NVIDIA Responds to GTX 970 3.5GB Memory Issue

[Lewellyn]

The BIOS isn't for a G1, and it could result in screwing up your card, I wouldn't recommend flashing it.

 

 

Go into GPU-Z and read the name of the BIOS, if the number of the BIOS they released doesn't match your card exactly, don't use it.

 

But it says it is for a G1, "GV-N970G1 GAMING-4GD (rev. 1.0/1.1)"

 

Using gpu-z, my bios is 84.04.1F.00.FC.

 

They say this: 

 

"You can only update to a VBIOS version of the same series.

If your VBIOS version is:

F1, it can only be updated with VBIOS versions F2-F9.

F10, it can only be updated with VBIOS versions F11-F19.

F20, it can only be updated with VBIOS versions F21-F29."

 

So is there no version for FC in there?

[MegaDave91]

 

This just smears the purchase with a tad of guilt and betrayal.

That has a huge impact, regardless of the card's performance.

[alicskysareblue]

makes sense to me, it just utilizes the memory diffrently

 

[BiG StroOnZ]

 

Stop it with this AMD marketing bullshit. 

 

Honestly, I think most of this is blown out of proportion. As there are many people on the internet doing testing outside of Nai's memory benchmark that are having no problems exceeding 3.5GB of VRAM utilization in games and are not experiencing any direct side-effects because of it. Meaning for the most part considering how high of the settings they are using, high resolutions, high levels of AA, etc. they are still getting consistent framerates (albeit low framerates, but that is connected to the settings they are running). So, honestly I really don't believe there is really a need for this much hoot and holler. I think people might be confused with the settings they are running, and trying to connect it with a VRAM issue but rather it's the 970 running out of horsepower.

 

Here's some links of a 970 using more than 3.5GB of VRAM:

 

Dragon Age: Inquisition at 4k using nVidia DSR with everything set to maximum, including 4x MSAA

 

 

watch_dogs, 4k with 4x msaa

 

 

1440p combined with 8xMSAA

 

 

However, as a side note, this still puts AMD in a better position than they were before for releasing their R9 300 series cards. Also, there is no reason for you to get bent out of shape over people's comments. You know how the internet gets when they discover something surprising. 

 

 

[Lays]

But it says it is for a G1, "GV-N970G1 GAMING-4GD (rev. 1.0/1.1)"

 

Using gpu-z, my bios is 84.04.1F.00.FC.

 

They say this: 

 

"You can only update to a VBIOS version of the same series.

If your VBIOS version is:

F1, it can only be updated with VBIOS versions F2-F9.

F10, it can only be updated with VBIOS versions F11-F19.

F20, it can only be updated with VBIOS versions F21-F29."

 

So is there no version for FC in there?

 

 

You can try flashing it, if it doesn't work, you will just need to boot into safe mode & uninstall nvidia's driver, then flash your ORIGINAL bios back on in normal windows, then re-install the driver.

 

I think the F1/f10/f20 part is just there as a warning, because none of the BIOS they have there have F1/f10/f20 in them.

[Texhnlyze]

Uhhh...Last time i was able to go to 3.9gb.

[bogus]

Here's AMD's chance to capitalize on this. Time for them to swoop in and save the day.

They would just have to add this line in the boxes: "Here at AMD Radeon when we say 4, we mean 4. Not 3.5."

/profit

[Lewellyn]

You can try flashing it, if it doesn't work, you will just need to boot into safe mode & uninstall nvidia's driver, then flash your ORIGINAL bios back on in normal windows, then re-install the driver.

 

I think the F1/f10/f20 part is just there as a warning, because none of the BIOS they have there have F1/f10/f20 in them.

 

Looks like the bios isn't for my card. I haven't run into any issues anyways.

[Majestic]

Here's some links of a 970 using more than 3.5GB of VRAM:A

 

Did you look at the framerate while you were at it?

[MageTank]

Regardless of how this situation turns out, it is not false advertisement. They say the cards have 4gb of memory on them, and they do physically have 4gb of memory. That entire 4gb CAN be used, the problem is it is slow when it is used. This is an unintended defect, nothing more. I do not believe Nvidia would waste the time and effort of putting 4gb of Vram on a GPU just to sell it without it being used. They already wasted the money by putting the memory on the board, why would they make it perform terrible on purpose? 

 

I do not know how this problem slipped past Nvidia's Quality Assurance, but rest assured they will figure out a possible solution to this. If they cannot, i am certain they will do everything in their power to reimburse people in some way, as they care more about their public reputation than they do about anything else. If something will hurt their image, they will not let it come to pass. I have seen people let their children break their Nvidia Shields, in ways that are not covered by the warranty, and Nvidia still replaced all of them (i can show the threads to prove it). Trust me, this situation will get resolved one way or another.

 

Without a proper source on that website, i cannot take it as fact that Nvidia made that response. Until then, i consider this situation still under lock and key by Nvidia until they are certain that they know the root cause of the problem. Until they get an official statement prepared on their own site, I would spend less time complaining about why its not working, and instead invest my time into figuring out the cause myself. If you can find a situation in which the problem is the easiest to reproduce, in a way that has a proper source to it that can also be examined, then this should be easy for Nvidia to solve the situation.

 

I am not a lawyer, but i still do not see this as proper ground for a lawsuit, as it is not a case of intentional deceit. If you can prove Nvidia knew of this problem, and is advertising something that is in fact false, then you may have enough reason to make a claim against Nvidia.  However, you have to take into consideration that the cards still ship with 4GB of WORKING (albeit not exactly as fast as it should be) VRAM. 

 

TL DR: Accidents happen, be patient and contribute to the research of this problem before grabbing your pitchfork.

[BiG StroOnZ]

Did you look at the framerate while you were at it?

 

Did you look at the settings they were running? That's normal. A 970 can't run those settings as a single card. So this is expected. It's clearly running out of horsepower way before filling up its buffer. People used to talk about this all the time with the 4GB 670's and 680's as a single card or even 4GB 760's as a single card. Nothing new here.

[Nexxus]

snip

Careful your fanboy is showing  :rolleyes:

[bogus]

snip

What you are missing is : what if is not a defect? What if it was made on purpous to, let's say, cut costs?

NVIDIA might have a huge problem here if this is actually how the card was planned and made. Not only it has wrong information in the specs, it was advertised wrongly. Not only it doesn't have 4GB, it doesn't have the claimed bandwith.

I'm not going to mention their client trust. People will feel cheated, like some are feeling now.

For the sake of them, the clients, let's hope this is a bug that can be adressed and fixed.

To adress your tl;dr

 

 

TL DR: Accidents happen, be patient and contribute to the research of this problem before grabbing your pitchfork.

Fuck me if I would think that after I spent my hard earned money that's going to be in the pile to share among the share holders, I would be satisfied with a "accidents happen". Even if it was an accident this just makes people question their quality control - something someone said in a article (wich was claimed to be paid) was a major reason to drop AMD Radeon support.

 

You have your priorities completly messed up.

 

[Texhnlyze]

People dissing Nvidia after purchasing a GPU from them without even doing test on their own GPU. Typical "gamer" attitude.

[MageTank]

What you are missing is : what if is not a defect? What if it was made on purpous to, let's say, cut costs?

NVIDIA might have a huge problem here if this is actually how the card was planned and made. Not only it has wrong information in the specs, it was advertised wrongly. Not only it doesn't have 4GB, it doesn't have the claimed bandwith.

I'm not going to mention their client trust. People will feel cheated, like some are doing now.

For the sake of them, the clients, let's hope this is a bug that can be adressed and fixed.

To adress your tl;dr

 

 

Fuck me if I would think that after I spent my hard earned money that's going to be in the pile to share among the share holders, I would be satisfied with a "accidents happen". Even if it was an accident this just makes people question their quality control - something someone said in a article (wich was claimed to be paid) was a major reason to drop AMD Radeon support.

 

You have your priorities completly messed up.

 

I think your sense of logic is the only thing completely messed up here. Nvidia spent the money themselves, paying for 4gb of Vram to place on a board. How can making it not work to its intended effectiveness "cut costs"? Do you believe me to be as dense to not consider both sides of this argument before planning out my take on it? I did, which is why i clearly expressed my opinion regarding the fact that if this was intention deceit, Nvidia would not have even bothered to include the 4gb of Vram in the first place. I also already mentioned their quality assurance, so you are not telling me anything i do not know.

 

The simple fact is, this is not false advertisement. This is not an intentional defect. The Pcper article offers no source of their response, so i do not take it as fact. So far, everyone is losing in this situation. Nvidia is losing the trust of their customers and their public image, the clients are losing performance, and the market as a whole suffers when multiple companies lose money over this defect.

 

Perhaps you should understand my "priorities" before questioning them.

[Victorious Secret]

ITT: People who thought their GTX 970s were the shit before, with all their benchmark beating scores, are now upset that its a "broken, shite card from a liar filled company"

Don't get me wrong, I Don't approve of Nvidia not being more upfront on how the SMMs would manage memory but at the same time, your cards aren't outdated pieces of crap. They are still world class cards. If you want to jump the shark so soon and buy old R9 290s because of this, go ahead, but don't pretend its not a silly reaction to have this early. 

[mr moose]

Did you look at the settings they were running? That's normal. A 970 can't run those settings as a single card. So this is expected. It's clearly running out of horsepower way before filling up its buffer. People used to talk about this all the time with the 4GB 670's and 680's as a single card or even 4GB 760's as a single card. Nothing new here.

 

 I have been pondering that too,  I remember a few threads where people asked why do we have low power cards with 4G of ram? There seems to be two ways to perceive the issue:

 

1. The cards actual performance was known at purchase and this hasn't changed.  <-  this should be obvious

2. The cards specs aren't performing the way people expected so people are upset. <- fair enough. Did Nvidia claim the ram was running at full speed all the way to 4G?

 

Either way the end result and performance of the card has not suddenly dropped just because we have discovered the ram slows as it gets to 3.5G.  People still got the performance they paid for. 

[wizedo]

Have you guys seen this?

Read the description, as "shadowplay captured these glitches, which appeared during play only as stuttering and short freezing."

Which is still not good at all

 

 

[kpreg]

People dissing Nvidia after purchasing a GPU from them without even doing test on their own GPU. Typical "gamer" attitude.

Okay, you got me. I play on 1080p single monitor with a 970 SLI.

With the prices of 4k monitor's droping, I can afford a 4k monitor quite soon.

And I'd be very disappointed to find my gaming experience not ideal.

What I just said applies to many others, and everyone should know.

[TroubleKlef]

Bummer. and I was just about to buy a 970 too. 

[Ren]

Flaunts NVidia propoganda signature

[MEC-777]

Really glad I went with an R9 290 instead of 970 after hearing about this. 

 

I wouldn't go all crazy with knee-jerk reactions saying Nvidia are lairs and the 970 is a flawed, crap card though... Let's wait and get some more, factual information first.

[Sintezza]

Nice to see Nvidia fans getting pissed off due their own crap

The whole maxwell is just one big fail.

But yeah we allready saw this comming, with those midrange chips.

 

[mr moose]

Okay, you got me. I play on 1080p single monitor with a 970 SLI.

With the prices of 4k monitor's droping, I can afford a 4k monitor quite soon.

And I'd be very disappointed to find my gaming experience not ideal.

What I just said applies to many others, and everyone should know.

 

Yeah, it should perform something like this:

 

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/geforce-gtx-970-sli-review,22.html

 

 

My god people,   No hardware is suddenly going to be worse just because something new has come to your attention.  Knowing about the ram issue is not going to change the performance of your card.

[BiG StroOnZ]

 

 I have been pondering that too,  I remember a few threads where people asked why do we have low power cards with 4G of ram? There seems to be two ways to perceive the issue:

 

1. The cards actual performance was known at purchase and this hasn't changed.  <-  this should be obvious

2. The cards specs aren't performing the way people expected so people are upset. <- fair enough. Did Nvidia claim the ram was running at full speed all the way to 4G?

 

Either way the end result and performance of the card has not suddenly dropped just because we have discovered the ram slows as it gets to 3.5G.  People still got the performance they paid for. 

 

Exactly, I would be willing to bet if you ran the same benchmark with a 4GB 670, 680, 760 or a 3GB 660 Ti you would find a similar scenario. Even a 6GB 780 or Titan will run into this issue. People must not realize how high of settings you need to be running (very high levels of AA, Ultra Textures, Maxed out settings, and 4K, 1440p resolutions or DSR, etc) to fill up to 4GB or more of VRAM. As a single card, I don't know how you can not expect a performance drop at this level. These type of settings are so intensive. This should be common sense. When you start filling up your memory buffer it begins to swap to the system's RAM. We see this on any card that gets close to maxing out its video memory; performance issues ensue. And again, why is it only in this one benchmark that it seems so apparent? Why are other people testing outside of the benchmark and are having results that are fine? Who made this benchmark? Why did he make this benchmark? Where did it come from? What was its original purpose? These are the real questions people should be asking.