Nvidia responds to GTX 970 memory issue

jordyn11 said:
100% agree. This has always been a matter of principal for me personally and this is not a not great response from Nvida. As consumers we shouldn't have to put with this, but as our friend Angrypuppy was so keen on saying there isnt a better option out there currently, with all due respect to AMD, so I'm sure this is playing into the advice that their legal and PR departments must be giving to stay silent and see what the impact to sales are.
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I'm sure. Nvidia backpedaled on their "apology" when they realized:

1. Many people who bought the 970 are outside of their return window.
2 .Many people who upgraded to the 970 already got rid of their old card, so there's little chance they'll pull out their new card with no substitute on hand
3. Many people who bought the 970 are Team Green, so there's little chance they'll switch to AMD
4. Many people who bought the 970 and are Team Green don't have many choices for a substitute in the price/performance ratio, since Nvidia already had a fire sale on the 7XX cards back in the fall.

It's sad, but Nvidia is thinking they have us right where they want us.
 
michaelius said:
Better marketing is just simple excuse and denial of real reason- what Nvidia has going for it is years of positive user experience and generally good track record of succesfull products (FX series and gtx 480 being exceptions here). And even when Nvidia had a dud it quickly recovered and turned it into powerhouse - fx 5x00 was followed by 6800/6600, 480 changed into 580.
ATI was on good road to change that image after 9500/9700 but then 2900 series happened and a series of better or worse cards followed it - even when hardware was good like in 58x0 days it was held back by drivers.
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Nvidia has its fair share of turds, plus they corner-cut more aggressively than AMD. Latest of course were 2GB 770 and Titan Z. 290/290X is still better price/performance than 970 at current retail prices, and windows driver issues seem to swing against Nvidia's recently (DR3, DA:I, etc).

So, yes, I believe marketing has a lot to do with it.
 
^ Yeah, I fall into a couple of those categories and I feel like they've got me over a barrel. The icing on the cake is that I bought it from o/s to save a few bucks - so good luck making a refund happen.

A few lessons learned this month...
 
I have a weak power supply, so hopefully I can get a GTX 970 soon on a good refurb price! The AMD 290x card is just a bit too power hungry for my system.
 
cyen said:
A little bit OT but aprrantly mobile Gsync is working without a gsync board (using vesa standard like ATI aparently).

Not a good week for Nvidia i guess..

http://videocardz.com/54826/pcperspective-mobile-g-sync-confirmed-g-sync-module-unneeded
Click to expand...

Nvidia's attitude with their tech always being a form of drm is one of the reason i left that ecosystem when i decided to upgrade from my trustworthy 460. Its simply bad for gamers all around. Even when i was an nvidia owner their tactics pissed me off. They dont have the right attitude with the gamers, at all.
 
cyen said:
A little bit OT but aprrantly mobile Gsync is working without a gsync board (using vesa standard like ATI aparently).

Not a good week for Nvidia i guess..

http://videocardz.com/54826/pcperspective-mobile-g-sync-confirmed-g-sync-module-unneeded
Click to expand...

I think this has more to do with the fact that laptop displays work differently from desktop monitors:

Petersen stressed that laptops feature a more direct connection between the unit’s GPU and screen, and have a different display architectures to desktops. Therefore, there is greater need for something like G-Sync on desktops to maintain variable refresh and other potential display issues.
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http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/10/nvidia-responds-to-amds-answer-to-g-sync-tech/

I believe there are a couple of other articles from around that time that also state the same information.
 
Barzul said:
I just bought a 970. Still the best in the market at that price point.
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Not to rub it in anyone's face or anything because I bought two 970s myself, but...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202080

That is as good (better in some ways, like VRAM) at a much cheaper price. Even MSI Lightning 290Xs are now going for as cheap or cheaper than 970s and they're both faster and have more effective full-speed VRAM.

The 970s factually are not the best on the market for bang-for-buck right now unless you're trying a mini-itx build where the power consumption is critical, you need CUDA, or you're using Gsync.
 
Can someone explaing this to me:

1080p gamers are most likely not affected (yet). SLI and/or multi-monitor users will suffer from problems much most often.
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Why SLI users will suffer the most? Is this only true if we think those users are also pushing higher resolutions instead of highers refresh rates?
 
Serandur said:
Not to rub it in anyone's face or anything because I bought two 970s myself, but...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202080

That is as good (better in some ways, like VRAM) at a much cheaper price. Even MSI Lightning 290Xs are now going for as cheap or cheaper than 970s and they're both faster and have more effective full-speed VRAM.

The 970s factually are not the best on the market for bang-for-buck right now unless you're trying a mini-itx build where the power consumption is critical, you need CUDA, or you're using Gsync.
Click to expand...

The r9 290 is better than the 970? Because that's what you linked. Other things influenced my decision like some of Nvidia's proprietary features. At least I know what I was buying when I did unlike several others in this thread who I feel sorry for.
 
UnaiGamer said:
Can someone explaing this to me:



Why SLI users will suffer the most? Is this only true if we think those users are also pushing higher resolutions instead of highers refresh rates?
Click to expand...

Because SLI users are more likely to use higher resolutions + effects in games which results in higher Vram usage.
 
Barzul said:
The r9 290 is better than the 970? Because that's what you linked. Other things influenced my decision like some of Nvidia's proprietary features. At least I know what I was buying when I did unlike several others in this thread who I feel sorry for.
Click to expand...

Here's a 280$ R290X

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125499&cm_re=290x-_-14-125-499-_-Product

A 299$ one :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127787&cm_re=290x-_-14-127-787-_-Product

I think you get the point. The R9 290x is significantly cheaper and faster, especially once you move into 1440+ resolutions.

But oh well, I guess we'll get the same old "but power usage!!!!" excuses or the "shitty drivers" meme (not from you, from the usual crowd).

When the Geforce cards were using insane power and were as loud as a powerdam, I bet those same people weren't talking about anything but "best performance on the market! :P" ;-)
 
XBP said:
Because SLI users are more likely to use higher resolutions + effects in games which results in higher Vram usage.
Click to expand...

Bingo.

I was going to get 2 at launch and downsample everything from insane resolutions to 1080p for screenshots and to play with top notch IQ.

I actually cancelled my order not once, but twice after some toing and froing. Ironically, in the end I cancelled all together because I had serious doubts over whether 4GB was going to be enough for my usage habits in the long run and decided to wait for 8GB variants to come to market (now I see why they will never come!), not knowing the VRAM situation was even worse than it appeared at the time.

My rules for upgrading are that I need to double both performance and VRAM (usable) capacity. Coming from 3GB 660's in SLI I wasn't going to do the latter as well as the former. Need at least 6GB cards for a reasonable price. Glad I stuck to my principles.

Bring on the next round of AMD cards and the Titan X.
 
GHG said:
Bingo.

I was going to get 2 at launch and downsample everything from insane resolutions to 1080p for screenshots and to play with top notch IQ.

I actually cancelled my order not once, but twice after some toing and froing. Ironically, in the end I cancelled all together because I had serious doubts over whether 4GB was going to be enough for my usage habits in the long run and decided to wait for 8GB variants to come to market (now I see why they will never come!), not knowing the VRAM situation was even worse than it appeared at the time.

My rules for upgrading are that I need to double both performance and VRAM (usable) capacity. Coming from 3GB 660's in SLI I wasn't going to do the latter as well as the former. Need at least 6GB cards for a reasonable price. Glad I stuck to my principles.

Bring on the next round of AMD cards and the Titan X.
Click to expand...

I'm a 970 SLI user and I just want to play the games maxed and at 60fps. Trying to play at 4K its not optimal, most of games sink the fps at that res. 1080p or 1440p is the sweet spot right now.
 
Fularu said:
Here's a 280$ R290X

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125499&cm_re=290x-_-14-125-499-_-Product

A 299$ one :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127787&cm_re=290x-_-14-127-787-_-Product

I think you get the point. The R9 290x is significantly cheaper and faster, especially once you move into 1440+ resolutions.

But oh well, I guess we'll get the same old "but power usage!!!!" excuses or the "shitty drivers" meme (not from you, from the usual crowd).

When the Geforce cards were using insane power and were as loud as a powerdam, I bet those same people weren't talking about anything but "best performance on the market! :P" ;-)
Click to expand...


Even at $299 it's not significantly cheaper. I paid $329 for my last 970 on Amazon. And significantly faster is an absurd statement anyone who can read knows otherwise.

And what about things like software, features, ect? It's nice having a card where I don't have to run to a forum and complain because I can't use settings or options in games because they are Nvidia only.

Talk cheaper all you want, but at the end of the day the prices and speed are comparable, but the overall packages just aren't.
 
mephixto said:
I'm a 970 SLI user and I just want to play the games maxed and at 60fps. Trying to play at 4K its not optimal, most of games sink the fps at that res. 1080p or 1440p is the sweet spot right now.
Click to expand...

You and me both, my friend.

too5nutn.png
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Wait a minute...

So now I'm reading that nvidia are backtracking and that there won't be a driver update to address the memory allocation issues...?

Wtf nvidia.
 
Not that I think the 970 is a bad card, but given this whole ordeal and the fact that 290Xs have dropped to $280 after MIR... I really think the 290X is the better buy now.

I have a 980 now and like NV drivers better, but I wouldn't say AMD's are bad, both have their issues. Overall, I think the cost savings and that you're getting a 4GB card without any VRAM quirks is a way better deal if you can't afford the 980. 970 would have to drop to $270 or so for me to recommend it, and even then... if you're doing high-res gaming, I'd still go with the 290X.
 
Gruso said:
But the people changing up aren't doing it for an extra 0.5GB. They're doing it for a card that performs consistently across its entire memory pool.
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And for a card that costs nearly twice as much. Are people seriously expecting 95% of the performance of the 980 for 50% of the price?
 
holygeesus said:
And for a card that costs nearly twice as much. Are people seriously expecting 95% of the performance of the 980 for 50% of the price?
Click to expand...

So now the problem is because of peoples "expectations"?

Seriously... The things I read here sometimes.
 
holygeesus said:
And for a card that costs nearly twice as much. Are people seriously expecting 95% of the performance of the 980 for 50% of the price?
Click to expand...

here's what i expected when i traded up from the 970 to 980: a better spec'd card that utilizes all 4gb of ram when it's needed by the game, which the 970 doesn't do and the 980 does and a card that doesn't have performance issues while it's trying to shed its memory load to keep up with it's memory allocation design decisions.

and i got exactly what i expected. the price was only a small factor in my equation and given the issues that the 970 exhibited while i had it, i was more than happy to pay the price.

when i first bought the 970 i knew about the issue. i even tested it and thought it wasn't going to be a huge issue; even posted that it was being blown out of proportion in this very thread after seeing the 3.5GiB limit UNTIL i ran into the "perfect storm" scenario where you could actually see the performance degradation. and i expect that situation to be played out again in the future with hi-tex games unless nvidia can solve the problem somehow.

edit: lol oh shit, it's this guy again. wasted all that typing.
 
In case anyone in the UK who missed it and bought their 970 from OverclockersUK (biggest GPU retailer in the country), they are now offering full refunds to anyone that wants it.
 
Fularu said:
The R9 290x is significantly cheaper and faster
Click to expand...
It is neither of these things.

Its not a bad card, but don't expect you're going to see improvements on average over a 970 unless you're playing at 4k.

And of course - don't ever buy a reference 290X. Yes, they're cheap, but they are ludicrously hot and loud.

DeFiBkIlLeR said:
In case anyone in the UK who missed it and bought their 970 from OverclockersUK (biggest GPU retailer in the country), they are now offering full refunds to anyone that wants it.
Click to expand...
Interesting. Not gonna do it, but I would if there was something better available for a similar price.

EDIT: Actually, when are AMD's new cards expected? Two of the biggest reasons I got a 970 - GTA V and Witcher 3, both received delays. So the timing might actually work out for me if AMD come out with something sometime in the next few months.
 
Will these AMD cards even support the something tiling that is used with DX12 to decrease memory usage? And the delta compression although that makes a bit less of an impact?

That 0.5 GB of VRAM may easily be compensated.

As much as I dislike what Nvidia has done here, this really does not seem easily trumped by the offering of AMD. Performance is about the same but personally I'd prefer the power consumption, temperatures, driver features, noise, performance consistency and extra game of Nvidia. I don't remember hoe well the AMD card can be overclocked either, but I doubt it is as well.

I'll happily stay with my 970 purchase, although I am pissed at what they did.
 
Seanspeed said:
Not gonna do it, but I would if there was something better available for a similar price.
Click to expand...

It's nice to know the option is there but that's how I feel about it as well, there is simply nothing better for the money available, not going to spend hundreds pounds more on a couple of 980's, for only a marginal gain in performance and I'm not going to move to AMD 290X's when their new range of cards are only 3-6mths away either.
 
Buggy Loop said:
Nvidia's attitude with their tech always being a form of drm is one of the reason i left that ecosystem when i decided to upgrade from my trustworthy 460. Its simply bad for gamers all around. Even when i was an nvidia owner their tactics pissed me off. They dont have the right attitude with the gamers, at all.
Click to expand...
Nvidia is like the guy with a smug asshole personality that you just can't stand, but you keep hiring him because he does good work and he's the best you can find.
 
Thinking about it more, I don't have anything worthy to upgrade to, but I *do* still have my GTX670.

So I'm thinking, I get a full refund for my 970, use my 670 for another 3-6 months, then hop onto whatever AMD's got going on(or if their lineup sucks, maybe even buy another 970, likely cheaper). I'll just put off playing GTA V and Witcher 3 til I get a new card and keep working on my backlog.

This is sounding like a mighty tempting plan right now...
 
Seanspeed said:
Thinking about it more, I don't have anything worthy to upgrade to, but I *do* still have my GTX670.

So I'm thinking, I get a full refund for my 970, use my 670 for another 3-6 months, then hop onto whatever AMD's got going on(or if their lineup sucks, maybe even buy another 970, likely cheaper). I'll just put off playing GTA V and Witcher 3 til I get a new card and keep working on my backlog.

This is sounding like a mighty tempting plan right now...
Click to expand...

Well, you've got until the end of February before the refund offer closes.
 
GHG said:
My rules for upgrading are that I need to double both performance and VRAM (usable) capacity. Coming from 3GB 660's in SLI I wasn't going to do the latter as well as the former. Need at least 6GB cards for a reasonable price. Glad I stuck to my principles.

Bring on the next round of AMD cards and the Titan X.
Click to expand...

For 6GB, you need a 384bit bus.
 
Seanspeed said:
Thinking about it more, I don't have anything worthy to upgrade to, but I *do* still have my GTX670.

So I'm thinking, I get a full refund for my 970, use my 670 for another 3-6 months, then hop onto whatever AMD's got going on(or if their lineup sucks, maybe even buy another 970, likely cheaper). I'll just put off playing GTA V and Witcher 3 til I get a new card and keep working on my backlog.

This is sounding like a mighty tempting plan right now...
Click to expand...

I'd probably do it. 670 still holds its own well.
 
SliChillax said:
So guys I've decided to return my 970 and go with a 980. Which one of these do you recommend?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-280-MS

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-077-ZT

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-016-PL

If you have any cheaper 980 alternatives for the UK it would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Avoid that MSI like the plague.

if you're looking for a blower model then this is what to get http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-204-OK

KFA2's cards are good, and this 980 is £400 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-003-GX

UK based RMA service too so speedy turnaround if anything was to ever go wrong.

Couple of reviews for that card here

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/galax-geforce-gtx-980-soc-review,1.html

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/76361-galax-geforce-gtx-980-soc/

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/11/17/galax-geforce-gtx-980-soc-review/1

Only knock is it's not quite as quiet as some other models.
 
Seanspeed said:
Thinking about it more, I don't have anything worthy to upgrade to, but I *do* still have my GTX670.

So I'm thinking, I get a full refund for my 970, use my 670 for another 3-6 months, then hop onto whatever AMD's got going on(or if their lineup sucks, maybe even buy another 970, likely cheaper). I'll just put off playing GTA V and Witcher 3 til I get a new card and keep working on my backlog.

This is sounding like a mighty tempting plan right now...
Click to expand...

I'm hitting a similar dilemma. Got a 7950 I never got round to selling, so could return the 970 and wait for AMDs 300 series, but the risk is no telling how much they'll cost or if they'll be any good. Could swap out to a 290x too, but not sure how it compares to the 970 or if its even a worthwhile step up from the 7950. Thinking this as I was expecting this upgrade to last at least a year and a half, but would prefer 2 years,and now I'm really unsure just how long the shelf life of the 970 is.
 
Angel Abaddon said:
I'm hitting a similar dilemma. Got a 7950 I never got round to selling, so could return the 970 and wait for AMDs 300 series, but the risk is no telling how much they'll cost or if they'll be any good. Could swap out to a 290x too, but not sure how it compares to the 970 or if its even a worthwhile step up from the 7950. Thinking this as I was expecting this upgrade to last at least a year and a half, but would prefer 2 years,and now I'm really unsure just how long the shelf life of the 970 is.
Click to expand...

290X is a good card if you avoid the reference models. The Sapphire Tri-X is a great one to look at.

Performance wise up to around 1080p the 970 is quicker, going above that the 290X pulls ahead. Both are quite evenly matched though.

A 7950 -> 290X is the same sort of jump as going from the 7950 -> 970.
 
kharma45 said:
Avoid that MSI like the plague.

if you're looking for a blower model then this is what to get http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-204-OK

KFA2's cards are good, and this 980 is £400 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-003-GX

UK based RMA service too so speedy turnaround if anything was to ever go wrong.

Couple of reviews for that card here

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/galax-geforce-gtx-980-soc-review,1.html

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/76361-galax-geforce-gtx-980-soc/

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/11/17/galax-geforce-gtx-980-soc-review/1

Only knock is it's not quite as quiet as some other models.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the help. I was also thinking about giving Ebay a shot and found this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-ZOTAC-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-980-AMP-4GB-GDDR5-DVI-HDMI-3DisplayPort-pci-e-/381019723221?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item58b68b95d5

Worth it?
 
Angel Abaddon said:
I'm hitting a similar dilemma. Got a 7950 I never got round to selling, so could return the 970 and wait for AMDs 300 series, but the risk is no telling how much they'll cost or if they'll be any good. Could swap out to a 290x too, but not sure how it compares to the 970 or if its even a worthwhile step up from the 7950. Thinking this as I was expecting this upgrade to last at least a year and a half, but would prefer 2 years,and now I'm really unsure just how long the shelf life of the 970 is.
Click to expand...
I'm not worried about the shelf life of the 970 so much. I really doubt the 0.5GB is going to make or break the 970's 'future proofing'. At 1080p, I'm pretty sure the 970 is going to be a very viable card for quite a while.

I mean really, if 3.5GB isn't enough, then 4GB isn't really, either. It'll help you out when games are hitting in between 3.5 and 4GB, but beyond that and you're bound again. Its not like developers are all going to be careful about never using more than 4GB vRAM going forward, ya know?

diaspora said:
AMD 3XX is expected Q2 IIRC.
Click to expand...
That would be great, if true.
 
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