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GeForce GTX 970s seem to have an issue using all 4GB of VRAM, Nvidia looking into it

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A

Applecot

Member
Naked Snake said:
Given this and Nvidia having specifically misrepresented the differences between the 980 and 970, I don't think your excuse flies.
Click to expand...

Except it performs exactly the same as it did at release. Anyone who wanted top end performance should really have gone for the 980 and have no room to complain when the 980 is outperforming the 970. It's supposed to.


RE: The weird GPU usage % drop (eg SoM graph above), I'm pretty sure Nvidia have said this isn't meant to happen and is something they are aiming to fix.
 
GHG

GHG

Gold Member
bootski said:
alright guys, last one from me on this unless anyone needs anything specific. i wasn't too interested in waiting to see what nvidia had to say any longer after finding out that about the post where the guy at nvidia said he'd work with that one individual to get a refund and the nvidia announcement that they're going to try to improve the hardware issue through drivers. ever since i bought the card the option to upgrade to the 980 was on the table and i took it. i may burn myself down the road for $100 or so MAYBE, if nvidia offers like a cheap upgrade program or anything like that, which i doubt, but i felt way more comfortable returning the card within my local store's window and upgrading to the 980.

i haven't had a chance to test it extensively but from what i have been able to do: WOW, what a difference. comparing my

1460MHZ OC'd 970 to the stock 1316MHZ 980.
both MSI Gaming 4g cards
Shadow of Mordor @ 1080p/60; every setting maxed w/ HD texture pack

GTX 970
som1080pbus.PNG

GTX 980
som1080pbus980.PNG


edit: i shrunk the graph down. it looks like there was something maybe wrong with the monitoring as it doesn't really show ANY movement in gpu/mem usage for a long period of time. i'll redo one tmrw and throw it up. final thoughts remain the same.

the stuttering and tearing are gone and the card now uses the full bank of memory. there's not much more i can say about that. Shadow of Mordor is the only game i'm aware of right now where you can hit the 3.5GiB mark without affecting performance too badly. if games stay on this trend and barring nvidia doing some serious magic with the driver update, the 970 is not where you want to be going forward, from my experiences with it.
Click to expand...

Thank you for doing these.

This is what I needed to see.

Think I'll wait for the new titan and amd cards to drop before deciding what to do.
 
S

SpaceShark

Member
I've been loosely following this whole thing for the past week, and man, it just sucks. I bought my 970 in late November after saving up, and it's the most I've ever spent on a graphics card. I finally wanted to treat myself to a great card, not just a good one. It is performing fine right now (I'm not pushing it hard), but I wasn't planning to upgrade again for a few years and this memory segmentation issue really makes me feel like I'll end up having to upgrade sooner than that.

Even if there was a step up program available to me (I'm not sure if there is), the 980 is AUD$330 more expensive which makes it a bit cost prohibitive. Even a full refund wouldn't help too much at this point for the same reason. I just want a card that will perform in the future like I was lead to believe, which doesn't sound like it is going to happen.

Nothing new in this post I guess, but I just needed to vent a little :/
 
I

IceIpor

Member
I was wondering something...
If someone has both a 980 and 970 and wants to test something out, just to clear any misconceptions.

What happens if you limit both of them to the same FPS? Like say the 970 manages a minimum of 40fps in a game that maxes out the VRAM. If you limit the 970/980 to 40fps, does the frame spikes still occur? What about 30fps?

This will tell us if there actually is a concern with using a 970 or not.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Smash88 said:
Was it posted they backpeddaled? They deleted their old posts and did some shady things...

Old Post:

2791916-6174234071-142a..jpg


New Post:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/...tx-970-3-5gb-vram-issue/post/4438090/#4438090
Click to expand...

I'd say it was quite obvious his offer applied to the one person he was quoting and wasn't a general thing. We had at least one person here PM him for help in returning their card to Newegg so he undoubtedly would have had dozens if not hundreds of others doing the very same. You could say it was a bit of a silly thing to do given the circumstances (there was no way people were going to look at the original post and not try their luck, too), but I don't think there was an intention to mislead.

Edit: Ah, didn't catch the comment about drivers being axed also. That's a weird thing to be wrong about.
 
K

Kevin

Member
I haven't been keeping up on this so correct me if I'm wrong:

Am I getting this right? NVIDIA sold people a broken card that only allows 3.5gb of ram to be used for gaming (they probably even knew it was broken before it even went on sale) and they are not even doing anything to help people like accepting returns, recalls, etc? Just planning on giving everyone who purchased the card the middle finger?

Or am I missing something? Because this is some really shady stuff if true. Even for a shady company like Nvidia.
 
Honey Bunny

Honey Bunny

Member
SpaceShark said:
I've been loosely following this whole thing for the past week, and man, it just sucks. I bought my 970 in late November after saving up, and it's the most I've ever spent on a graphics card. I finally wanted to treat myself to a great card, not just a good one. It is performing fine right now (I'm not pushing it hard), but I wasn't planning to upgrade again for a few years and this memory segmentation issue really makes me feel like I'll end up having to upgrade sooner than that.

Even if there was a step up program available to me (I'm not sure if there is), the 980 is AUD$330 more expensive which makes it a bit cost prohibitive. Even a full refund wouldn't help too much at this point for the same reason. I just want a card that will perform in the future like I was lead to believe, which doesn't sound like it is going to happen.

Nothing new in this post I guess, but I just needed to vent a little :/
Click to expand...

I know this feeling

dnqjuv.jpg
 
C

chromatic9

Member
Nvidia just need to offer an official return through the retailers especially for those 970 SLI owners. Specs are wrong and they admitted to messing up.
 
P

potam

Banned
JaseC said:
I'd say it was quite obvious his offer applied to the one person he was quoting and wasn't a general thing. We had at least one person here PM him for help in returning their card to Newegg so he undoubtedly would have had dozens if not hundreds of others doing the very same. You could say it was a bit of a silly thing to do given the circumstances (there was no way people were going to look at the original post and not try their luck, too), but I don't think there was an intention to mislead.

Edit: Ah, didn't catch the comment about drivers being axed also. That's a weird thing to be wrong about.
Click to expand...

Not sure if you're referring to me, but I PM'd an Nvidia rep who posted on HardOCP and reddit. I got an initial reply, but since then...nothing. And just so I can save some face, I mentioned initially that the post from Peter appeared to be addressing that specific guy who bought the card a month ago.

If I don't get any response from Nvidia by the weekend, I'm gonna be calling up Chase.

http://www.techpowerup.com/209409/p...s-being-returned-over-memory-controversy.html

Heise.de reports that NVIDIA is facing a fierce blowback from retailers and customers over incorrect specs. Heise comments that the specifications "cheating could mean the greatest damage to the reputation of the company's history."

Major German PC hardware retailer Caseking.de says that retailers don't have any explanation from NVIDIA to give to their customers. A similar sentiment is being expressed by the NVIDIA add-in card partners (AICs) we spoke to. Retailers and AIC partners are on their own, for now. One AIC partner rep told us that NVIDIA has no worldwide action plan, as of now, to deal with a potential flood of returns.
Click to expand...

edit: lel

cLUvSNO.jpg
Click to expand...
 
B

bootski

Member
mintylurb said:
So..no magical driver update that will fix the memory issue? ;<<
Click to expand...

it just keeps getting more and more bizarre. so now they're saying they can't? fix it or they're just saying that they never officially said they would fix it? this article @ kitguru seems to suggest that they're just backing off anything official. i'd guess they're probably trying to figure out exactly what they CAN do before they announce anything, which seems pretty par for the course.

one thing that i would question an nvidia rep about if i had the chance is this: it's been said numerous times that the things that people are seeing are not "issues" with the card but rather design decisions. does that mean that nvidia knew that the card would be capped at 3.5GiB a lot of the time and decided it was acceptable?
 
S

Stimpack

Member
Kevin said:
I haven't been keeping up on this so correct me if I'm wrong:

Am I getting this right? NVIDIA sold people a broken card that only allows 3.5gb of ram to be used for gaming (they probably even knew it was broken before it even went on sale) and they are not even doing anything to help people like accepting returns, recalls, etc? Just planning on giving everyone who purchased the card the middle finger?

Or am I missing something? Because this is some really shady stuff if true. Even for a shady company like Nvidia.
Click to expand...
It wasn't broken. They purposefully designed it this way because it was cheaper. Then they tried to fool everyone into thinking that nothing was Wrong. Now they're trying to say that the specs weren't a blatant lie, but only a mistake. The reality is that they knew what they are doing and they tried to screw people over.
 
DeSo

DeSo

Banned
Shady shit by Nvidia but it's still a really good card and probably the best value card out at the moment. I do think some compensation should be in order for 970 owners though, we were all lied to.
 
J

jabuseika

Member
I'm ready to return my Gigabyte G1 970, if Nvidia doesn't say something really soon.

If community pressure can't do anything, well see what happens when Amazon starts asking why everyone's returning 970s.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
jfoul said:
Retailers and AIC partners are taking all the heat right now. NV really needs to come up with a plan.

Perfectly Functional GTX 970 Cards Being Returned Over Memory Controversy
Click to expand...

If Nvidia continues marching along with its fingers plugged firmly into its ears, which is almost certainly going to be the case, I can only hope that the issue blowing up as much as it has will make it think twice about pulling a similar stunt in the future.

Despite what I said a couple of days ago, I was actually going to pick up a 970 on a whim today as I have the weekend off (i.e. I have finally have the time to sink my teeth into AssCreed Unity) and was near a store that sells them for a decent price (I'm sick of being held back by my 2GB 670s), however the road was completely closed off due to heavy construction work.
 
X

XBP

Member
Now this is pretty scummy from Nvidia. Why take back the statement you made earlier about better driver optimization? This effectively means that they dont have any plans right now to address people's concerns about the card.
 
S

sammyCYBORG

Member
Overclockers UK are giving refunds.

I'm sending back my 2 970s I got in October. I'll wait for the next wave of cards and see what they're like.

Probably going back to AMD after this.
 
UnrealEck

UnrealEck

Member
After checking out how the memory is segmented and how the controllers and cache works, I don't know how they can really improve things with software. At least not with graphics drivers.

On the bright side to all this, I'm thinking the price of the 970 might drop soon. Or we'll be seeing a lot of refurbished cards on sale.
 
P

potam

Banned
sammyCYBORG said:
Overclockers UK are giving refunds.

I'm sending back my 2 970s I got in October. I'll wait for the next wave of cards and see what they're like.

Probably going back to AMD after this.
Click to expand...

Were they Evga? I was under the impression they'd only worked out a deal so far with Evga.
 
T

Trouble

Banned
UnrealEck said:
After checking out how the memory is segmented and how the controllers and cache works, I don't know how they can really improve things with software. At least not with graphics drivers.

On the bright side to all this, I'm thinking the price of the 970 might drop soon. Or we'll be seeing a lot of refurbished cards on sale.
Click to expand...

It seems like from the tests shown that the card already prioritizes the faster memory. It seems like all they could really do is completely disable the slow half a gig. I stay pretty willfully ignorant about the low level GPU stuff, though.

I'm kinda torn on this whole thing. Part of me wants recompense for being sold something that isn't quite was it was touted to be. The other part of me realizes that knowing everything I do today, I would still have bought the card.
 
P

potam

Banned
Trouble said:
It seems like from the tests shown that the card already prioritizes the faster memory. It seems like all they could really do is completely disable the slow half a gig. I stay pretty willfully ignorant about the low level GPU stuff, though.

I'm kinda torn on this whole thing. Part of me wants recompense for being sold something that isn't quite was it was touted to be. The other part of me realizes that knowing everything I do today, I would still have bought the card.
Click to expand...

I think the crux of the issue is the fact that Nvidia took that power away from the consumers.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
potam said:
Not sure if you're referring to me, but I PM'd an Nvidia rep who posted on HardOCP and reddit. I got an initial reply, but since then...nothing. And just so I can save some face, I mentioned initially that the post from Peter appeared to be addressing that specific guy who bought the card a month ago.
Click to expand...

b0bbyJ03:

b0bbyJ03 said:
I tried reaching out to Peter from NVidia, the guy who said he would help. Yea, it was pretty much bullshit. This is what he responded with after I asked for help

"Hello,

Are you having a specific issue with the 970 that I can help you with? We are really proud of the 970, we think it's the best card on the market for the money. It's won a ton of awards and it has the same excellent performance it had a few weeks ago."

I specifically said: "can u help me return my card? Newegg rejected the return."

So there was no room for misinterpretation. Luckily EVGA approved my step up even tho I was pasted the 90 days
Click to expand...
 
B

bbd23

Member
man I was so ready to pick up a 970 but all this stuff happening recently...Should I just wait for a new card? get a 290? I wanted to upgrade my 7870 :(
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
bbd23 said:
man I was so ready to pick up a 970 but all this stuff happening recently...Should I just wait for a new card? get a 290? I wanted to upgrade my 7870 :(
Click to expand...

AMD can't be too far away from announcing the 3xx series, so I'd hold out for a while longer if you can. With the 970 falling out of favour among many enthusiast circles, I suspect Nvidia will reduce the mark-up on the 980 by a fair bit in response to AMD's plans.
 
S

Stimpack

Member
JaseC said:
AMD can't be too far away from announcing the 3xx series, so I'd hold out for a while longer if you can. With the 970 falling out of favour among many enthusiast circles, I suspect Nvidia will reduce the mark-up on the 980 by a fair bit in response to AMD's plans.
Click to expand...
We can only hope for both of those outcomes. My fingers are certainly crossed, as my 660 has seen better days.
 
A

Abounder

Banned
Smash88 said:
Was it posted they backpeddaled? They deleted their old posts and did some shady things...

Old Post:


New Post:
Click to expand...

Pretty sure he deleted his job title also from the post, and I wonder if Peter is still a senior PR manager after this unfortunate fiasco. Nvidia must be hoping the internet forgets about this in a couple of weeks, tsk tsk.
 
P

Psyrgery ES

Member
Welp, got a 970 on December. I would return it and go back to my trusty 670 2gb but I sold it to a friend.

What should I do? I am quite satisfied with it, but I got it mainly for its 4gb for futureproof. I am not going to spend more money on the 980, and everytime I've got an AMD it's been a mess for me.

I only game at 1080p, but games will begin taking more vram as we get deeper into this gen. Should I keep it or should I go for a 290?
 
B

Beerman462

Member
Well, this is just another reason for me to put off upgrading. In a year I hope to get 3.5GB 970 performance on a 4 GB card for $250, because by then I'm going to want a new CPU as well.
 
S

Stimpack

Member
Psyrgery ES said:
Welp, got a 970 on December. I would return it and go back to my trusty 670 2gb but I sold it to a friend.

What should I do? I am quite satisfied with it, but I got it mainly for its 4gb for futureproof. I am not going to spend more money on the 980, and everytime I've got an AMD it's been a mess for me.

I only game at 1080p, but games will begin taking more vram as we get deeper into this gen. Should I keep it or should I go for a 290?
Click to expand...

Keep onto it and see what other offerings crop up. If you find something you believe is worth the buy, get it and sell off the 970. There's really nothing else to do other than wait and see.
 
cyberheater

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
I don't understand nVidia's position here. They could have easily scored a massive PR boost by offering customers returns as soon as this thing blew up. Sure it might have cost them a few million but it would have insured that customers stuck with them.

I'm going to be very hesitant buying from nVidia in future and I've always bought nVidia cards.

Hitler reacts to 970 issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNGi06cq_pQ

"nVidia: The way it's meant to be gimped."

LOL LOL LOL.
 
S

Stimpack

Member
cyberheater said:
I don't understand nVidia's position here. They could have easily scored a massive PR boost by offering customers returns as soon as this thing blew up. Sure it might have cost them a few million but it would have insured that customers stuck with them.

I'm going to be very hesitant buying from nVidia in future and I've always bought nVidia cards.
Click to expand...
My guess would be that they believe most people won't give a crap, or even bother to know that anything is wrong in the first place. Nvidia does messed up stuff all the time, but people still buy from them. The competition from AMD, for the most part, just isn't there. That last sentence highlights the reasoning behind what most of Nvidia does, I think. Without serious competition, they feel that they can pretty much do whatever they want. Sadly, it's probably true. Anyway, that's just how I see it.
 
Hip Hop

Hip Hop

Member
Psyrgery ES said:
Welp, got a 970 on December. I would return it and go back to my trusty 670 2gb but I sold it to a friend.

What should I do? I am quite satisfied with it, but I got it mainly for its 4gb for futureproof. I am not going to spend more money on the 980, and everytime I've got an AMD it's been a mess for me.

I only game at 1080p, but games will begin taking more vram as we get deeper into this gen. Should I keep it or should I go for a 290?
Click to expand...


I had the 670 that I sold to a friend as well so I can't fall back on anything now.

Because of this situation, I have to now wait before getting a card and been running on integrated. Pretty crappy. Can't really go towards the 980 price either.

So now I'm wating to see how Nividia will react to this or see what AMD has in store soon with their new cards.
Would love a 980 if it got a $100 price cut or so if AMD drops new cards. But don't know if that is even possible.
 
A

Auto-Reply

Member
Well, this thing blew up (relatively, for a nerd tech related problem)

I hope AMD will beat Nvidias ass with their next line of products... I'm kinda addicted to Nvidias eco-system though so I only say that in hopes of reduced prices for Nvidias future stuff lol.
 
C

CyanideFuse

Member
LilJoka said:
Also there are games using 3GB VRAM at 1080p playable on the GTX 970, isnt it somewhat possible that towards the end of the year games like Witcher 3, Batman, GTA V could be pushing this 3.5GB 'limit' at 1080p60fps?
.
Click to expand...

People keep trotting out the "but, but, but, the games would be unplayable at 4k so the VRAM isn't a problem" rubbish. What you say is completely true. What if 1080p gaming is severely affected because of this memory allocation? Games are bound to start using more and more even if it is for optional HD packs. Why should 970 owners have to decide whether they install such things because of this 'feature'?

kinn said:
Anyone from Scan.co.uk tried to get a refund from them?
Click to expand...

I bought mine with scan.co.uk but I have yet to approach them. I did read a message on the nVidia forum where someone didn't have any luck. I am giving nVidia until the end of next week, plus my own decision time, to see what happens and what I will be looking to do.

cyberheater said:
Hitler reacts to 970 issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNGi06cq_pQ

LOL LOL LOL.
Click to expand...


Holy ****. 42 seconds in when his hand is quivering and he removes his glasses to then say "Anyone who owns an R9 290 or R9 290X with 4GB of RAM get the fuck out now." Pauses for them to go and the launches into a tirade. So, so good.

I love that video. It has been used so many times including a very insulting, but true, take on the football team I support.
 
L

Lain

Member
cyberheater said:
I don't understand nVidia's position here. They could have easily scored a massive PR boost by offering customers returns as soon as this thing blew up. Sure it might have cost them a few million but it would have insured that customers stuck with them.

I'm going to be very hesitant buying from nVidia in future and I've always bought nVidia cards.

Hitler reacts to 970 issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNGi06cq_pQ

"nVidia: The way it's meant to be gimped."

LOL LOL LOL.
Click to expand...

"I thought I was getting bang for my buck... but instead banged up my butt... by nVidia"
That one was great.
 
B

Bastos

Member
I was planning to upgrade my 7970 to NVIDIA and just stick with NVIDIA from now on because everything seems to run better on nvidias, etc.

Bur now...
 
K

Kezen

Banned
Bastos said:
I was planning to upgrade my 7970 to NVIDIA and just stick with NVIDIA from now on because everything seems to run better on nvidias, etc.

Bur now...
Click to expand...

Well not everything. It very much depends on what settings you use and what game you play. In Nvidia Gameworks enabled games obviously Maxwell has the advantage since the library is optimized for Nvidia hardware but in "agnostic" games the R9 290 / 290X hold aren't that far behind.
 
cyberheater

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
CyanideFuse said:
Holy ****. 42 seconds in when his hand is quivering and he removes his glasses to then say "Anyone who owns an R9 290 or R9 290X with 4GB of RAM get the fuck out now." Pauses for them to go and the launches into a tirade. So, so good.

I love that video. It has been used so many times including a very insulting, but true, take on the football team I support.
Click to expand...

Lain said:
"I thought I was getting bang for my buck... but instead banged up my butt... by nVidia"
That one was great.
Click to expand...

Ha ha.

xbWOEHH.png


Stolen from this thread.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18651061&page=165
 
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