a retailer who is refusing to repair, exchange or refund your card, then a visit to the small claims court might get the problem sorted.

Might not, of course. But if you provide some evidence in the form of what NVIDIA have stated, and maybe quote a few articles from websites, then I'm sure you'll have a very good chance of a positive outcome.

 

[Locky]

 

[NathWraith]

Yes Palit!

 

[LambChop]

Gibbo, hats off to you and OCUK for accepting these returns. I have to say however, the people returning these are at the cost of OCUK, have a ****ing think about what your doing. Most have moaned and trolled through this thread demanding this and that. I've never has the displeasure of meeting that amount of selfishness under one thread and the excuses used ? Good lord. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your 970's think yourselves very very fortunate. This is not a troll, bait, point scoring post either.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Stunning customer service...