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

varkanoid · 11 Feb 2015 at 12:59

Ronald said:
So I read the whole of http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation

My conclusion is the 970GTX really is a 3.5GB card with 512MB of L3 Cache.
The 512MB segment is only marginally faster than PCI-E memory, so whatever clever things the driver can do to deal with the issue, it is only be marginally better to have the 512MB on card instead of nothing at all.

So... I'm tempted to return my card under false advertising regulations... but I don't really see there is an alternative card in the market. Same make/model 980GTX is £180 more (Which is way more difference than its performance justifies). 960 GTX would pretty much guarantees I'll have to run 1080p.

I don't fancy any of the comparable AMD solutions at the moment due to even higher heat output in a pretty small case (see sig) which gets plenty warm/noisy under max load + I quite like the full passive/silent idle of the Strix. (Even a mechanical laptop drive is more noisy than any other component in my system at idle...)

So basically I could return and run my display off the Intel GPU (and forsake the at best a handful of gaming hours I may do a week) until an alternative card comes to market, or accept lower re-sale + false advertising...

Thoughts?

or turn your detail down one notch.

varkanoid · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:02

varkanoid said:
Yeah I've seen that a few times too.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27614337&postcount=1622

Final8y · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:07

Neil79 said:
True although I was also going by other peoples returns as well 970 - 290X 8GB -> 980 GTX

So they went SLI 970 - CF 290X 8GB -> SLI 980 GTX which would be an extremely small sample size which can not be used to conclude that CF on the 290 is terrible and in those cases and current circumstance of multi GPU support of current games and switching between those cards in such a short time scale the experience in time is just not there and and a good chance of user error because of being more familiar with the NV CP and SLI.

A friend of mine just went FC after being purely NV and was benching games and he said that Tomb Raider performance was bad in CF, i was like what, i said show me a screen shot of your CCC settings, he said what you dont trust me i said no i dont, he had made a profile for TR and disabled CF by mistake, i said why have you made a profile in the first place, he said because he thought he had to.

JamesM · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:08

Final8y said:
But you dont know what it is like on the 290, they are worlds apart, i know i had 3x7950 in CF and i would like to see that list of most.

Went from 780 - 290 - 290 crossfire - 970 - 980

The whole experience of 290 crossfire has put me off AMD for a while.

Outandbout · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:09

Ronald said:
So I read the whole of http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation

My conclusion is the 970GTX really is a 3.5GB card with 512MB of L3 Cache.
The 512MB segment is only marginally faster than PCI-E memory, so whatever clever things the driver can do to deal with the issue, it is only be marginally better to have the 512MB on card instead of nothing at all.

So... I'm tempted to return my card under false advertising regulations... but I don't really see there is an alternative card in the market. Same make/model 980GTX is £180 more (Which is way more difference than its performance justifies). 960 GTX would pretty much guarantees I'll have to run 1080p.

I don't fancy any of the comparable AMD solutions at the moment due to even higher heat output in a pretty small case (see sig) which gets plenty warm/noisy under max load + I quite like the full passive/silent idle of the Strix. (Even a mechanical laptop drive is more noisy than any other component in my system at idle...)

So basically I could return and run my display off the Intel GPU (and forsake the at best a handful of gaming hours I may do a week) until an alternative card comes to market, or accept lower re-sale + false advertising...

Thoughts?

Same for me too....

What i have done is this....

Sent the gimped card back got a full refund bought a cheap 660ti to tied me over until something else is available and around the £300 mark ...the 660ti is a good card for the 2nd hand price i picked one up for £70 ..

JamesM · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:11

Ronald said:
So I read the whole of http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation

My conclusion is the 970GTX really is a 3.5GB card with 512MB of L3 Cache.
The 512MB segment is only marginally faster than PCI-E memory, so whatever clever things the driver can do to deal with the issue, it is only be marginally better to have the 512MB on card instead of nothing at all.

So... I'm tempted to return my card under false advertising regulations... but I don't really see there is an alternative card in the market. Same make/model 980GTX is £180 more (Which is way more difference than its performance justifies). 960 GTX would pretty much guarantees I'll have to run 1080p.

I don't fancy any of the comparable AMD solutions at the moment due to even higher heat output in a pretty small case (see sig) which gets plenty warm/noisy under max load + I quite like the full passive/silent idle of the Strix. (Even a mechanical laptop drive is more noisy than any other component in my system at idle...)

So basically I could return and run my display off the Intel GPU (and forsake the at best a handful of gaming hours I may do a week) until an alternative card comes to market, or accept lower re-sale + false advertising...

Thoughts?

Was also in the same boat, splashed out on a SOC 980 and i'm happy.

However if you don't want to do that, grab a 780 or 780Ti or any other card cheap and wait it out for new tech

Final8y · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:14

JamesM said:
Went from 780 - 290 - 290 crossfire - 970 - 980

The whole experience of 290 crossfire has put me off AMD for a while.

Yes i read yours.

r7slayer · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:18

JamesM said:
Was also in the same boat, splashed out on a SOC 980 and i'm happy.

However if you don't want to do that, grab a 780 or 780Ti or any other card cheap and wait it out for new tech

Doesn't the 780 and Ti use roughly the same power as the 290 and produces roughly same heat?

JamesM · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:29

They do. I switched as I was interested in having a go at crypto coin mining. I couldn't actually fault my 780. Yes it may of used similar power and produced similar heat but if you don't want to go down the AMD route, then grabbing one of those 2nd hand would at least mean you could game at decent settings.

However the 290s were in my main machine and so I did use them more for gaming but nothing ever appeared to work and when it did it didn't work well. BF4 was my main game at the time and when BF4 had that memory leak bug after about 20 mins of playing with Mantle I would end up with 40-60fps at 2560x1080. Crossfire wasn't supported well on COH2 and neither Crossfire or SLI were supported on Star Citizen, etc.

Moved to the 970 and DX11 game play was much much smoother and I actually got better fps on near enough all of my games. Then obviously the vram issue happened with a few of them so I decided to RMA whilst I could and luckily had the extra cash to get the 980 SOC at £419.

Rroff · 11 Feb 2015 at 14:29

JamesM said:
Went from 780 - 290 - 290 crossfire - 970 - 980

The whole experience of 290 crossfire has put me off AMD for a while.

Seems to be a not uncommon story (the GPU changes, not the crossfire thing) - just sticking with my 780 personally - kind of helps that it clocks to 980 stock performance without any hassle though, do sometimes wish I had the extra 1GB VRAM.

KillBoY_UK · 11 Feb 2015 at 15:07

Rroff said:
Seems to be a not uncommon story (the GPU changes, not the crossfire thing) - just sticking with my 780 personally - kind of helps that it clocks to 980 stock performance without any hassle though, do sometimes wish I had the extra 1GB VRAM.

That must be some 780 then ! a 980 seems to be roughly 20/30%+ faster than a 780 depending on a game with a 780ti closer to 15/20% faster.

I can barely get 1150mhz boost clocks on mine

dewi · 11 Feb 2015 at 15:30

james.miller said:
PCPer's SLi frame pacing article:

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-GTX-970-Memory-Issued-Tested-SLI

The two articles on the PC Perspective web site comparing the performance of the GTX 970 and 980 in single-card and SLI configurations respectively are the most in-depth investigations as to whether there's a real issue that I've seen yet.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-Looking-GTX-970-Memory-Performance
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-GTX-970-Memory-Issued-Tested-SLI

Monkeh · 11 Feb 2015 at 16:15

Got the mails saying OCuk are refunding my MSI 970's this afternoon (thanks guys) and back running the reference 290x they replaced with a nice HG10 cooler on to keep the temps in check - it really was a hot card, and thats comparing it with the heat from a 480 GTX sli setup.

I'm going to hold on with the single 290x for now, and see what single card solutions for 4k gaming come out later in the year, tried crossfire and sli a few times over the last few years and really cba with either any more. More interested in just getting what I pay for in the first place.

Bailey · 11 Feb 2015 at 16:27

Monkeh said:
Got the mails saying OCuk are refunding my MSI 970's this afternoon (thanks guys) and back running the reference 290x they replaced with a nice HG10 cooler on to keep the temps in check - it really was a hot card, and thats comparing it with the heat from a 480 GTX sli setup.

Glad to hear the RMA process has been smooth and swift for you

All the best

Bailey

Neil79 · 11 Feb 2015 at 16:28

Bailey said:
Glad to hear the RMA process has been smooth and swift for you

All the best

Bailey

Nice one Bailey, just waiting on mine now!

I hope you're enjoying the Haribo

ED209 · 11 Feb 2015 at 16:29

Neil79 said:
Nice one Bailey, just waiting on mine now!

I hope you're enjoying the Haribo

they will re use the haribo and send to another customer or back to you in another order lol

Huntyz · 11 Feb 2015 at 17:28

Well got my refund today and all is well, thanks overclockers for the superior service.

Since i found this site 7-8 years ago ive used it exclusively for my pc needs and recommended loads of people to use this site aswell.

This latest show of support has confirmed my view of the site and will continue to use it for the foreseeable future.

P.S i LOVE these KFA2 980 HOF's

Neil79 · 11 Feb 2015 at 18:18

Huntyz said:
Well got my refund today and all is well, thanks overclockers for the superior service.

How long did it take for you to get your refund? Was it the day after you sent it? As mine still says "Awaiting to receive the item ", Even though someone at OCUK signed for it.

Bailey said 24hrs and yes I'm a major worrier

Gibbo · 11 Feb 2015 at 18:49

Guys

Please remember to post you opinion up on trust pilot for us please!

Huntyz · 11 Feb 2015 at 18:55

Neil79 said:
How long did it take for you to get your refund? Was it the day after you sent it? As mine still says "Awaiting to receive the item ", Even though someone at OCUK signed for it.

Bailey said 24hrs and yes I'm a major worrier

They got it today and i was refunded by 3pm i think.

I used paypal to pay for the cards if that makes a difference.

I will post my opinion on trust pilot i almost forgot :eek: