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

[TheRealDeal]

No one should have to trawl the internet to find out basic facts about a product.

This is assuming the person knows where to look as well.

Is it right for people who are not so tech savvy to be at a disadvantage when buying products because they don't know where to look on the net for the information they need.

It should be prominent on the packaging if it is important.

People that are not tech savvy should seek out people who are for advise or learn like most of us had too. It's the way of life to look at information before you buy. I never dive into to any purchase if it requires a decent amount of money. You must be a saleman's dream walking in without any knowledge of the product you are buying. The thing is even if you were tech savvy the gtx970 would still have fooled you.

I will have 4 of them boss who cares about research lol

 

[Mal X]

I would not touch one of those Titans with a barge pole.

well, not without researching it very very carefully....

there is indeed no concrete info about the 38OX but it's pretty obvious it'll be more powerful than the 290X and thus the 970, if not we'll be in for one hell of a shock !!!!

 

[Mei]

last year and this year does feel much slower for gfx card releases
i think we needed the excitement

 

[Kaapstad]

i agree totally, but i think why this one created so much nerd rage is it even fooled the tech savy? you have to look how the 970 was launched beside the 980 with similar specs and much lower price

it looked like the smart buy on paper to the techy people, so they go buy water blocks and gsync, at that stage they locked in

i should think it fooled 10000% less people than the dual gpu example,
less ppl but the rage was big!

This I agree with totally

When the 9 series launched I was quite critical of the memory/bus/compression performance at anything higher than 1080p as it drops off faster than Fermi or Hawaii GPUs, this suggests that something is not quite right there.

For the above I took as lot of criticism from the sort of people who are now returning their 970s. Those people also said to me several months ago it would all be sorted with a driver update........

I still think that there is more to come out about the 9 series including the 980 that the err tech savvy review sites have missed. This does not mean that people should start ditching their 980s as well as they along with the 970s are still fantastic cards.

 

[Kaapstad]

People that are not tech savvy should seek out people who are for advise or learn like most of us had too. It's the way of life to look at information before you buy. I never dive into to any purchase if it requires a decent amount of money. You must be a saleman's dream walking in without any knowledge of the product you are buying. The thing is even if you were tech savvy the gtx970 would still have fooled you.

I will have 4 of them boss who cares about research lol

Strangely enough I did take advise about my GTX 295 purchase, unfortunately it was the wrong advice. If only the information had been more prominent on the boxes.

A bit of advice for you, don't buy 4 GTX 970s as NVidia don't support it in the driver.

 

[james.miller]

Again why does it bother you? It doesn't affect you in any way. You are happy with your card.

I haven't seen people lying about their cards, how do know they are lying? Just because you aren't having problems? Most people haven't complained about performance at all, it's that Nvidia have lied to them. Or they feel Nvidia have lied to them and there is a mistrust there.

I see mostly 970 owners in this thread, and, most seem to be keeping their cards. And it's mostly owners in other forums too. Of course there are a few trolls, but they exist on both sides.

are you kidding me?

when this blew up it was mass hysteria in the tech community. people were writing off the the 970 left right and center. a lot of people were saying the 970 was no good at all, single or sli configuration. people were using sli benchmarks to prove that, and when we kept asking for examples of single cards failing with >3.5gb usage? nothing. Just about everybody was complaining about the 970s without really looking at the detail.

Perhaps you havent tracked this from the start or read this thread from start to finish, i dont know, but please dont sit there and tell me nobody has lied about the 970 performance issues and most people havent complained!

 

[TheRealDeal]

Strangely enough I did take advise about my GTX 295 purchase, unfortunately it was the wrong advice. If only the information had been more prominent on the boxes.

A bit of advice for you, don't buy 4 GTX 970s as NVidia don't support it in the driver.

Yea a little like the gtx780 which was very cheeky of them for what was on release a £500 card.

 

[Dervious]

A customer should not have to search for important facts, they should be prominent on the packaging, this applies to both AMD and NVidia.

Correct.

There is a debate to had about the importance of the way NVIDIA are utilising the 4GB VRAM on the GTX970.

No, it probably won't make much difference for most users, but I think it's fair to say that until we found out about the 3.5GB + 0.5GB partitioning, everyone thought that the 4GB of VRAM would work in the same manner as it would work on any other 4GB card.

And that's the point. If NVIDIA were to "get away" with this, then what other mischief could graphics cards manufacturers get up to when describing their products ?

 

[Harlequin]

Spoiler

Images over 1,280 pixels wide should be placed is spoiler tags as I've done for you.

Cheers

Surveyor

 

[Mei]

I still think that there is more to come out about the 9 series including the 980 that the err tech savvy review sites have missed. This does not mean that people should start ditching their 980s as well as they along with the 970s are still fantastic cards.

they do seem like eco cards more than the big beefy things that were released the year before

i cant see AMD going eco with their next tho, its not rly their style is it

and nvidia are yet to release a expensive card by their standards
but i think we are having to wait until summer which is sad
i want see some gfx bling!

 

[Mei]

*to the crazy graph above

did they do 980 results too with the same drivers? or its a bit pointless
....dont kill me just saying!! lol

 

[kazuya1337]

I can't imagine a single Titan would be getting decent FPS on max settings on resolutions that make use of that extra 2GB VRAM

In the days of terrible optimisation or any Ubisoft game you will be surprised.

@Knaap I mean't the original Titan not the GM200

 

[melmac]

The point I am making is all manufacturers should play by and be judged by the same rules. It is that simple.

And weren't AMD brought to task on the reviewers samples issue. Didn't AMD produce a fix. So it was dealt with and has no place in this thread.

The black screen issue, people returned their cards and AMD suffered because of this. Again no place in this thread.

Because, yes, all manufacturers should be judged by the same rules but, each case is different.

With the 970, there is no fix for the slow vram and they can't replace the missing rops etc. So if people return one they will only get a 970 back.

So this case is different from the others you listed.

 

[melmac]

are you kidding me?

when this blew up it was mass hysteria in the tech community. people were writing off the the 970 left right and center. a lot of people were saying the 970 was no good at all, single or sli configuration. people were using sli benchmarks to prove that, and when we kept asking for examples of single cards failing with >3.5gb usage? nothing. Just about everybody was complaining about the 970s without really looking at the detail.

Perhaps you havent tracked this from the start or read this thread from start to finish, i dont know, but please dont sit there and tell me nobody has lied about the 970 performance issues and most people havent complained!

LOL a few people posting a lot and complaining, doesn't count as most people. I have followed this whole thread and again, I haven't seen anyone lie. People were quoting sli benchmarks to show that this issue did exist when Vram was full. When people did most single benchmarks showing stutter, the people on the other side said that was because of the game and those arguments went on and on, back and forth. I have seen tons of posts reply to you, saying that it's not just about performance.

If the issue was purely about performance, this thread would have died a long, long time ago. It was only through the highlighting of the Vram issue that the missing rops became known. And that's when this thread exploded!! It become more of an issue with misleading the customer.

And twist it whatever way you want, there is an issue with these cards, they do have 0.5Gb of slow ram and everything you would have read on the internet about these cards before all this fuss would have led you to believe you were getting a better spec'd card.

This isn't enough to make you return the card, but it is enough for others to return their cards, some have upgraded to 980's others have moved from Nvidia completely.

 

[james.miller]

Melmac:

Spoiler

LOL a few people posting a lot and complaining, doesn't count as most people.

There's 6000 posts in this thread melmac, do me a favour...

I have followed this whole thread and again, I haven't seen anyone lie. People were quoting sli benchmarks to show that this issue did exist when Vram was full. When people did most single benchmarks showing stutter, the people on the other side said that was because of the game and those arguments went on and on, back and forth.

You've seen nobody state the 970 is broken and useless even as a single card. really?

I have seen tons of posts reply to you, saying that it's not just about performance.

The only person to say that to me was easyrider a few hours ago. Lots of other people ignoring performance entirely, however, but that's different.

If the issue was purely about performance, this thread would have died a long, long time ago.

This again! it was performance, in SLi, that brought this up. No it isnt only about performance, i've never said it was. nVidia has handled this very badly, which i've said before. nVidia deserve all the returns they get. I've said that before, too. I dont know why people keep bring this up with me. Move on.

It was only through the highlighting of the Vram issue that the missing rops became known. And that's when this thread exploded!! It become more of an issue with misleading the customer.

Back to ROPs again. Who cares about the ROPs, really? ROPs arent a limiting factor on the 970 so having 64 of them wouldnt have made a difference. But you know that because you've read the thread from start to finish.

And twist it whatever way you want, there is an issue with these cards, they do have 0.5Gb of slow ram and everything you would have read on the internet about these cards before all this fuss would have led you to believe you were getting a better spec'd card.

I've not said otherwise. But you must know that if you've read the thread as you claim. The issue isnt that it affects performance, it does - end of that debate. The issue is how much and when and in the the case of single cards it is very much overstated. Hugely.

This isn't enough to make you return the card, but it is enough for others to return their cards, some have upgraded to 980's others have moved from Nvidia completely.

Tell me something i dont know

It's getting a bit silly with people jumping in at this point and trying to pull me up. I have not said people should live with their cards. I have not said nvidia shouldnt answer firstly for the disparity in the original tech details given to reviewers, then the failure to correct them, but also secondly the way they have behaved after this blew up. If people feel they have been cheated, lied to, screwed over (and in case of SLi users / people who intended to go SLi i have every sympathy) then I believe they have every right to want to send their cards back. I have not moved from this viewpoint once. So do me a favor and just stop it. If you cant have a sensible debate then just hit the back button and be done with it.

 

[phate101101]

I was going to return both 970s and get a 290x but have concluded that would be a mistake.

I'm gonna return one 970 and keep the other one until next gen, I don't see any other card worth getting. despite what people say one 970 can handle 1440p if you're willing to lower settings a little bit and I do think a 970 will hold its price better than a 290x.
I hope next gen cards bring more to the table!

 

[fs123]

There seems to be far too much fanboy trolling on here than actual information that would help the undecided 970 owners on whether the card is ok or not. I have done a simple comparison test and posted in the dying light thread.

Have a look at this post :

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27568981&postcount=142

Can gtx970/980 owners please do the same test and then maybe we can see if there really is a problem with frame timings and hence stutter or is it just some other issue with some systems.

 

[Tonester0011]

Your comparison is somewhat contradictory, a 3GB card works fine with no stutter yet the 970 with more than 3gb stutters? Hmm, must be the ram! :O

 

[Kaapstad]

And weren't AMD brought to task on the reviewers samples issue. Didn't AMD produce a fix. So it was dealt with and has no place in this thread.

The black screen issue, people returned their cards and AMD suffered because of this. Again no place in this thread.

Because, yes, all manufacturers should be judged by the same rules but, each case is different.

With the 970, there is no fix for the slow vram and they can't replace the missing rops etc. So if people return one they will only get a 970 back.

So this case is different from the others you listed.

Don't think so

This case is current so we don't know what the conclusion will be.

I think all manufacturers should be treated the same when this sort of thing occurs.

I also think you have a certain bias in this judging from your posts, I would be interested to know why this is.

 

[fs123]

Your comparison is somewhat contradictory, a 3GB card works fine with no stutter yet the 970 with more than 3gb stutters? Hmm, must be the ram! :O

Whats contradictory? Those are real results from afterburner. I didn't make them up. Rather than tell me my results are somehow useless can you do that same test and let us know what you get?

The game appears to be using different amounts of memory on different cards. A gtx 980 uses 3.9GB while the 970 uses only 3.5GB at the same settings. You should be asking why is this ? Don't you think this disparity in mem usage could be a reason for any stutter? If the game sees the gtx 970 as a 4GB card and tries to load up as much stuff as required for a 4gb card that could be an issue imo.