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

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ubersonic said:
This is the situation I am in, I specifically went 970 SLI because I wanted my rig to last as long as possible before my next upgrade. Had Nvidia been honest with me I would never have considered upgrading to 970 SLI and would have stuck with my GTX780 until Titan2/390X arrived :mad:

The way I see it I have the following options:

  1. RMA both cards and get a decent GTX960 or a used 680/770 to tide me over until the Titan2/390X hit.
  2. RMA both cards and put the 290 from my spare rig into the main one, and hope the noise doesn't cause me to throw the entire system out the window before the Titan2/390X hit.
  3. RMA both cards and get a beefy GTX980 or a used Titan Black and hope they last me a long while.
  4. RMA both cards and get GTX980 SLI.
  5. RMA one card and then run a single GTX970 as long as possible.
Urrgh, lol.
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If I was you i'd RMA both cards and get your money back. As you already have a 290 and are only worried about the noise, shove that into your system and wait until the next gen.

However if you really don't want to go down the AMD route, grabd a 980 and be done with it.
 
Silent_Scone said:
No, you don't.
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I don't?

I have a 970 and MSI afterburner shows exactly what VRAM usage I am using when in game.

1500 roughly for H1Z1, BF4 shows a higher usage and COH2 can, on certain maps, show 3550 and then the game craps out and becomes a stutter fest.

Can't really tell me it's not reporting correctly when, in my case at least, it appears to. Admittedly it does not show what portion of the 0.5GB left is being used from what I can see, but it certainly shows usage up to 3500, which is when the card shows the problems.
 
I never had a problem with ac:u on my single 970 tbh. I could make it hit 4gb of ram and maintain 30fps with no more stuttering than is usual for AC:U. didnt play it with those settings though, i ran without dsr to maintain 60fps as much as possible.

Also, afterburner reads the memory correctly. nVidia have confirmed that and from what i've seen i have no reason to doubt it. It was gpu-z that wasnt reading it properly.
 
JamesM said:
The problem with the 8GB AMD cards is that the 290x core isn't that fast as a single card solution, so essentially you have loads of VRAM room but the horsepower to run high frames is lacking.

The 980 pretty much dominates the 980 vs 290x war so ideally you would want two 290x's but then that opens you up to the issues of crossfire compatibility etc which, if reading the 290x owners thread is anything to go by, isn't perfect at all.

I'm not even sure if they have fixed the BF4 Mantle memory leak yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qss0nCf8QQ

As i've said before, the whole GPU market is swings and roundabouts. Currently at this precise time there isn't the perfect choice to be made, it's all about compromise.

On the keeping the 970 note, lets not forget that games will only begin to use more and more VRAM in the future so 970 owners may only notice the issues on one or two games currently but in the future, X amount of months down the line, that 3.5GB of VRAM will show it's weakness time and time again.
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firstly the R9 290x IS plenty fast enough as a single card solution for 4k

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/68...8gb-vapor-x-oc-video-card-review/index14.html

amoungst many others shows it to be the case - in fact , matching or beating a gtx 980. Not bad readlly for such a poor single card solution!

next up - the 980 is not 18 months old , whereas the R9 290 is - so for such an old card to hold its own @4k against the latest and best NVidia is something of a surprise!

as for power useage - the R9 uses pretty much the same power (and tdp) as the GTX 780Ti - yet we don't see the meme`s of needing nuclear power stations for those do we??
 
james.miller said:
I never had a problem with ac:u on my single 970 tbh. I could make it hit 4gb of ram and maintain 30fps with no more stuttering than is usual for AC:U. didnt play it with those settings though, i ran without dsr to maintain 60fps as much as possible.

Also, afterburner reads the memory correctly. nVidia have confirmed that and from what i've seen i have no reason to doubt it. It was gpu-z that wasnt reading it properly.
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Mmmmm

did AB report the memory as 3 gb or 4?

AB reported my Inno3d as 3Gb not 4 but still reported max use.

nhFxLB7.jpg
 
Strudders said:
You are going to have to explain this as many are relying on tools to prove their point.

Sorry id I seem a bit dum.... (probably am)
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Getting (and persisting) data in that memory space is vital. Developers are limited in where and how resources can be allocated, dispatched and managed. This is largely controlled auto-magically by the DX driver with the developer only being able to 'hint' at what they want the hardware to do in an ideal world. There's no way of knowing for sure what is actually happening with the resources anyway regardless of the changes in the memory sub system. Subsequently, just because you can see your 970 using more than 3.5GB doesn't mean stutter is being induced purely because it is accessing the two directional L2 cache and memory pool. It's hard enough for even developers themselves to know what is being allocated and where, let alone end users. I wouldn't trust applications such as AB to monitor between the two divided pools.
 
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Silent_Scone said:
Getting (and persisting) data in that memory space is vita. Developers are limited in where and how resources can be allocated, dispatched and managed. This is largely controlled auto-magically by the DX driver with the developer only being able to 'hint' at what they want the hardware to do in an ideal world. There's no way of knowing for sure what is actually happening with the resources anyway regardless of the changes in the memory sub system. Subsequently, just because you can see your 970 using more than 3.5GB doesn't mean stutter is being induced purely because it is accessing the two directional L2 cache and memory pool. It's hard enough for even developers themselves to know what is being allocated and where, let alone end users. I wouldn't trust applications such as AB to monitor between the two divided pools.
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Cheers Makes sense.....
 
Harlequin said:
firstly the R9 290x IS plenty fast enough as a single card solution for 4k

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/68...8gb-vapor-x-oc-video-card-review/index14.html

amoungst many others shows it to be the case - in fact , matching or beating a gtx 980. Not bad readlly for such a poor single card solution!

next up - the 980 is not 18 months old , whereas the R9 290 is - so for such an old card to hold its own @4k against the latest and best NVidia is something of a surprise!

as for power useage - the R9 uses pretty much the same power (and tdp) as the GTX 780Ti - yet we don't see the meme`s of needing nuclear power stations for those do we??
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I do agree yes Legend. However Shadow Of Mordor can use all that video memory and keep fps playable, so it's still within the realms of possibility. I think we can expect memory requirements to increase, but typically you will need two or more cards to use all that video memory and keep playable fps.
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From AMDMatt himself in the 290 owners thread.

The fact is core for core the 980 is quicker than the 290x as can be seen in the numerous benchmark threads around. I'm not talking about the exception with 4K, i'm talking in general as the majority of people do not play at 4K.

and tbh if your buying a GPU now and wanting acceptable 4K performance now or in the near future, then neither side offers a better solution currently.
 
ubersonic said:
Only if you subscribe to the Ubisoft method of thinking, the 290X looks to be very good if you want your 4K gaming to be "cinematic"/"artistic" however if you want decent FPS at 4K then the is currently no single GPU solution available.
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fps arnt the only game on the market to be played at 4k -

an RTS

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GeForce_GTX_980_G1_Gaming/13.html

and an MMO

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GeForce_GTX_980_G1_Gaming/24.html

not everyone plays twitch killing FPS

oh and heres COD @4k

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GeForce_GTX_980_G1_Gaming/12.html
 
JamesM said:
From AMDMatt himself in the 290 owners thread.

The fact is core for core the 980 is quicker than the 290x as can be seen in the numerous benchmark threads around. I'm not talking about the exception with 4K, i'm talking in general as the majority of people do not play at 4K.

and tbh if your buying a GPU now and wanting acceptable 4K performance now or in the near future, then neither side offers a better solution currently.
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the GTX 980 is also at least 18 months newer than the R9 - so core for core it has to be quicker - IMO the 512bit ram intertface is the thing `saving` the R9 @4k - it can shunt the data over at a fast enough rate to keep the core @ near max - give the 980 the same interface and it would really stretch its legs

look at titan vs gtx 680 - similar core tech better ram interface (and the gtx 780 vs titan , other than DP , they are a match)
 
Harlequin said:
the GTX 980 is also at least 18 months newer than the R9 - so core for core it has to be quicker - IMO the 512bit ram intertface is the thing `saving` the R9 @4k - it can shunt the data over at a fast enough rate to keep the core @ near max - give the 980 the same interface and it would really stretch its legs

look at titan vs gtx 680 - similar core tech better ram interface (and the gtx 780 vs titan , other than DP , they are a match)
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Which is why there is no perfect product around at the moment.

I've had 290 crossfire and spent more times sorting driver issues or using a single card than actually playing games with both cards working. That is an experience that I'd rather not have to repeat.

I went from 780, 290, 290 crossfire and then single 970 so I have no bias here.

It's not the 970/980's fault that AMD hasn't released anything newer yet. What else do you compare it too?
 
I do think if you're looking for the most up to date card, free of Crossfire/AMD driver hassle, no 970 VRAM shenanigans, DX12 security and all around ease, the 980 is probably the best choice at the moment IF you can afford it... makes more sense to pick one up second hand though. And you can always SLI if the need arises.
 
Legend said:
I do think if you're looking for the most up to date card, free of Crossfire/AMD driver hassle, no 970 VRAM shenanigans, DX12 security and all around ease, the 980 is probably the best choice at the moment IF you can afford it... makes more sense to pick one up second hand though. And you can always SLI if the need arises.
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Which is why there is a 980 SOC sitting next to me :p
 
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