Do you think that Nvidia should recall 970's? (and Nvidia's response)

[bossdre]

Just like what the dude at PCper.com had said, if only NVIDIA marketed it or invent a technology for it then this backlash wouldn't happen (assuming they did know about it before launch).

[nekro]

What you guys think

 

make a strawpoll

They should already have done something about it. With the real specs out this card is like a 965 or something. Ramgate!

[BatJoe]

AnandTech has a New Article out. 

 

And as expected, like most hardware sites they are on the defense for NVidia. Can we really trust any of these sites anymore if all they present is spoon fed information.

[Doughnutnator]

make a strawpoll

They should already have done something about it. With the real specs out this card is like a 965 or something. Ramgate!

Awesome idea!

How can I do that in the LTT mobile version?

[Yttersta]

If it says 4GB on the box, this is a statement that 4GB of total VRAM is expected to exist on the card physically and that all of it should be homogeneous by the standards that volatile memory operates.

 

The fact is though, their official statement on the issue pretty much says "the performance effect from the issue is <5% so just deal with it".

 

 

This is completely unacceptable, it is a shame on Nvidia and they should back their hardware up with all that smugness they've had over the last couple of years.

 

Every 970 user should at least receive 1 more free game and/or a recall as a choice. If I had a 970 I'd be very very disappointed, be strongly experiencing a loss of trust in Nvidia, and sadness.

[hodgoes2001]

I work in a computer shop in australia... i have one of these cards... THEY are a great card dont get me wrong i love the thing...

But under australian law we are entitled to give a customer a refund if they bought one... due to the real specs being different to the ones that we advisted from nvidia's website...

Do you realise what this does to small computer shops!!!

 

This is alot of money that is very hard if not impossible to get back...

 

One of 2 things need to happen...

A price drop on the card with a vocher given to the people who have bought the card...

 

Or the cards need to be taken back and have there extra features we where told about enabled...

Oh and people who say the card still performs the same.... well DUH it performs the same as when you bought it....

[chopdok]

And as expected, like most hardware sites they are on the defense for NVidia. Can we really trust any of these sites anymore if all they present is spoon fed information.

You might get that impression, but that is not entirely true. They are indeed only publishing information provided by nVidia(at this stage), and their article's main criticsim of nVidia can be summed up by "morally wrong". And their summary of the GTX 970's real revealed specs is pretty much "this looks weird, and it can go wrong, but so far it hasnt" - which is, technically, true, except some cases of SLI performance, but even that is till not proven with 100% cerainty.

 

But unlike us forum dwellers, who can freely discuss whatever we want, and build any theories and say anything and mostly get away with it - they are actually at work. Thats their job, to be a reviewer, and they cant just say - "this will cause those kinds of issues" - without backing up their words with benchmarks and test results. Which they don't have, because so far, all the current benchmarks and tests failed to present sufficient evidence that GTX 970 is problematic. If you could actually see this clusterfuck in the benchmarks - it would not take 3 goddamned months to figure out whats wrong and push nVidia against the wall. Of course, another reason is - they didn't know what to look for, and which fringe conditions to test for. Nobody actually tried to push the game or benchmark into the last 0.5 segment until now- because why would they, if they didnt even know VRAM was segmented. And to add to that - if they do start mentioning theories about the possible negative impact of this mess, without backing their words with actual numbers - nVidia will sue them for libel. Me and you can bash nVidia all day, and I can tell that the logevity of the card is compromised in my eyes, because something something 15 years of buying and using GPUs. They can't just say it. They need proof, some benchmark results, to protect them from nVidia's lawsuit.

[Dissentient]

I just bought a 970 and I don't care about any of that.

 

I don't pay for VRAM, memory buses, ROPs or cache. I paid for framerates and power consumption that I've seen in benchmarks. I can't imagine why would anyone get angry over something like that when something like 95% of people are probably playing at 1080p where none of that will ever matter anyway.

 

Lying about specs is bad though, but Nvidia being dishonest is business as usual. Absolutely no reason to demand a refund though.

A free game would be nice tho.

 

 

The 290 is better value anyways

Not if you consider power consumption. Requirement for a more powerful PSU eliminates price/performance difference between 290 and 970. One of the reasons that I could get one in the first place is that 970 runs on 500W.

 

 

The lack of trust is  BIGGER deal than the 500 MB.

Benchmarks don't lie.

[Tacitus]

The 290 is better value anyways , the 970 didn't need this controversy.

 

The lack of trust is  BIGGER deal than the 500 MB.

 

When a company lies to you bridges are burned.

 

Yes, the 290 is better value, and in crossfire closes the gap in performance significantly (and at a substantially lower cost). Hence my regret.

 

In all honesty though, I won't lose sleep over this. I get the same great performance I got 3 months ago. Businesses lie and bend truths all the time, and life goes on. It's hardly the worst lie I've ever heard from a business.

[Grandsteam]

geez i live in brazil  i paid something like $700 for this 

[BatJoe]

You might get that impression, but that is not entirely true. They are indeed only publishing information provided by nVidia(at this stage), and their article's main criticsim of nVidia can be summed up by "morally wrong". And their summary of the GTX 970's real revealed specs is pretty much "this looks weird, and it can go wrong, but so far it hasnt" - which is, technically, true, except some cases of SLI performance, but even that is till not proven with 100% cerainty.

 

But unlike us forum dwellers, who can freely discuss whatever we want, and build any theories and say anything and mostly get away with it - they are actually at work. Thats their job, to be a reviewer, and they cant just say - "this will cause those kinds of issues" - without backing up their words with benchmarks and test results. Which they don't have, because so far, all the current benchmarks and tests failed to present sufficient evidence that GTX 970 is problematic. If you could actually see this clusterfuck in the benchmarks - it would not take 3 goddamned months to figure out whats wrong and push nVidia against the wall. Of course, another reason is - they didn't know what to look for, and which fringe conditions to test for. Nobody actually tried to push the game or benchmark into the last 0.5 segment until now- because why would they, if they didnt even know VRAM was segmented. And to add to that - if they do start mentioning theories about the possible negative impact of this mess, without backing their words with actual numbers - nVidia will sue them for libel. Me and you can bash nVidia all day, and I can tell that the logevity of the card is compromised in my eyes, because something something 15 years of buying and using GPUs. They can't just say it. They need proof, some benchmark results, to protect them from nVidia's lawsuit.

 

I get what you are saying, but on the flip side these sites had zero issues presenting false information because they simply assumed it was correct. Obviously you cannot do that and we can see even more now why. You can see how then with your argument it doesn't make sense. You are saying we have the give the reviewers time to get all the correct information before passing judgment, but this is after the fact. Where were they in the beginning?

 

The fact that none of these sites are looking at this "department miscommunication" excuse as laughable and unacceptable just angers me, especially after all this time. How long has the 970 been out? I'm expected to believe not a single engineer or marketing person read these reviews?

 

If I were these review sites I would be publically embarrassed even more than NVidia. In a way we kinda expect these big companies to only share what they have to, but we expect the hardware sites to give us real information. People go to their sites to actually decide what they will use their hard bucks on. I've lost a ton of respect not just for NVidia but also some of my favorite sites and personalities.

[thisnamewillkillyou]

I do believe they made a honest mistake, but you pay for your mistakes.

[zappian]

I just bought a 970 and I don't care about any of that.

 

I don't pay for VRAM, memory buses, ROPs or cache. I paid for framerates and power consumption that I've seen in benchmarks. I can't imagine why would anyone get angry over something like that when something like 95% of people are probably playing at 1080p where none of that will ever matter anyway.

 

Lying about specs is bad though, but Nvidia being dishonest is business as usual. Absolutely no reason to demand a refund though.

A free game would be nice tho.

 

Not if you consider power consumption. Requirement for a more powerful PSU eliminates price/performance difference between 290 and 970. One of the reasons that I could get one in the first place is that 970 runs on 500W.

 

Benchmarks don't lie.

 

Wtf do you mean benchmarks dont lie.

The nvidia benchmarks were cherry picked to not show minimum fps that spot VRAM stutter.

And my quote:

 

 

 

The lack of trust is  BIGGER deal than the 500 MB.

 

Didn't refer any benchmarks , only that nvidia lost my trust after lying to the consumer.

[bossdre]

I just bought a 970 and I don't care about any of that.

 

I don't pay for VRAM, memory buses, ROPs or cache. I paid for framerates and power consumption that I've seen in benchmarks. I can't imagine why would anyone get angry over something like that when something like 95% of people are probably playing at 1080p where none of that will ever matter anyway.

 

Lying about specs is bad though, but Nvidia being dishonest is business as usual. Absolutely no reason to demand a refund though.

A free game would be nice tho.

 

It should not be the norm. Lets not let the tech industry devolved to the likes of the video game industry. We the consumer has the power to bring down companies with our purse! Fail to deliver quality, competitive and innovative product? Then die to obscurity, deliver a quality, competitive and innovative product then we will make you fucking rich! Easy.

 

Don't be an idiot that these giant companies think you are by thinking that you won't complain anyway or you'll buy it anyway regardless. Lets not let it slide.

 

But I do own a GTX 970 G1 Gaming and it is great since I'm on a 1080p display but I was contemplating to upgrade my display to surround or 1440p due to the amount of RAM and bit rate that it supposed it has, due to this issue, the flexibility that I thought I had when I bought the GPU is now a lie.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Honestly this a very grey area (i'm sorry I don't know what to call it :B  )

 

Nvidia advertised this card with having 4GB of Vram which is true, we were not lied to.

 

But did nvidia advertise this as a perfectly running card? Well... not really, all of us expected it to run perfectly.

 

This is still an issue nonetheless. A card this well performing shouldn't be having problems like this.

 

Not totally sure if they should recall it though.

[Ex14]

I just bought a 970 and I don't care about any of that.

 

I don't pay for VRAM, memory buses, ROPs or cache. I paid for framerates and power consumption that I've seen in benchmarks. I can't imagine why would anyone get angry over something like that when something like 95% of people are probably playing at 1080p where none of that will ever matter anyway.

 

Lying about specs is bad though, but Nvidia being dishonest is business as usual. Absolutely no reason to demand a refund though.

A free game would be nice tho.

 

Not if you consider power consumption. Requirement for a more powerful PSU eliminates price/performance difference between 290 and 970. One of the reasons that I could get one in the first place is that 970 runs on 500W.

 

Benchmarks don't lie.

Cause some people actually bought 970s with SLI in mind for surround/4k it being advertised as a 4GB card might have something to do with that.

With that said yea. most of nthe people complaining actually don;t even push these cards yet. but in the future?? will not be surprised to see a 970Ti where all 4GB is enabled just to keep up with the growing (VRAM) Trend that games seem to be eating for breakfast. lunch and dinner.

[Dissentient]

Wtf do you mean benchmarks dont lie.

The nvidia benchmarks were cherry picked to not show minimum fps that spot VRAM stutter.

Never trust someone who wants to sell something to you. It's obvious that I'm talking about benchmarks done by hardware websites.

 

Didn't refer any benchmarks , only that nvidia lost my trust after lying to the consumer.

Why would you ever trust nvidia in the first place? To me it always looked like a company that doesn't respect consumers.

[Syraz]

Dont think a full recall..but they should do something..

I myself, still want to get a pair of them for 1440p gaming. I am still nervous but, the refrence 970s *not the titan cooler ones* have short pcb and water blocks which will fit awesome in my small case, which was part of my plan for it..so I am little frustrated

[Dissentient]

It should not be the norm. Lets not let the tech industry devolved to the likes of the video game industry. We the consumer has the power to bring down companies with our purse! Fail to deliver quality, competitive and innovative product? Then die to obscurity, deliver a quality, competitive and innovative product then we will make you fucking rich! Easy.

 

Don't be an idiot that these giant companies think you are by thinking that you won't complain anyway or you'll buy it anyway regardless. Lets not let it slide.

 

But I do own a GTX 970 G1 Gaming and it is great since I'm on a 1080p display but I was contemplating to upgrade my display to surround or 1440p due to the amount of RAM and bit rate that it supposed it has, due to this issue, the flexibility that I thought I had when I bought the GPU is now a lie.

To me actual performance matters most, regardless of how hard the company lies about it or the specs.

 

Your flexibility is still there. You will never have any problems with 970 at 1440p (it doesn't even get close to 3GB), and 1080p surround will do just fine too, if you knock some settings down (it's not that there's any noticeable difference between high and ultra).

[maizenblue]

I have a question (and don't just answer this in a certain way because you're butthurt or whatever, take everything into account and give a truthful answer, with reason). Lets say the card was marketed correctly, with less ROPs and L2 cache, and lets say the card stated it had 3.5GB GDDR5 memory, for the same price (so MSRP = $329), and the only options for 4gb memory are an r9 290x or a GTX 980. Would you have not bought the GTX 970 and gone for one of those cards? Or would you have waited for the 380x? Or would you have bought the GTX 970 anyway?

Personally, I game at 1080p, maybe 1440p in the future, so the GTX 970 with 3.5gb memory is fine for me.

(Just to clarify: The card still has 4gb memory, it's just slower accessing the final 512mb which I think most people would never use/notice anyway)

 

 

 

There's no doubt many people wouldn't have bought the card had they known this, which is exactly why Nvidia covered it up. When they were pressed about issues related to this problem, Nvidias response was simply " we are looking into the problem", implying it was some glitch they had no knowledge of. It wasn't until this issue blew up on tech, gaming, and Nvidia forums that they were forced to acknowledge the truth.

 

 

 

The 970 inSLI was being billed as peoples cheap ticket to smooth 1440p and 4k gaming, and a LOT of people probably passed on a more powerful card to go with 2 970s for that purpose. These are the people NVIDIA screwed over the most, and the ones who in most cases would not have bought the 970, especially 2 of the things. I mean you could get an 295x2 for LESS than the 970 in SLI, and that beats 2 980s in some benchmarks, yet some people passed on that for 2 970s(I can recall several times 2 970s was recommended over a 295x2 on this forum).

 

Moral of the story, if something is too good to be true, it probably is.

[chopdok]

I get what you are saying, but on the flip side these sites had zero issues presenting false information because they simply assumed it was correct. Obviously you cannot do that and we can see even more now why. You can see how then with your argument it doesn't make sense. You are saying we have the give the reviewers time to get all the correct information before passing judgment, but this is after the fact. Where were they in the beginning?

 

The fact that none of these sites are looking at this "department miscommunication" excuse as laughable and unacceptable just angers me.

 

If I were these review sites I would be publically embarrassed even more than NVidia. In a way we kinda expect these big companies to only share what they have to, but we expect the hardware sites to give us a real information. People go to their sites to actually decide what they will use their hard bucks on. I've lost a ton of respect not just for NVidia but also some of my favorite sites and personalities.

They couldnt give what they didnt have. The benchmarks checked out. The GTX 970 performed magnificently, and all the small sicrepencies, such as the card taking 2% more hit from hitting MSAA x4 on that it should have if you extrapolate 980 results onto 970 - they were all very close to statistical margin of error. The dsicrepancies are so small they can be explained by drivers, new architecture and other reasons. When a company hands you official specs for a GPU - you by default assume its 100% correct. Because if its not, then it means false advertising, fraud and is against the law. Only complete retard would knowingly give false information to hardware review sites, and to consumers. Which is apparently what nVidia marketing are, complete retards. But again, everyone is smart in retrospective. They gave us real information, at least in their eyes. I saw the benchmarks myself, I looked through them. I noticed the small anomalies too - but they are present in many benchmarks, and are usually result of trivial issues, like brand new drivers, some libraries running in the background. Tons of reasons. I myself failed to see it, and while I might not do a reviews for a living, I do have plenty of experience with GPUs, I know how to read benchmarks, extrapolate results and I can generally see when the benchmarks dont conform with the specs. I myself failed to see through this bullshit, and I am not gonna blame them for failing too.

 

As for personalities - they probably feel bad too. And many of them are asking themselves - how the heck they missed it too. But again, a lot of folk bumped their heads against this crap for 3 month. Lots of overclockers, PC enthusiasts, even hardware engineers who are also PC enthusiasts. Some real pros in the field of PC hardware, people who in a day will forget more about PC platform that I can learn in a lifetime - failed to see it too. So, I honestly cant blame the reviewers. And again, everyone trusted nVidia - because nobody thought that nVidia employess are that much incompetent.

[chopdok]

To me actual performance matters most, regardless of how hard the company lies about it or the specs.

 

Your flexibility is still there. You will never have any problems with 970 at 1440p (it doesn't even get close to 3GB), and 1080p surround will do just fine too, if you knock some settings down (it's not that there's any noticeable difference between high and ultra).

So, you can without a shadow of a doubt, guarantee that in 3 years (which falls under the definition of "will never have") I will be able to play a game in 1440p, without having any issues, at 60 FPS on high settings? For real? I didnt think the GTX 970 would be able to do it even if it had original specs, let alone the current mess.

 

Why do you think games wont use more RAM? You know, VRAM usage goes up over the years. My first GPU had 12 MB, and it was more than enough.

[Dissentient]

So, you can without a shadow of a doubt, guarantee that in 3 years (which falls under the definition of "will never have") I will be able to play a game in 1440p, without having any issues, at 60 FPS on high settings? For real?

 

Why do you think games wont use more RAM? You know, VRAM usage goes up over the years. My first GPU had 12 MB, and it was more than enough.

I think that because at the point where your VRAM consumption approaches 4 GB the card already outputs unplayable framerates, and so does 980. Having more VRAM on 970 wouldn't change anything because of that. And yes, in three years 970 will run any game that is not retardedly unoptimized [an example of retardedly unoptimized - Witcher 2 (and probably 3)] at high settings / 60 FPS.

[Gorak69]

I would be happy if they just lowered the price and put new/accurate specs on the box cuz I still want 2 of these bad boys!

[Gorak69]

Also, the Witcher 3 gives me a huge boner... Just sayin