Nvidia attempting to appease customers.

[ander12391]

Just thought you guys would like to know that Peter Sierant "Senior Director of Customer Care" at Nvidia  is on the Geforce forums offering to help customers get their 970s exchanged. 

Here is the link 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/803518/geforce-900-series/gtx-970-3-5gb-vram-issue/post/4438196/#4438196

 

 

He also mentioned that Nvidia is currently working on a driver that may address the issue with the slower .5GB  of VRAM

[Razzaa]

Interesting......

 

Hey,

First, I want you to know that I'm not just a mod, I work for NVIDIA in Santa Clara.

I totally get why so many people are upset. We messed up some of the stats on the reviewer kit and we didn't properly explain the memory architecture. I realize a lot of you guys rely on product reviews to make purchase decisions and we let you down. 

It sucks because we're really proud of this thing. The GTX970 is an amazing card and I genuinely believe it's the best card for the money that you can buy. We're working on a driver update that will tune what's allocated where in memory to further improve performance.

Having said that, I understand that this whole experience might have turned you off to the card. If you don't want the card anymore you should return it and get a refund or exchange. If you have any problems getting that done, let me know and I'll do my best to help.

--Peter

I totally get it. But since we don't actually sell cards directly (aside from a limited run at Best Buy), I can't force our partners to do vouchers or anything like that. 

To be extra clear, I think the GTX970 is a great card and honestly don't believe there is a better card for the price. If you are unhappy for whatever reason, talk to your board mfgr and give them a chance to help you out. If that route fails, let me know and I'll try to help.

 

[The Pizza Thief]

 

There have been some questions regarding the memory allocation on NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 970 video cards. Below is an official statement from NVIDIA on this topic.

The GeForce GTX 970 is equipped with 4GB of dedicated graphics memory. However the 970 has a different configuration of SMs than the 980, and fewer crossbar resources to the memory system. To optimally manage memory traffic in this configuration, we segment graphics memory into a 3.5GB section and a 0.5GB section. The GPU has higher priority access to the 3.5GB section. When a game needs less than 3.5GB of video memory per draw command then it will only access the first partition, and 3rd party applications that measure memory usage will report 3.5GB of memory in use on GTX 970, but may report more for GTX 980 if there is more memory used by other commands. When a game requires more than 3.5GB of memory then we use both segments.

We understand there have been some questions about how the GTX 970 will perform when it accesses the 0.5GB memory segment. The best way to test that is to look at game performance. Compare a GTX 980 to a 970 on a game that uses less than 3.5GB. Then turn up the settings so the game needs more than 3.5GB and compare 980 and 970 performance again.

 

Found HERE

[Hans Christian | Teri]

Nvidia handling this like a boss, nice to see.

[MegaDave91]

Interesting......

 

Hey,

First, I want you to know that I'm not just a mod, I work for NVIDIA in Santa Clara.

I totally get why so many people are upset. We messed up some of the stats on the reviewer kit and we didn't properly explain the memory architecture. I realize a lot of you guys rely on product reviews to make purchase decisions and we let you down. 

It sucks because we're really proud of this thing. The GTX970 is an amazing card and I genuinely believe it's the best card for the money that you can buy. We're working on a driver update that will tune what's allocated where in memory to further improve performance.

Having said that, I understand that this whole experience might have turned you off to the card. If you don't want the card anymore you should return it and get a refund or exchange. If you have any problems getting that done, let me know and I'll do my best to help.

--Peter

You should probably quote this...

[stconquest]

Interesting......

 

Hey,

-snip-

 

I'll do my best to help.

--Peter

 

I am glad to see a rep. actively participating.  I hope those that are upset will use this opportunity wisely. 

[ofr057]

I just got an email back from the mob i brought my 970 a week ago and I'm able to trade it in to go towards a 980

[Blake]

Nvidia handling this like a boss, nice to see.

So they got caught lying to the consumer, and this is a good thing that they are now offering exchanges? Wouldn't be surprised if there was another class action in their future (remember the 8600M).

 

If I had purchased a 970, I'd be claiming consumer law all day long.

[Ex14]

@Blake why do you even bother. I mean at least they did admit and are trying to make amends.not a like a certain fruity company who altho did give free bumpers did not admit it was their design fault even when confronted.

Well that's the last time I reply to any ppl like you regarding this issue. It was entertaining at first nut now its just irritating and does nothing but incites flame wars.

[Razzaa]

So they got caught lying to the consumer, and this is a good thing that they are now offering exchanges? Wouldn't be surprised if there was another class action in their future (remember the 8600M).

 

If I had purchased a 970, I'd be claiming consumer law all day long.

When was the first class action? They are offering to help people get a refund if wanted. Cant sue them when they offer to make things right! lmao

[Tam3n]

Everyone's going to get their 970s changed to 980s? There's going to be some pile of cheap 970s...

[Albatross]

Could a driver actually fix the issue?

[Razzaa]

Could a driver actually fix the issue?

Nvidia engineering department are the only ones who can realistically answer that.

[stconquest]

Could a driver actually fix the issue?

 

They should be able to get the card to not access that 0.5 GB in applications.  The card won't stutter/slow down, but only 3.5 GB will be allocated to the program/game.

[BWSSoldya]

Anyone know what they are doing with the exchanged cards? If they are going to sell them as refurbished I'd like one, I don't care about that 3,5 gig VRAM, I'm running a single monitor at 1080p and if that means I can get a 970 for a heavy discount I'd be all over that!

[stconquest]

Anyone know what they are doing with the exchanged cards? If they are going to sell them as refurbished I'd like one, I don't care about that 3,5 gig VRAM, I'm running a single monitor at 1080p and if that means I can get a 970 for a heavy discount I'd be all over that!

I believe the exchange is happening on the retailer's side.  Like if you bought your card at Best Buy 2 weeks go, and found this out.  You usually have like 30 days to return it.

[Ex14]

@BWSSoldya they're not exchanging or refunding anything. What's been offered is that a senior Nvidia employee helps speak for you in regards to getting a refund or exchange from the retailer or manufacturer of the card. Nothing is set in stone as to whether you will actually get a refund or not.

I like how this particular employee is trying to handle things if its not just Nvidia in damage control(which is probably the case , I hope not.)

[BWSSoldya]

@BWSSoldya they're not exchanging or refunding anything. What's been offered is that a senior Nvidia employee helps speak for you in regards to getting a refund or exchange from the retailer or manufacturer of the card. Nothing is set in stone as to whether you will actually get a refund or not.

I like how this particular employee is trying to handle things if its not just Nvidia in damage control(which is probably the case , I hope not.)

 

Yeah oke, but what do these retailers do with those cards because as @Tam3n said, if a lot of people are going to be exchanging those cards for other cards like 980's etc, there's gonna be a lot of cards back at the manufacturers / board partners that are collecting dust. So I'm guessing they will want to dump those cards as being second hand or as being refurbished or w/e. 

That's where my post about cheap 970's comes around the corner. Probably would have been beter if I had quoted Tam3n  

[Ex14]

Yeah oke, but what do these retailers do with those cards because as @Tam3n said, if a lot of people are going to be exchanging those cards for other cards like 980's etc, there's gonna be a lot of cards back at the manufacturers / board partners that are collecting dust. So I'm guessing they will want to dump those cards as being second hand or as being refurbished or w/e. 

That's where my post about cheap 970's comes around the corner. Probably would have been beter if I had quoted Tam3n

that's only if  they are being accepted for exchange. whethe rit actually happens is a huge question mark.

[StingBull]

Nvidia handling this like a boss, nice to see.

 

More like they are scared shitless from a massive lawsuit onslaught. It's not like they have any defence. If they get sued they will lose and they will lose bad.

[Albatross]

Nvidia engineering department are the only ones who can realistically answer that.

 

And I doubt I could get that answer asking in the linked thread, right?

[LAwLz]

I'm very confused. Did something happen to the 970? I haven't bothered with GPU news for a while because of all the flame wars. Last time I checked it was one of the best price:performance cards on the market and everyone was praising it.

[vm'N]

More like they are scared shitless from a massive lawsuit onslaught. It's not like they have any defence. If they get sued they will lose and they will lose bad.

I'm not so sure about that.

[mathijs727]

I'm very confused. Did something happen to the 970? I haven't bothered with GPU news for a while because of all the flame wars. Last time I checked it was one of the best price:performance cards on the market and everyone was praising it.

Some one found out that the cards last 0.5GB is connected in a different way as the rest of the memory causing that 0.5GB to be very slow (double the speed of PCI-e bus ,but much slower then the main 3.5GB partition). This could cause signifcant frame time spikes/stutter when games run over 3.5GB of VRAM. Apart from that the amount of ROPs and L2 Cache was incorrect.

 

It's not like the card runs any worse then it did at launch, but i get why people are angry.

 

A really good, in depth, article can be found over at anandtech:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation

[Tacitus]

Pretty tempting to try and get my 970 returned for a refund. I'd quite happily downstep to a 290, or sidestep to a 290x.