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

Neil79 · 9 Feb 2015 at 13:51

Just purchased this KFA2 GeForce GTX 980 SOC Gamer 4096MB, hope I made the right choice.

As soon as it arrives and tested, the 970 G1 GTX is going back for a full refund as agreed by OCUK based on the VRAM scandal..

Not happy but I also hate AMD so

varkanoid · 9 Feb 2015 at 13:53

Very Soon

Not true

Why is it then since this started there are no 970's in there for longer than a day yet there are always 290/290x cards in the clearance section ?

In fact it looks like someone bought the 8gb AMD card and then didnt like it for some reason and RMA'd it.

PayneUK · 9 Feb 2015 at 13:54

LackyT said:
I'm in a similar situation to many in this thread. I have SLI MSI 970's at 1440p. At the moment I'm tempted to RMA them while I can, but not sure I want to fork out for SLI 980's. I'm thinking just get one 980, and then maybe another later on? Or just go back to 1080p...

What have other people done?

Gone back to my 780 + 1080p and picked up a second-hand 780 instead, I am going to wait to see what NVidia does before I throw any more money their way.

If they redeem themselves enough I'll pickup a 1440p g-sync monitor and look at their cards again in 6 - 12 months time, if not I'll hold onto my 1080p monitor and see what AMD and Freesync offer in the same time frame.

Normally I wouldn't have upgraded after 1 generation, but 970's in SLI seemed to good to be true, turns out it was, but I've put the money I was going to spend on the cards + monitor into an account, that + whatever I get for my 780's will go strait back to OCUK when the time comes.

Vimes · 9 Feb 2015 at 13:55

Neil79 said:
Just purchased this KFA2 GeForce GTX 980 SOC Gamer 4096MB, hope I made the right choice.

As soon as it arrives and tested, the 970 G1 GTX is going back for a full refund as agreed by OCUK based on the VRAM scandal..

Not happy but I also hate AMD so

^^^^^ Good choice but why did you not get it last week when Gibbo noted they were on sale for £30 cheaper, unless you missed it....?

If you did miss it then delete this post from your mind

Neil79 · 9 Feb 2015 at 13:57

Vimes said:
^^^^^ Good choice but why did you not get it last week when Gibbo noted they were on sale for £30 cheaper, unless you missed it....?

If you did miss it then delete this post from your mind

Didn't see it was on offer and last week I wasn't actually looking at 980's but any way I had to decide over what to do and then wait till Monday for OCUK to give me an RMA number. To cover the costs I'm most likely going to have to sell some retro gear

Kipz · 9 Feb 2015 at 14:10

I posted about a postage refund in the CS section here but still not had any reply. Don't know if it's been berried or what. First time using the CS forums so hope I've posted in the right part.

samwise78 · 9 Feb 2015 at 14:26

Kipz said:
I posted about a postage refund in the CS section but still not had any reply. Don't know if it's been berried or what. First time using the CS forums so hope I've posted in the right part.

Same here just waiting on a postage refund and a reply to my own post, I'm sure the CS guys will get to it, I imagine they're pretty busy on a Monday..

Unseen · 9 Feb 2015 at 14:31

****, I'm still on the fence. Been reading tons of this thread the last few days, even wrote myself :|.

I cannot afford the upgrade to the two 980's. If I send the two SLI 970's back could a single 980 perform on its own at 1440P 60 FPS with the best graphics?

I kept being told when I wanted to upgrade weeks before the scandal that I needed more GPU Horsepower to run at that resolution and a 970 SLI was the best option.

That seems to be my only stumbling block. 1 980 vs my existing 2 970's, as I can't afford anything on top with my 1440P monitor.

Neil79 · 9 Feb 2015 at 14:41

Look at it from my perspective, took me ages to save up for a 970 ended up going the full hog and buying a G1, only to find some months later about the vram situation. My choice was the eww AMD 290X or the 980 GTX. The 970 GTX is in my price range, but the 980 GTX isn't. Thus I've had to take it off my card all of it, only to buy a 980 GTX and get a refund from the 970 GTX when it's returned.

I've never had a good experience with AMD and now this happens

Ayahuasca · 9 Feb 2015 at 14:44

You could have just kept the 970 till the next generation of cards. By then you might actually need 4gb or more for 1080p.

I'm telling you now you won't FEEL any difference when gaming on the 980 at 1080p.

R3X · 9 Feb 2015 at 14:45

samwise78 said:
RMA'd my 970 - bit of a knee-jerk reaction to all the VRAM FUD

Now I'm doing my best to wait for the new 390/X cards to drop - trying to resist a 980..

Tried the MSI 290X 8G, but just didn't get on with it so that went back too

Now trying to be patient and using 4790K onboard (!)

Was planning on doing same thing, it would have been great if AMD confirmed Summer launch with 390X series at least.

Well still got 2.5 weeks to decide if I should get my 300 quid back for my 970, I may do so since don't game at the moment.

Unseen · 9 Feb 2015 at 14:50

Ayahuasca said:
You could have just kept the 970 till the next generation of cards. By then you might actually need 4gb or more for 1080p.

I'm telling you now you won't FEEL any difference when gaming on the 980 at 1080p.

If that was a reply to me I'm at 1440P with the 970 in SLI. Switching to a single 980 is my only option if I RMA both 970's.

Can a single 980 run games at 1440P to the maximum?

I know some would say switch to AMD 290X or 295X or whatever, I could even pick up 2 in Crossfire and buy a PSU but the heat, the noise, the features and the GPU being considerably weaker overall is a massive turn off.

Relentless81 · 9 Feb 2015 at 14:52

My 290x that replaced my 970 is fine, its quiet on idle and gets fairly loud under load in uber mode but that's when gaming, also my 540 air case fans are louder anyway with added bonus of it dumping the heat on the outside of the case which means I've been able to oc my cpu further

The 970 got slightly better frames at 1080 but there isn't much in it at all, not that I can notice, in fact I anything the flickering texture issue in frostbite games has now gone so I'm more happy about that

All in all I have no reason to buy nvidia again after what they did and every reason to go AMD

JamesM · 9 Feb 2015 at 14:56

Unseen said:
If that was a reply to me I'm at 1440P with the 970 in SLI. Switching to a single 980 is my only option if I RMA both 970's.

Can a single 980 run games at 1440P to the maximum?

I know some would say switch to AMD 290X or 295X or whatever, I could even pick up 2 in Crossfire and buy a PSU but the heat, the noise, the features and the GPU being considerably weaker overall is a massive turn off.

You would need two 290x to match 970 SLI really.

A single 980 may not be as powerful but would cope well enough and give you the option to add another later on down the line

Neil79 · 9 Feb 2015 at 14:57

Ayahuasca said:
You could have just kept the 970 till the next generation of cards. By then you might actually need 4gb or more for 1080p.

I'm telling you now you won't FEEL any difference when gaming on the 980 at 1080p.

I saw a difference when I was playing Skyrim recently when the VRAM went to about 3500GB. Also noticing the issues with Dying Light, there's nothing to say what games this year will be using however much VRAM. It would not have bothered me if I hadn't paid about £300 for a top of the line 970

samwise78 · 9 Feb 2015 at 14:57

R3X said:
Was planning on doing same thing, it would have been great if AMD confirmed Summer launch with 390X series at least.

Well still got 2.5 weeks to decide if I should get my 300 quid back for my 970, I may do so since don't game at the moment.

GPU limbo is driving me nuts, be happy with anything concrete from AMD on the 390X - I never used to jump at new cards (before 970) but GTA V and Project CARS dropping very soon may force my hand even before the 390X arrives

Ayahuasca · 9 Feb 2015 at 15:03

Neil79 said:
I saw a difference when I was playing Skyrim recently when the VRAM went to about 3500GB. Also noticing the issues with Dying Light, there's nothing to say what games this year will be using however much VRAM. It would not have bothered me if I hadn't paid about £300 for a top of the line 970

Then games will soon be using more than 4gb as well so the 980 will be no good. The only games with issues are those that are horribly optimized or with a silly amount of mods loading up the VRAM.

I'm tempted to step up to a 980 myself but only because it won't bother me, whereas with you it seems you're forcing yourself to do it even though money is tight.

Neil79 · 9 Feb 2015 at 15:07

Thing is we are put in this situation by retailers such as OCUK saying you've only got FEB to return your card

The other point is, the 980 GTX has a far higher resale value than the 970 GTX, imagine trying to sell your 970 and nobody wants to buy it because of what's going on

Ayahuasca · 9 Feb 2015 at 15:10

970's still going in the MM for around £225 quid around £50 cheaper than new, reference asus 980 going for £395 atm which still hasn't sold and that's around £80 cheaper than its new price as well.

JamesM · 9 Feb 2015 at 15:14

Ayahuasca said:
Then games will soon be using more than 4gb as well so the 980 will be no good. The only games with issues are those that are horribly optimized or with a silly amount of mods loading up the VRAM.

I'm tempted to step up to a 980 myself but only because it won't bother me, whereas with you it seems you're forcing yourself to do it even though money is tight.

Company of Heroes 2 with high settings sits at the 3.5GB usage limit causing stutter. That is a fairly optimised game imo.