I will start this off by simply stating that most would consider me an Nvidia fanboy. Years ago I used to be team red all the way, but after three straight cards had problems I switched and haven't regretted it for a moment. With that being said, I purchased 2 GTX 970s and sold 2 GTX 780s specifically for better 4k and future proofing. I, admittedly had some concerns in going to fewer cuda cores, and lower memory bus speeds, but I felt the higher clock speeds, the updated architecture, and the 4 gb of vram more than made up for those, and the benchmarks in every review I saw online backed this up. Once I got the cards installed, I actually wondered if something was wrong as I did not get any of the gains I expected. My performance was actually WORSE at 4k than with the two 780s. I debated returning them, but felt that this was most likely due to driver immaturity, as the 780 performance had improved over the last year as new drivers were released. So, after much debate I sold the 780s and I am now regretting it. New drivers have not improved the 970 performance significantly, and with all this new information coming out, I do feel like I was misled, whether intentionally or not. I DID buy these cards because of the 4gb memory buffer. I was already questioning the memory bus design before I learned that one of the controllers was disabled. I have seen massive stutters (I might even call a couple of them screen freezes) when going over 3.5 gb vram usage. It is infrequent, but it does happen. Honestly, I thought something else was wrong until all this came out and I started monitoring the vram usage . One of the posters has said that people did not buy specs, but he is incorrect. Had I seen the actual specs of the 970 before purchasing, I would not have purchased them, and stayed with my 780s a while longer.
With all the above being said, my regret over not returning the 970s while I still could, my feeling that Nvidia was not honest regarding the specifications of the 970, I still would not purchase another AMD gpu, as my track record with their cards is still worse. I do feel that Nvidia should offer purchasers of 970s some sort of recompense for misleading us with the specifications of the cards (again, whether it was intentional or not). in response to some of the car analogies that have been floating around, I would like to put out a little factual information rather than vague analogies. When Mazda introduced the RX8 a few years ago, it was claimed to have a certain amount of horsepower and torque. Magazines tested it and it did 0-60 and the quarter mile in certain times. However, when magazines and owners started putting the cars on dynamometers, they quickly realized that the RX8 engine was not producing it's manufacturer claimed horsepower. It still accelerated as fast as tested, but was making less power than the manufacturer claimed. Mazda offered to buy back every RX8 from any owner who was dissatisfied.
As an update that I have not seen here, Nvidia has responded on the GeForce forums. https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/803518/geforce-900-series/gtx-970-3-5gb-vram-issue/post/4438090/#4438090 Long story short, they are working on a new driver that should help, but if you are not satisfied, they are willing to help unhappy 970 owners return their cards. While I haven't been completely satisfied with the performance of my 970's (see my original post. I felt until all this information came out, that it was most likely due to immature drivers) I was not one of the super angry people you've been seeing on this and other forums. I am actually pretty happy with the response. At this point, I will probably wait to see how these new drivers help the issues I've been having, then decide whether to return and swap for one 980, or keep my 970s.
