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[Durante]

Interesting, it would appear that reducing the number of SMX reduces their ability to use all memory channels equally in all circumstances.

Nonetheless, user benchmarks here and elsewhere seem to confirm that it's not really a relevant issue for games, even when you specifically try to create a memory-bound scenario. Let's see if anyone does a more rigorous test, but I doubt the overall picture will change.

 

[AngryPuppy]

Lol, what.

Huang is that you?

This is bullshit manufactured outrage and anyone with a brain knows it. People complaining don't even understand or care about the technical realities of it. Even beyond that, is anyone actually unhappy about the performance they're getting out of their 970? A month ago everyone was raving about how great a value it is. If you want higher framerates, overclock it or spend more money on a 980. This is a complete non-issue.

 

[Gormenghast]

If you want higher framerates, overclock it or spend more money on a 980.

Memory bandwidth shouldn't directly hamper average framerate. Overclocking the card won't have any effect on this.

The consequences here are about stuttering, and it's the reason why Nividia own benchmarks prove absolutely nothing about the specific problem we have here.

 

[Grief.exe]

It's good to press companies on potential design flaws, but this seems like a non-issue.

 

[cyberheater]

This is bullshit manufactured outrage and anyone with a brain knows it. People complaining don't even understand or care about the technical realities of it. Even beyond that, is anyone actually unhappy about the performance they're getting out of their 970? A month ago everyone was raving about how great a value it is. If you want higher framerates, overclock it or spend more money on a 980. This is a complete non-issue.

Folks bought a 4GB card expecting that all the memory could be utilised at the same speed. Now it turns out it's really a 3.5GB + 0.5GB card. I can understand why they would feel upset.

 

[jimmypop]

People were falsely advertised to and bought the product thinking "x" was the case. It may not have a massive real world difference in every game scenario (but does in some, obviously), but there is still the fact that people thought one thing that was not true.

False advertising? Please, spare us.

People are using an edge case which likely has minimal real-world impact into a call for torches and pitchforks.

It would be embarrassing for those calling for NVidia's head if they cared to apply some critical thinking to the problem.

 

[Gormenghast]

People are using an edge case which likely has minimal real-world impact into a call for torches and pitchforks.

"Edge cases" merely because you can't test how a 970 without the problem would look.

The 970 is a videocard that forces 3.5Gb as much as it can. It has limited impact because 500 Mb in video ram has itself very limited impact on actual game performance.

The benchmarks have been rigged by Nvidia DELIBERATELY to hide the problem.

The moment you have a game that fully requires 4Gb then you'll have a game that is a stuttering mess on a 970, and smooth on a video card without that problem.

Right now you don't see the problem merely because the games run fine addressing just 3.5Gb with higher priority.

 

[Atilac]

This is bullshit manufactured outrage and anyone with a brain knows it. People complaining don't even understand or care about the technical realities of it. Even beyond that, is anyone actually unhappy about the performance they're getting out of their 970? A month ago everyone was raving about how great a value it is. If you want higher framerates, overclock it or spend more money on a 980. This is a complete non-issue.

Listen shill, people were duped into believing they were buying a 4 gig card at the indicated spec - they were lied to and feel cheated. If you can't wrap your skull around this, then leave this discussion.

The people bitching about this have no life, seriously.

Ironic, giving what you are bitching about.

 

[Coffee Dog]

It's good to press companies on potential design flaws, but this seems like a non-issue.

How? it's marketed as a 4gb card. That's definitely an issue.

 

[ZOONAMI]

Just tested my gtx 970 ftw with Samsung memory. Will not go above 3.5GB vram usage in Shadow of Mordor. So it is not just benchmarks where this is a problem, but actual games. I am using geforce experience recommended settings which are 1440p and pretty much everything set to ultra.

 

[Gormenghast]

I'll put this in another way, so maybe you better understand: if Nvidia released today a 970 with 3.5Gb onboard it would perform pretty much identically in ALL TESTS.

It's even very likely that memory swapping that hits when you are at the mem cap is about as bad as the low performance of that 0.5Gb in current cards.

So, saying this is a non-issue because benchmarks looks fine is IDENTICAL to say that a 970 3.5Gb model is fine because the benchmarks look good.

 

[pestul]

Just tested my gtx 970 ftw with Samsung memory. Will not go above 3.5GB vram usage in Shadow of Mordor. So it is not just benchmarks where this is a problem, but actual games. I am using geforce experience recommended settings which are 1440p and pretty much everything set to ultra.

Well, people have pushed it past 3.5GB according to what Afterburner reads.. whether or not it's actually using the last .5GB or not is another question. It will be interesting to see if there is a drop in IQ somehow to compensate for the >3.5GB scenarios as with past VRAM overloading.

EDIT: Actuallly, I think I'm confusing that last part with game engine VRAM allocation and not driver level. Who knows.. it's going to be interesting to see what some extensive testing will reveal.

 

[Bricky]

"Games/applications out today that the card can run fine run fine so the card is fine" is not exactly a convincing argument to me. If this was a known ahead of time I probably would still purchase the card since the value proposition is still there, but at least then I would know the risks/caveats.

If I buy a combo at a burger joint that is supposed to have a burger, fries, and a beverage, I'm going to be touch mad if I don't get the fries even of the burger and beverage fill me up. The fact that, in aggregate, they only rarely forget the fries in my combo, or that I had a coupon for the combo (so it was cheaper than normal) may temper my annoyance but they don't mean that the burger joint didn't fuck up or didn't sell me what was advertised.

Yeah, I know it's a bad analogy.

This is more like you and a friend each got two burgers, fries and a beverage and they all tasted great until your friend exclaims 'Hey, there are no pickles on my second burger!'. You had not noticed up until then, but it turns out your second burger is missing pickles too!

It doesn't ruin the otherwise lovely burgers let alone the entire meal, but the menu clearly stated all burgers made at 'Billy's Burger Palace' have delicious pickles on them right on the front. Hell, you even remember the lady at the drive-in explicitly saying the pickles were on the burgers! This wouldn't frustrate most people to the point they would drive back to the fast food joint and demand a refund, it was relatively cheap anyway, but you're kind of annoyed nonetheless. In fact, you might have actually ordered chicken nuggets had you known this beforehand. At least you can be sure those are 100% chicken! (Or are they?)

Not a perfect analogy by any means either (unless people eat pickles to future proof their body), but let's not act like that 0.5GB vanished into thin air because of this issue.

 

[SneakyStephan]

So much corporate ballwashing in this thread...

 

[Xdrive05]

This is more like you and a friend each got two burgers, fries and a beverage and they all tasted great until your friend exclaims 'Hey, there are no pickles on my second burger!'. You had not noticed up until then, but it turns out your second burger is missing pickles too!

It doesn't ruin the otherwise lovely burgers let alone the entire meal, but the menu clearly stated all burgers made at 'Billy's Burger Palace' have delicious pickles on them right on the front. Hell, you even remember the lady at the drive-in explicitly stating the pickles were on the burgers! This wouldn't frustrate most people to the point they would drive back to the fast food joint and demand a refund, it was relatively cheap anyway, but you're kind of annoyed anyway. In fact, you might have actually ordered chicken nuggets had you known this beforehand. At least you can be sure those are 100% chicken! (Or are they?)

Not a perfect analogy by any means either (unless people eat pickles to future proof their body), but let's not act like that 0.5GB vanished into thin air because of this issue.

Bravo!

This is why Neogaf is awesome.

 

[Grief.exe]

Just tested my gtx 970 ftw with Samsung memory. Will not go above 3.5GB vram usage in Shadow of Mordor. So it is not just benchmarks where this is a problem, but actual games. I am using geforce experience recommended settings which are 1440p and pretty much everything set to ultra.

Bump up the resolution for your tests.

 

[LilJoka]

Bump up the resolution for your tests.

The reason you have to do this is because nvidia driver is only giving the last 500MB on the absolute last resort situation. At this point your fps are so bad it's difficult to show the frame time problems.

In the future 1080p game in ultra may hang around 60fps using 3.7-4gb VRAM, now you will notice a BIG issue.

Also when the 9xx series is not the flagship, who knows what neglect nvidia will give to driver optimisation to get around the 3500MB limit.

 

[FunkyMunkey]

Bravo!

This is why Neogaf is awesome.

Both are terrible analogies that don't make any sense.

 

[ZOONAMI]

The reason you have to do this is because nvidia driver is only giving the last 500MB on the absolute last resort situation. At this point your fps are so bad it's difficult to show the frame time problems.

In the future 1080p game in ultra may hang around 60fps using 3.7-4gb VRAM, now you will notice a BIG issue.

Also when the 9xx series is not the flagship, who knows what neglect nvidia will give to driver optimisation to get around the 3500MB limit.

The point here is that a gtx 980, or any other 4gb card, would be using all 4gb in this scenario.

 

[cyberheater]

 

[IceIpor]

Maybe Nvidia should just offer a refund of the cost of the missing RAM... Which in this case would be like $10-$15.

...But that probably won't happen without a lawsuit. Probably just a $10 rebate on future GPUs.

Spoiler

Which they will hide by increasing the price by $10. Not that they aren't already overpriced.

 

[Naked Snake]

So much corporate ballwashing in this thread...

Yeah almost makes you think someone is being paid to keep repeating their defensive and dismissive arguments.

People should wait for more data to surface (which will undoubtedly very soon) if they don't like the taste of crow.

 

[pestul]

The point here is that a gtx 980, or any other 4gb card, would be using all 4gb in this scenario.

The real question now.. why the hell does the SMM-gimped 980m get to use its full 4GB of memory as well?

 

[Xdrive05]

Both are terrible analogies that don't make any sense.

Yeah but they were interesting to read. Dude, this is Neogaf. :-D

 

[King Gilga]

Oh boy, a 970 was gonna be my next purchase, glad this all came out, I think I'm going to hold off now...

 

[Moral Panic]

I'll put this in another way, so maybe you better understand: if Nvidia released today a 970 with 3.5Gb onboard it would perform pretty much identically in ALL TESTS.

I don't see how that is possible when the card has access to the whole 4GB of ram.

 

[LilJoka]

I don't see how that is possible when the card has access to the whole 4GB of ram.

Well the last 500MB may as well not be there when it runs at 20gbps or less compared to the rest at 150gbps.

 

[leng jai]

Interesting stuff. This might be a minor issue now for the majority of people but what about in a year when more games start requiring all 4GB at 1080p? People were already saying that they should have released a 6GB version at the start.

 

[Polk]

It's good to press companies on potential design flaws, but this seems like a non-issue.

On January 24th 2015? You right, but it might be real issue on December 31st 2015 r. Because number of games that uses more than 3.5GB of VRAM can only be higher.

 

[mephixto]

I just uploaded a test video playing Shadows of Mordor, I only noticed some drops when turning the camara very quickly, despite that I found no mayor issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrkIF1-e9ds

The game is maxed at 3840x2160.

My specs: i7 3930k @ 4.7GhZ, 2x Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 (both OC)

 

[fizzelopeguss]

They are stats Nvidia want you not have an issue with.

It's taken them 2 weeks of "investigation" to respond with that.

The next few days is going to be very interesting.

Nvidia's going full astroturf on this and blanket nuking enthusiast sites with noise. I will say though that i can see sites adding memory testing to their benchmarking method in the future. If not the traditional sites, then a smaller one hungry to make a name for itself.

Future proofing isn't a real thing you guys. It never has been

Yes it is, it's the basis of every informed GPU purchase, and in this case it's saved me £280. It's also why people consider an EVGA or a Zotac over say...a gainward, the warranty.

The next couple of years are gonna be harsh on GPU manufacturers, the demands of 4k or VR are no joke.

 

[hoserx]

Shitapples don't fall far from the shit-tree.

 

[Xdrive05]

I would like to see frame time comparisons between 970 and 980 when using < 3.5gb and > 3.5gb.

Hopefully the big tech sites with any scruples will revisit this issue and test it on a wide array of current games and high vram consuming software. I bet you see more than a 1%-3% difference in drop.

 

[Rafterman]

Yeah almost makes you think someone is being paid to keep repeating their defensive and dismissive arguments.

People should wait for more data to surface (which will undoubtedly very soon) if they don't like the taste of crow.

Yay, conspiracy theories!

And you know that this works both ways, right? All of this doom and gloom seems extremely premature to me.

Nvidia's going full astroturf on this and blanket nuking enthusiast sites with noise. I will say though that i can see sites adding memory testing to their benchmarking method in the future. If not the traditional sites, then a smaller one hungry to make a name for itself.



Yes it is, it's the basis of every informed GPU purchase, and in this case it's saved me £280. It's also why people consider an EVGA or a Zotac over say...a gainward, the warranty.

The next couple of years are gonna be harsh on GPU manufacturers, the demands of 4k or VR are no joke.

No, it's really not. By the time these mythical games that require 4gb of memory at 1080p come out the 970 wouldn't have the power to run them at acceptable frames regardless of how much memory the card has.

 

[Kayant]

The people bitching about this have no life, seriously.

Yes ofc I forgot you have such an in depth knowledge of all our lives here... Forgive us Oh great one for being angry about being mislead /s

Some people...

 

[Wurdfurd]

The people bitching about this have no life, seriously.

Easy there junior. People have the right to complain about being misled as a consumer. Just because you don't care doesn't mean it isn't worth caring about to others.

Edit: LOL noticed "Junior Member" after. For once a mannerism of mine works naturally!

 

[Bricky]

So much corporate ballwashing in this thread...

Eh, just because not everyone agrees this is a huge problem doesn't mean they are defending Nvidia itself for being shady about it.

As long as we don't have enough proper test results showing this can actually have significant performance impact when >3.5GB is utilized (at the moment that does not seem to be the case) there is no reason to overreact. The big issue currently is that Nvidia should have been upfront about this instead of selling the 970 like an equal-bandwidth 4GB VRAM card (because that is the logical assumption when you put that on the box). Misleading consumers is indeed not a practice that should be defended. It's also kind of ridiculous it took them two weeks to investigate and react to the concerns if this was done by design, that is reasonable cause for concern.

With the whole thing blowing up right now we'll probably get multiple non-Nvidia benchmarks the coming few days. Acting like the 970 is practically a 3.5 GB VRAM card before Nvidia is proven wrong is just as silly as saying there is no issue with the situation at all.

 

[georgc]

Yay, conspiracy theories!

And you know that this works both ways, right? All of this doom and gloom seems extremely premature to me.



No, it's really not. By the time these mythical games that require 4gb of memory at 1080p come out the 970 wouldn't have the power to run them at acceptable frames regardless of how much memory the card has.

What about us SLI people that have been using 3.5+ GB since the 970 launched?
I have had studdering in all my SLI games when i push them and i tested that once i go over 3.5 GB i get problems.

 

[McHuj]

Well fuck. Good thing in plan in in upgrading to the 1070 or whatever the first 16FF series will be.

 

[Varna]

Pretty shitty on Nvidia's part.

It wasn't the same thing but the marketing for the dual GPU cards is bull shit too. You only get half of what they advertise.

 

[LilJoka]

What about us SLI people that have been using 3.5+ GB since the 970 launched?
I have had studdering in all my SLI games when i push them and i tested that once i go over 3.5 GB i get problems.

Yep SLI users will be the first casualties of this issue.

 

[mephixto]

Yep SLI users will be the first casualties of this issue.

I'm a 970 SLI user I just posted a video some post above this showing no problems yet people seems to ignore it and keep going with his conspiracy theories. Good luck with that free 980 lol.

 

[themadcowtipper]

If someone is legit done with Nvidia after this please send me your 970 for 100 dollars.

Spoiler

Please ;-;

Nah everyone is holding out hope for a free upgrade to a 980.................................

 

[Cidd]

Guess I'll hold on to my GTX 770 just a bit longer almost pull the trigger on a GTX 980 but I'm in no rush.

 

[Thoraxes]

If Nvidia's benchmark results are able to be reproduced by other outlets than this really is a non-issue when going above the 3.5GB margin.

Guess we'll know more next week though.

 

[Bubba77]

I just added my second 970 today. I havent noticed any stuttering or anything yet but Ive only gotten 2 hours of gaming in so far split between shadow of mordor and dragon age.

 

[LilJoka]

I'm a 970 SLI user I just posted a video some post above this showing no problems yet people seems to ignore it and keep going with his conspiracy theories. Good luck with that free 980 lol.

Post the frame times. It's also being managed on a driver level, when the next series comes out it's possible this level of optimisation os forgone.

Tbh I don't want anything I'm happy with the performance for what I paid. I've also done tests with shadow of mordor but my fps are too low to distinguish if the card is struggling or is being effected by VRAM.

What I'm not happy about is being lied to

If Nvidia's benchmark results are able to be reproduced by other outlets than this really is a non-issue when going above the 3.5GB margin.

Guess we'll know more next week though.

Not really. Posting fps is a cop out, they should give the frame time analysis as that will show the stuttering.

 

[Xdrive05]

If Nvidia's benchmark results are able to be reproduced by other outlets than this really is a non-issue when going above the 3.5GB margin.

Guess we'll know more next week though.

Nvidia's benchmark results are not terribly relevant. They didn't measure frame time, they measured rate, and only showed average rate at that. Nvidia's vram fuckery will likely show itself in minimum fps or in actual frame pacing.

I hope you're right though, and I hope other sites delve into it next week and show the real world consequences of the deception. Hopefully it's minimal.

 

[mephixto]

Post the frame times. It's also being managed on a driver level, when the next series comes out it's possible this level of optimisation os forgone.

Tbh I don't want anything I'm happy with the performance for what I paid. I've also done tests with shadow of mordor but my fps are too low to distinguish if the card is struggling or is being effected by VRAM.

What I'm not happy about is being lied to



Not really. Posting fps is a cop out, they should give the frame time analysis as that will show the stuttering.

If I'm not mistaken the frame time it's shown at the right of the fps.

 

[LilJoka]

If I'm not mistaken the frame time it's show at the right of the fps.

It is but it would be better if you could post the frame time graph from MSI AB or enable the log option in MSI AB and create a graph in excel. Ideally give it a 250ms polling time.

Show the GPU usage graph too.

In my experience the big stutters only came from moving the camera erratically like you say.

But there are some points in my graphs where GPU usage drops and frame times go very high, that is indicative of the driver managing memory between the 3500mb and 500mb sections.