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

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mattmos said:
Not impressed with Nvidia's behaviour on this issue.

Its more of a problem for applications which use the full memory allocation. I've been rendering with Redshift3D, which before they implemented a hack fix, was running around 20% slower than previous generation cards, and now runs around 10% faster. The hack fix was to stop access to that last 500Mb of memory - so we effectively have only 3.5Gb usable, which is a real shame for a GPU renderer.

If they advertise these cards as 4Gb cards, that full 4Gb should perform at the same speed, not have a chunk of it which limps along bringing down the overall performance.
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If by disabling the separate 0.5gb of memory shows a significant improvement running the same process as with it enabled, surely that’s much more conclusive then the benchmarks that it does affect performance, and doesn't work as listed.

jwilliamson47 said:
Surely Nvidia are going to have to do more than their basic statement? I wouldn't be surprised if retailers are having to deal with people asking for refunds.
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I can guarantee they have had have had at least one person ask about their current stance on this ;)
 
A refund for what, a dodgy benchmark results?

As at the moment that is all we have seen, now if more comes to light then it would be a different story!
 
One persistent issue I've had with my sli setup is stuttering despite it being locked at 60fps. This may explain it.
 
Is this advertised 224 Gb/Sec a theoretical max that the VRAM can throughput or is it the most that the bus can get from it?

I'm thinking that Nvidia can say that the 4gb is 224 GB/Sec but the card can't access all of it at that speed.
 
Stanners said:
Yes, what proof am I missing?

its all conjecture which you have been trying to fuel for pages of this thread.
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While the performance implications are still up in the air, some people are more concerned with the fact that they feel this card was miss-represented.

Sold as 4gb of vram at 224 gb/s bandwidth, when it is looking more and more like it is 3.5gb at that speed with 0.5gb at much slower.
 
PayneUK said:
While the performance implications are still up in the air, some people are more concerned with the fact that they feel this card was miss-represented.

Sold as 4gb of vram at 224 gb/s bandwidth, when it is looking more and more like it is 3.5gb at that speed with 0.5gb at much slower.
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Yes but we don't know for certain it is that, I am not defending it here by the way but I have not seen a definitive answer either way.

Again what you wrote is a valid possibility, but not proven at the moment.
 
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McGraw said:
I'm thinking that Nvidia can say that the 4gb is 224 GB/Sec but the card can't access all of it at that speed.
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Figures, Nvidia and AMD both used to sell cards with 32MB VRAM and market them as 128MB because they could share 96MB system ram so I doubt either would consider this dodgy advertising
 
Cooper said:
Except that's not the case is it...at least not on my system, in games that I actually play
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And there is the chink in your comment, everyone play games at different settings so 1:1 comparison can never be done based on personal gaming preferences.

I play at 2560x1440 and 4k with everything maxed out ( Hence the reason for buying a pair of 970's ) and I can get performance to choke when the memory goes over 3.5Gb, even on games that from a ALU load point of view aren't that demanding.

As games progress and demand more memory the problem will become more pronounced.

I feel for people buying this card with the intent on keeping it for a years as it not age well.
 
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I know a lot of people are raging about "miss selling", that they only have 3.5GB not 4GB as advertised, (it does have 4GB)

That it does not have 224 gb/s bandwidth on the memory (it does have 224 gb/s bandwidth)

That the benchmarks must be right (do they??..really)

That Nvidia have lied!!! (bent the truth more like)

The brand damage that is being done is based on mostly Benchmarks and a few games (not all) that have been released unfinished (Ubisoft I am point at you)

I think Nvidia have done little to dispel the conjecture, releasing average game FPS's is not helpful IMO. It only stokes the fire (not everybody has the same rig) and it only makes people pipe up saying "Oi! I don't have that!! rabble rabble rabble"

I really think the user base should demonstrate it's failings on real word applications, how it works for them. Are they happy, where they happy before they found out.

I love it, it blows my old ATI 6950 so far out the water, it is sitting on a hillside being touted as Noah's ark.... So yeah, super pleased and it will see me out I am sure.

However, Nvidia have to do something, if the damage that has been done, is to be undone, then they have to act soon. Being more technically honest with the community would be a start in my book.

I do wonder how far the damage has gone? Is it all the buying public? or just the enthusiasts... the later I suspect.

Just my opinion
 
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Stanners said:
Yes but we don't know for certain it is that, I am not defending it here by the way but I have not seen a definitive answer either way.

Again what you wrote is a valid possibility, but not proven at the moment.
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Indeed, my concern is how long this process is going to take. I have little doubt that unless forced too by overwhelming evidence NVidia are not going to come out and say 'Yes, 1/8th of the memory on this card is gimped so badly its rather useless'.

On the other hand, was this all a non-issue I would have expected much more from NVidia by now, this has not just come to light and has been reported on their forums for a while now.

Which is why I think people are starting to ask questions of retailers, even if it’s just a ‘can you provide a little more technical input’, consumers are not exactly the most patient bunch and I’m actually quite surprised the forum isn’t full of people demanding money back already or saying they will never use (insert retailer) again.
 
Strudders said:
I know a lot of people are raging about "miss selling", that they only have 3.5GB not 4GB as advertised, (it does have 4GB)

That it does not have 224 gb/s bandwidth on the memory (it does have 224 gb/s bandwidth)

That the benchmarks must be right (do they??..really)

That Nvidia have lied!!! (bent the truth more like)

The brand damage that is being done is based on mostly Benchmarks and a few games (not all) that have been released unfinished (Ubisoft I am point at you)

I think Nvidia have done little to dispel the conjecture, releasing average game FPS's is not helpful IMO. It only stokes the fire (not everybody has the same rig) and it only makes people pipe up saying "Oi! I don't have that!! rabble rabble rabble"

I really think the user base should demonstrate it's failings on real word applications, how it works for them. Are they happy, where they happy before they found out.

I love it, it blows my old ATI 6950 so far out the water, it is sitting on a hillside being touted as Noah's arc.... So yeah super please and will see me out I am sure.

However, Nvidia have to do something, if the damage that has been done, is to be undone, then they have to act spoon. Being more technically honest with the community would be a start in my book.

I do wonder how far the damage has gone? Is it all the buying public? or just the enthusiasts... the later I suspect.

Just my opinion
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Ofcourse it blows your ANCIENT 6950 out of the water, bad point of argument, basically all cards would blow that out of the water at this point.

HOWEVER... Does not change the fact that Nv has not been CLEAR to CUSTOMERS that this will cause ISSUES in 1440 or 4k resolutions with everything cranked up.
 
PayneUK said:
and had the cards been described as such then there would be far less, if no reaction at all. My issue is not so much how badly it affects my performance as to it’s not what I thought I was buying from the items specifications.
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What were you misled by? you've still got a card with 4GB of 7ghz GDDR5 it's just that (from what I can gather) NVidia have to optimise for the remaining 0.5GB on a per game basis which they are generally very good at anyway.

OCUK still advertise AMD cards with a fixed clockspeed when AMD themselves only claim "up to 1000mhz" etc that's misleading advertising.
 
mmj_uk said:
What were you misled by? you've still got a card with 4GB of 7ghz GDDR5 it's just that (from what I can gather) NVidia have to optimise for the remaining 0.5GB on a per game basis which they are generally very good at anyway.

OCUK still advertise AMD cards with a fixed clockspeed when AMD themselves only claim "up to 1000mhz" etc that's misleading advertising.
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42635a2a70.PNG

Dont you think the specifications imply all 4gb of the RAM will run at 224.3GB/s and not 3.5 will run at at 224.3GB/s and the rest will run at a snails pace (Which might cause issues at high resolutions) :confused:
 
Rangerjr1 said:
Ofcourse it blows your ANCIENT 6950 out of the water, bad point of argument, basically all cards would blow that out of the water at this point.

HOWEVER... Does not change the fact that Nv has not been CLEAR to CUSTOMERS that this will cause ISSUES in 1440 or 4k resolutions with everything cranked up.
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I'm GLAD you CAPTILIZED random words IN this post. IT really does MAKE MUCH more SENSE when I imagine you SITTING there RAISING and LOWERING your voice like a YO-yo.
 
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