• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

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

Status
Not open for further replies.
I have 5 AMD cards and hm... I think 8 Nvidia cards, the problem for me with SLI @ 4K is real.

SLI might be the reason the problem is a lot more obvious.

To each his own, personally the R9-290s smack some booty at 4K vs the GTX970s but that heat though.. probably due to me using the AMD cards for mining :D


bEA2wAk.jpg
 
Last edited:
I've not decided what to do yet either. I'm gaming at 3440x1440 so I'm not going to be ignoring this issue. I just don't know where to go next and I'm still trying to get over the annoyance of what's happened...especially since I had absolutely no coil whine either.

I'm not loyal to either team and have had both many times over the years depending on who's best at the time. I can't understand some of the rampant fanboy posts here...looking at you Mal X. It's a component for a machine, you don't work for the company and you're not a major shareholder so such blatant and misplaced trolling of the "other side" just makes you look infantile. I'd happily jump ship however with an 850w power supply and going sli/cf then the 850w isn't really going to put my mind at ease going with AMD just now. It would also gall me to buy into cards that are going end of line very soon...or certainly should be. I looked at buying one a year ago so buying one now just doesn't feel right. Nothing to do with fanboyism....it just doesn't feel like a good replacement despite the performance being very similar in applications. Unfortunately this only leaves me waiting it out for something new from AMD or buying 980's and further rewarding the cause of these problems. I honestly don't know where to go next at the moment.
 
I've not decided what to do yet either. I'm gaming at 3440x1440 so I'm not going to be ignoring this issue. I just don't know where to go next and I'm still trying to get over the annoyance of what's happened...especially since I had absolutely no coil whine either.

I'm not loyal to either team and have had both many times over the years depending on who's best at the time. I can't understand some of the rampant fanboy posts here...looking at you Mal X. It's a component for a machine, you don't work for the company and you're not a major shareholder so such blatant and misplaced trolling of the "other side" just makes you look infantile. I'd happily jump ship however with an 850w power supply and going sli/cf then the 850w isn't really going to put my mind at ease going with AMD just now. It would also gall me to buy into cards that are going end of line very soon...or certainly should be. I looked at buying one a year ago so buying one now just doesn't feel right. Nothing to do with fanboyism....it just doesn't feel like a good replacement despite the performance being very similar in applications. Unfortunately this only leaves me waiting it out for something new from AMD or buying 980's and further rewarding the cause of these problems. I honestly don't know where to go next at the moment.

Do some testing as you have only got to answer one question

Do my games run the way I want them to.:)
 
I like the heat / noise my 290X puts out when I'm gaming now, reminds me I'm using something powerful not gimped.

Tested out Sapphire Tri-Xs and they don't run over 60c at full load.

Something is wrong with my MSI R9-290s temp wise thats for sure. I need to enable Vsync to get them running under 75c, they have corrosion on the heatsinks which probably is the main reason :D

Like I said I was mining with them on a custom open bench and had the window open (humidity was 100% in the summer).
 
Last edited:
I think this thread continues as many people are happy with their 970 and for single 970 at 1080 it's great, the best you can get.
The problem can occur when SLI at 1440p+, this card was not meant for 4k but every review I read said yes get 970 SLI for 1440p over a 980. How wrong they were.

Personally I'm returning mine mainly due to future proof worries (as in the next year) I'm picking up a second hand 290x that'll do until next gen.

This whole situation is a disgrace that could have been avoided, Nvidia either lied or were incompetent
 
So you should return them, I should be getting rid of my 780's too which obviously fall flat at 1440 too :rolleyes:

What stupid levels of aa/dsr are you people using at 1440 to be constantly smashing past 3.5gb? Outside of the Ubisoft crud, som and Arma3 (so I'm told) are vram hogs, som is easily fixed - reduce the texture sample, the game does state it needs 6gb vram for ultra!!!

As for those trying to use these at 4k, more fool you, why someone would spend money on any 4gb card to try entertain a high level of quality gaming at 4k is beyond me. Use this situation to your advantage, return them get some 8gb 290x's or hunt around for a few titans/6gb 780's.
 
Do some testing as you have only got to answer one question

Do my games run the way I want them to.:)

I know what you're saying, it's just that I need this rig to last me some time so I'm more concerned with when this problem will crop up for me. For my last card I went for a 570 2.5gb version just as bf3 was out and thankfully I did have the extra vram to hand. I just worry that 4gb is already cutting it fine at this res and it will only take another bf3 equivalent to tip the scales for my 970's at essentially 3.5gb. That is my concern rather than immediate performance.
 
I think this thread continues as many people are happy with their 970 and for single 970 at 1080 it's great, the best you can get.
The problem can occur when SLI at 1440p+, this card was not meant for 4k but every review I read said yes get 970 SLI for 1440p over a 980. How wrong they were.

Personally I'm returning mine mainly due to future proof worries (as in the next year) I'm picking up a second hand 290x that'll do until next gen.

This whole situation is a disgrace that could have been avoided, Nvidia either lied or were incompetent

I think I'll do the same but hold off for the next line of cards.
Not had time to game on the pc as of late anyway.

I've been thinking of upgrading to 4K/wait for 5K so if these cards struggle with 1440p in SLI with new games then it's time to abandon them. 4K isn't gonna be pretty.
 
The 980s suffer from stuttering as much as the 970s. It's only a 0.5gb difference and a game that surpasses one is likely to surpass the other.

Dying light is a horrible mess on my 980SLI rig despite using gsync and being over 100fps. It feels more like 20fps.
 
What surprises me is that Nvidia appear to be burying their heads in the sand and hoping the whole sorry mess fades away and people will eventually forget about this problem. I don't think this will happen short term , maybe long term, and considering AMD have new cards coming out Q2 this year, I reckon there gonna be fair number world wide of lost sales to AMD due to this at the enthusiast level. I doubt it'll make much difference to Nvidia as the theres still a whole bunch of people who aren't aware of this situation and will still buy nvidia cards.
I would like to see response from Nvidia even its just an explanation from their point of view.
 
So you should return them, I should be getting rid of my 780's too which obviously fall flat at 1440 too :rolleyes:

What stupid levels of aa/dsr are you people using at 1440 to be constantly smashing past 3.5gb? Outside of the Ubisoft crud, som and Arma3 (so I'm told) are vram hogs, som is easily fixed - reduce the texture sample, the game does state it needs 6gb vram for ultra!!!

As for those trying to use these at 4k, more fool you, why someone would spend money on any 4gb card to try entertain a high level of quality gaming at 4k is beyond me. Use this situation to your advantage, return them get some 8gb 290x's or hunt around for a few titans/6gb 780's.

You're suggesting that people are the problem using more than 3.5Gb of ram. Like its actually their fault for utilising it? Do you buy a car expecting it not to be capable of doing 70mph? If the cards are fitted with 4gb of ram, they should be able to utilise that quantity or close to that quantity of memory all day long without issues.
 
Looking at various places, no the resale value isnt dropping, it wont drop until something better is released and people start upgrading, the number of people selling/returning their 970's over this is tiny, as others have pointed out, by far the largest amount of righteous indignation in this thread is coming from people who dont even own a 970

The numbers here might be low but worldwide would be huge if Nvidia acepted refunds instead of ignoring the issue. If it wasn't for OCuk accepting returns I bet most would still be fuming about the issue and not trying to defend Nvidia.

You accuse most on here of being AMD fanboys but forget that the Nvidia forums thread is much bigger and almost everyone there is furious since they are stuck with the cards.

Enjoy your card but don't think everyone likes getting shafted like this. 3.5Gb ..what a joke.
 
You're suggesting that people are the problem using more than 3.5Gb of ram. Like its actually their fault for utilising it? Do you buy a car expecting it not to be capable of doing 70mph? If the cards are fitted with 4gb of ram, they should be able to utilise that quantity or close to that quantity of memory all day long without issues.

I'm not rubbishing the suggestion that these cards don't operate how they should, they obviously have issues, I'm rubbishing the suggestion that these cards aren't fit for use at 1440.
 
I'm not rubbishing the suggestion that these cards don't operate how they should, they obviously have issues, I'm rubbishing the suggestion that these cards aren't fit for use at 1440.
For single card, I think they are fine. SLI (with AA and ultra detail) can pose issues with some games, and the number of games that are likely to throw up problems will only continue to rise. It's not rubbish exactly, but it has been exaggerated. However, the problem will not go away, it can only get worse.
 
For single card, I think they are fine. SLI (with AA and ultra detail) can pose issues with some games, and the number of games that are likely to throw up problems will only continue to rise. It's not rubbish exactly, but it has been exaggerated. However, the problem will not go away, it can only get worse.

Have you decided on what you'll do with your 970s?
 
Have you decided on what you'll do with your 970s?
No, I have a single card. Still in two minds whether to keep it or go 290X X-Fire route, as 970 SLI (at 1440p now and perhaps ultra wide in near future) was always my planned upgrade path, which seems to be a bad move now.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom