Nvidia GTX 970 problems: This isn't acceptable.

[GoldenTiger]

Copying my post from the NVidia boards:

As an owner of two MSI Gaming GTX 970 cards running in SLI, I am seeing a huge performance impact in the form of strongly fluctuating frametimes when going over the 3.5gb mark on vram, essentially making it unplayable due to stuttering + choppy motion + hitching. I've conducted a good bit of testing on the issue and come up with these results:

Full-size: http://i.imgur.com/mhOevfQ.png

and

Full-size: http://i.imgur.com/PHaofek.png

It should not fall on us as customers who bought in good faith to remedy this situation caused by nvidia falsely advertising a GTX 970 to be a full 4gb of fully functional VRAM capacity, and specs provided by nvidia themselves to be published by the media of it being a full 4gb/64rop/2mb l2 instead of 3.5gb + 0.5gb of extremely slow segmented memory and lower specs otherwise. This is on nvidia, not us, and with them having falsely advertised some of the specs (despite claiming to have done it accidentally, that isn't our fault), and according to their purported explanation having known fully about the 3.5gb+0.5gb segmentation.

Nvidia, needs to step up already, stop dragging this out, and offer either full refunds including prepaid shipping as an official recall policy without us customers having to bear the hassle, or provide a swap-out to the properly-functioning version of these cards (fully-enabled GTX 980). Given that there isn't a comparable product other than the 980 in their stack to even change to with a refund which would leave us as 970 owners in the lurch, I'd argue that a swap-out to replace 970 cards with 980 ones for those affected at no additional charge would be fairest. In the end, it's their problem caused by their fault, and they should be the ones to pay for it, not us as end-users.

Also to quote another thread and raise a salient point:

I really hope the focus is less on New Egg (That just happens to be where I got my card) and more on the fact that we shouldn't expect a retailer to make an exception for a product that was misrepresented by the manufacturer. I realize I've said this already but I can not stress it enough. No restocking fee, no return shipping, no more headaches and definitely no more BS. I along with many others who paid $400 for a 4GB card should either be refunded by Nvidia (not a retailer/vendor) or swapped with a 980 as it actually has the full 4GB we all were promised and there is no other comparable alternative.

Twitter responses are absolutely unacceptable at this time:

http://i.imgur.com/cLUvSNO.jpg

 

[OneMoar]

nvidia isn't gonna refund anything or offer vouchers for 980's you are dreaming
crying false adverting isn't gonna get you or anybody else anyware
can we stop making threads about this now ....

 

[King_Barrion]

nvidia isn't gonna refund anything or offer vouchers for 980's you are dreaming
crying false adverting isn't gonna get you or anybody else anyware
can we stop making threads about this now ....

Entirely true that we can't do anything about it. But it still feels good to say that we're warning other people about the setbacks of the GTX 970.

(Don't kill me please, first post on this forum)

 

[natr0n]

RMA your cards instead of wasting time with proof of the cards failures.

 

[xfia]

@OneMoar well you dont have to read anything labeled with 970 if you dont want to.. people should be upset and call it false advertising because it is.

if people never had courage to speak out against what it is wrong there would be lead paint everywhere, seriously deadly vehicles, slavery, radiated crap, might not even have a atmosphere left or fish in the ocean.

@King_Barrion you certainly can do something.. you have a voice and laws that protect consumers because people in similar situations did not just sit there and say o well I got screwed over.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

I really don't know why Nvidia couldn't have just left everything the same as the 980, but keep the smx clustered disabled like the 970s are, but maybe I dont fully understand the relationship between ROPs, and the SMX clusters in Maxwell architecture.

though apparently it has all the same ROPs enabled, but the last 8, dont do anything.

 

[manofthem]

I want to buy a GTX 970 just because of this whole shenanigans!

 

[MxPhenom 216]

I want to buy a GTX 970 just because of this whole shenanigans!

I mean they are still really fast cards for the price. They HAVE 4GB of ram onboard, so that's not really false advertising saying they have 4gb, but maybe they should have in parentheses (3.5Gb effective).

 

[64K]

Entirely true that we can't do anything about it. But it still feels good to say that we're warning other people about the setbacks of the GTX 970.

(Don't kill me please, first post on this forum)

Don't worry, the last person that got killed on this forum was only because he said
"We can't do anything about it. But it still feels good to say that we're warning other people about the setbacks of the GTX 970."
As long as you don't say that then you should be fine.

j/k welcome to the forum.

The last I heard MSI isn't accepting returns in the USA based on the misrepresented specs by Nvidia.

 

[BUCK NASTY]

I bought 4 of them, so I guess I qualify for a Class Action lawsuit on my own? Oh...., just wait till they see the punitive damages for my pain and suffering.

 

[Xzibit]

Its funny how one can be an avid proponent of a product (See his post @ OCN prior to 970 release) but as soon as your dissatisfied and show cause. You get eaten alive by your own kind.

Have to love the InterWebs

 

[manofthem]

I mean they are still really fast cards for the price. They HAVE 4GB of ram onboard, so that's not really false advertising saying they have 4gb, but maybe they should have in parentheses (3.5Gb effective).

I've actually wanted a 970 for a while to throw into one of my others rigs, and this nonsense hasn't changed my opinion. I'm not one who would be using 3+gb vram anyway; I've don't think I've ever gone over 3gb as it is with my current cards at 1440 res. Besides they seem to be the sweet spot for both gaming and F@H with low power usage, and that's golden to me

I bought 4 of them, so I guess I qualify for a Class Action lawsuit on my own? Oh...., just wait till they see the punitive damages for my pain and suffering.

Amen, this was one of the reasons I started wanting one (folding, not the class action suit )

 

[BUCK NASTY]

I want to buy a GTX 970 just because of this whole shenanigans!

Get one now....so you have a claim to the settlement fund down the line.

Besides they seem to be the sweet spot for both gaming and F@H with low power usage, and that's golden to me

Agreed. Others have said that the R290x is a viable option now. Maybe......if you have another 120W to spare and happen to be deaf(prior to hearing the R290x cooler scream away).

 

[kn00tcn]

ok but is the 980 with the same settings & maybe reduced clockspeed showing the same signs when nearing 4gb?

i also recently got a 660... it's 2gb 192bit, so it has a similar uneven memory arrangement that i guess i should investigate

 

[xfia]

poor nvidia fannies.. just bend over and take it.. sad so many people are custom to disappointment..

 

[Fluffmeister]

As a consumer it is your right to return a product(s), impressive rant though.

 

[GoldenTiger]

As a consumer it is your right to return a product(s), impressive rant though.

nvidia isn't gonna refund anything or offer vouchers for 980's you are dreaming
crying false adverting isn't gonna get you or anybody else anyware
can we stop making threads about this now ....

It indeed is false advertising. They falsely advertised the number of rops, l2 cache, and the fully accessible memory capacity at advertised speeds, in addition to providing incorrect specifications to reviewers to publish on their behalf for samples they provided to create articles about. Only 3.5gb of the 4gb physically installed is capable of providing the proper performance levels, and dipping into that other 0.5gb segment due to their purposefully-flawed-by-design memory segmentation results in major gameplay issues as I have shown with my testing in my SLI GTX 970 configuration). If you don't have anything to talk about on this whole NVidia fiasco, kindly browse a topic of greater interest to you and stop impeding those affected from getting a remedy to the problem, be it a refund or fixed version of the GTX 970 video cards (aka GTX 980).

 

[qubit]

@GoldenTiger Thanks for showing us that the difference in specs are more than just a cosmetic difference and result in significant real world issues. Proving performance issues like this helps a customer to assert their rights and get a refund on the card should they not want it any more due to these problems.

It's obvious that NVIDIA intentionally covered this up to make the specs look better and thus sell more cards. Of course, proving it is another matter. It simply shows that big companies are just as likely to try underhand tactics as one-man bands if they think they can get away with it.

I don't get why there are so many NVIDIA apologists over this issue attacking anyone who brings stuff like this to light. It's downright strange.

 

[Iceni]

Just pulled this link from another forum I've been browsing. Not sure if it's FUD yet tho so you have been warned.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...ost-geforce-gtx-970-performance-with-drivers/

 

[MxPhenom 216]

It indeed is false advertising. They falsely advertised the number of rops, l2 cache, and the fully accessible memory capacity at advertised speeds, in addition to providing incorrect specifications to reviewers to publish on their behalf for samples they provided to create articles about. Only 3.5gb of the 4gb physically installed is capable of providing the proper performance levels, and dipping into that other 0.5gb segment due to their purposefully-flawed-by-design memory segmentation results in major gameplay issues as I have shown with my testing in my SLI GTX 970 configuration). If you don't have anything to talk about on this whole NVidia fiasco, kindly browse a topic of greater interest to you and stop impeding those affected from getting a remedy to the problem, be it a refund or fixed version of the GTX 970 video cards (aka GTX 980).

The card HAS 64 rops (all of which are enabled, 56 of which are active, the last 8 are idle), it HAS 4GB on the card, i think the reduction in the L2 cache is where the problem really lies. .

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8931/nvidia-publishes-statement-on-geforce-gtx-970-memory-allocation

This won't happen now if the kitguru link posted above is anything to go by:
http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-working-on-driver-update-to-address-gtx-970-issues/

What I thought was interesting is Boris Vorontsov (or how ever way you say his last name) developer for ENBseries graphics enhancement, made a comment on the regard as well on his facebook page, and basically said, that this "issue" is actually fairly normal for modern day GPUs.

Hes Russian so his english is a little off.

Whats going to be really funny, is that 970s will still probably sell well, its only the enthusiasts like us that will know this problem. The standard joe does not usually search google about this sort of stuff before he buys a new GPU. they just read a few of the newegg/amazon/other retailer user reviews, and look up a few benchmarks and boom.

Also onemoar and fluff were not denying that it was false advertising. They were saying that the amount of rant threads that have been blowing up these forums isn't going to change much, if anything.

 

[xfia]

Just pulled this link from another forum I've been browsing. Not sure if it's FUD yet tho so you have been warned.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...ost-geforce-gtx-970-performance-with-drivers/

yeah its lagit.. the engineer that said there would be drivers to help out edited his post.. he is probably fired or on shit detail forever.

 

[Iceni]

yeah its lagit.. the engineer that said there would be drivers to help out edited his post.. he is probably fired or on shit detail forever.

That's a shame it probably means the only long term fix for these cards is a bios or driver that locks out that slow ram segment.

I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones, I got my card through OCUK and they seem to be working tooth and claw to either get a fix or get RMA's and upgrades and or refunds in credit sorted out. Just a shame Nvidia dropped the ball with this one. If the card had been advertised as 3.5GB and that ram was never even on the cards this wouldn't have happened and no one would have even batted an eye as the performance of these cards is great. With a dodgy segment it knocks resale off the cards, and means people are going to have to watch the V-ram usage like a hawk as game get more V-ram hungry.

 

[xfia]

The card HAS 64 rops (all of which are enabled, 56 of which are active, the last 8 are idle), it HAS 4GB on the card, i think the reduction in the L2 cache is where the problem really lies. .

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8931/nvidia-publishes-statement-on-geforce-gtx-970-memory-allocation

This won't happen now if the kitguru link posted above is anything to go by:
http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-working-on-driver-update-to-address-gtx-970-issues/

What I thought was interesting is Boris Vorontsov (or how ever way you say his last name) developer for ENBseries graphics enhancement, made a comment on the regard as well on his facebook page, and basically said, that this "issue" is actually fairly normal for modern day GPUs.

Hes Russian so his english is a little off.

Whats going to be really funny, is that 970s will still probably sell well, its only the enthusiasts like us that will know this problem. The standard joe does not usually search google about this sort of stuff before he buys a new GPU. they just read a few of the newegg/amazon/other retailer user reviews, and look up a few benchmarks and boom.

Also onemoar and fluff were not denying that it was false advertising. They were saying that the amount of rant threads that have been blowing up these forums isn't going to change much, if anything.

its good that there is more awareness now and all the other gpu's like this should be outed too and certainly if the smaller segment cant be accessed simultaneously that is what makes it take a shit and be worse than using system ram.

 

[OneMoar]

these threads serve no purpose other then to give people a place to troll flame or generally vent
-thats fine but this stuff belongs on GN
also ENB doesn't know what hes talking about ..
!requestinglock

 

[Ja.KooLit]

funny that first they lied about specs and explaining what went wrong. First statement was due to miscommunication with departments. Now they retract their promise to update driver to fix 970. well, must be a chaos now for nvidia. bad start for this year for the green camp.