Official Nvidia GTX 970 Discussion Thread

[Lewellyn]

If they called it 3.5GB, then a lot of people would have be confused since there are 8x512MB on the card. It's not 4GB of VRAM in the same way it's been used in the past. But it's not quite 3.5GB either, even though it behaves like a 3.5GB almost all the time.

 

The problem I have with this is that some people who say "It's still 4GB" are the same people who might say in the same stroke "If you have issues then just turn down the settings under 3.5GB" which effectively makes it a 3.5GB card.

[AngryGoldfish]

The spec isn't completely wrong. There's still 4GB of VRAM. The bus is still (physically) 256-bit wide. They should probably change the bandwidth spec though...

 

I honestly think we're beating a dead horse, and crucifying a company that is made up of humans for a human mistake. Their VP of Engineering had a meeting with the press on a Sunday night to explain the memory architecture. I think that's doing their best to resolve this with "humility." And unfortunately, there is no realistic solution. I work for a company that once made a mistake. People died. The only solution was to say sorry and implement programs to make sure that it never happened again.

 

Nvidia communicated. But there is no solution that they can offer. Mass refunds? That's up to their AIBs and dealers. Mass upgrades to 980s? Same. Re-enabling the disabled L2 caches? If they could, they still wouldn't be able to fix the ones that had a faulty L2 and necessitated the disability. They'd get some at best. If we still want Nvidia to exist, we have to accept their apology and move on.  Many of the solutions we seek would destroy the company, either by ruining their finances or destroying their relationships with AIB partners and retailers. And I'm willing to bet that people on a forum like this looked at at least one review, and witnessed the real world performance of the card, which influenced our decision to purchase more than the spec sheet. 

 

You're right, we are beating a dead horse. I won't deny that. But you can see how easy that is when little is being done to draw our attention away from beating that figurative dead horse. I haven't said this on here yet I don't think, but I don't want nVidia to suffer. All I ever wanted was a sincere apology and maybe an option for a refund or upgrade package. If they couldn't satisfy their stock holders by offering refunds, a straight-forward, immediate response and correction was all I ever expected. This was not done, not from what I've seen. Roundabouts were made, and we went around them. If the VP of engineering did meet with the media, that's great. It's a little late, but I appreciate it. Again, I don't have my pitchfork ready and I want no one to burn at the stake, I just want recognition.

 

[RazrLeaf]

The problem I have with this is that some people who say "It's still 4GB" are the same people who might say in the same stroke "If you have issues then just turn down the settings under 3.5GB" which effectively makes it a 3.5GB card.

Let's agree to give this card the most confusing specs ever

 

3.5GB + 0.5 GB of VRAM

224-bit + 32-bit Memory Bus

 

@AngryGoldfish Nvidia's SVP of GPU Engineering responded within 48 hours of initial reports of this issue by the media.

[rtpb5642]

You wouldn't love the benchmarks when your GTX 970 doesn't even overclock, and requires an underclock to even run stable at idle.

My friend has his 970 at 1.5ghz with water cooling and it took him under an hour. If your 970 is not stable then go RMA it. 

[RazrLeaf]

You wouldn't love the benchmarks when your GTX 970 doesn't even overclock, and requires an underclock to even run stable at idle.

Yeah they're supposed to run at at least the clock speeds printed on the box. That's definitely RMA worthy.

[Lewellyn]

-snip-

 

By the time I get to a point where VRAM might be an issue I'll most likely have bought a new card, but that isn't everybody. Not everyone has that much expendable income. I'm much more upset about the excuses being made than I am about the actual issue affecting me personally. 

[rtpb5642]

I understand that many are negating the raw power of the 970 due to a sense of disappointment, but the 970 does not perform as it was advertised. Just because the issues were not uncovered on launch does not make them any less a reality now months later. These problems were mentioned on the GeForce forums as well as Reddit and OC.net well before it became the massive ball of hysteria that it is now. We denounced the theory at the time because we were yet to see any discernible and categorical evidence, but once it was shown there was indeed a widespread issue, and subsequently nVidia released their statement of ignorance and innocence, the shit hit the fan and people began taking their collective dumps.

 

So, despite your ignorant comment, I agree that there is a lot of butthurt. I own a 970 and I am butthurt. I was butt-fucked by nVidia and am left with a solid card that was marketed and sold as an excellent one. It still performs very well, but it is not what was advertised and is not as future proof as its initial specs promised. The card is mired and will go down as that time nVidia forgot to lube up. My anus is no more a virgin. There is no shame in being disappointed because I was lied to. There is no shame in being proud of their system, and then losing some of it.

It doesent matter the RAM loss doesent effect u unless ur playing heavily modded games or 4k (if u have 4k i doubt u have a 970) so stop whining! Unless your playing modded games you have nothing to worry about, yes i agree this is not fair as its a 4GB card BUT there is no reason to be butthurt. At launch the 970 got a certain number of FPS in battlefield 4 for example, just because we now know about a problem does not make the card not as good unless as i said your playing modded game like far cry or 4k. If i had a 970 i would be a bit frustrated but i dont play modded games so no issues.

[Whorax]

It's not like Nvidia is ten guys at a table... They are a huge company, they have different branches for every task. Engineering, Marketing, Design, etc... The 970 HAS 4GB of VRAM, therefore the marketing team marketed it as such, they aren't the engineers and the 970 was built in a very complex way. The only issue is the issue of why didn't Nvidia tell the consumer when/if they noticed but because we are not Nvidia there is no way for us to know whether they intentionally kept it a secret for longer, didn't know or whatever else could have been the case. Until there is some proof there is no point in arguing about it in my honest opinion and if you think Nvidia lied that's fine but don't pass it on as fact until you can prove it.

I'm not an engineer. I understand that the last .5GB is, in fact, quite shitty.

 

That's like you saying something along the lines of "Oh, Lamborghini's new Huracan has a 7-speed gearbox, but the car may or may not stall out on the 7th gear. It's okay though--you can't expect a company as big as Lamborghini to correctly communicate that. Plus, the advertising department isn't full of engineers--they don't know what gears are." It's a completely silly and absurd argument, man.

 

Nvidia lied. Whether they intended to or not, they lied. A lie is a lie.

[Lewellyn]

-snip-

 

Dying Light is already capable of pushing the 3.5GB VRAM usage on it's own without mods, and it doesn't require 4k to do so. The 970 was marketed as a single GPU for 1440p "highish-ultra" and a 1080p "ultra" (settings in quotes change on the year) 

[othertomperson]

I'm not an engineer. I understand that the last .5GB is, in fact, quite shitty.

 

That's like you saying something along the lines of "Oh, Lamborghini's new Huracan has a 7-speed gearbox, but the car may or may not stall out on the 7th gear. It's okay though--you can't expect a company as big as Lamborghini to correctly communicate that. Plus, the advertising department isn't full of engineers--they don't know what gears are." It's a completely silly and absurd argument, man.

 

Nvidia lied. Whether they intended to or not, they lied. A lie is a lie.

 

A better analogy would be if you had a car with 7 gears, and the power your car was able to deliver decreased with every higher gear OWAIT THAT'S EXACTLY HOW GEARS DO WORK

 

 

Dying Light is already capable of pushing the 3.5GB VRAM usage on it's own without mods, and it doesn't require 4k to do so. The 970 was marketed as a single GPU for 1440p "highish-ultra" and a 1080p "ultra" (settings in quotes change on the year) 

 

Because instead of optimising for vram it unloaded that decision onto the player, and if you choose to play with 4K textures and view distance, it actually runs like that an uses all of your vram. It's no different to playing Skyrim with 4K texture pack mods, except these ship with the game. It doesn't exactly support your point at all.

[Lewellyn]

-snip-

 

In addition to this, some don't understand that not providing the relevant/necessary information is considered 'lying' and in a market is, yes, known as false advertising.

[IP man]

Dying Light is already capable of pushing the 3.5GB VRAM usage on it's own without mods, and it doesn't require 4k to do so. The 970 was marketed as a single GPU for 1440p "highish-ultra" and a 1080p "ultra" (settings in quotes change on the year) 

The 970 still kills at 1440p

[Whorax]

In addition to this, some don't understand that not providing the relevant/necessary information is considered 'lying' and in a market is, yes, known as false advertising.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't understand this. Lol.

[Lewellyn]

The 970 still kills at 1440p

 

True! But only for so long, I don't want to have to apologize to people when in some amount of time they'll hit issues.

[IP man]

True! But only for so long, I don't want to have to apologize to people when in some amount of time they'll hit issues.

Well thats kinda wierd to say, because every GPU will soon or later fallbehind.

[Lewellyn]

Well thats kinda wierd to say, because every GPU will soon or later fallbehind.

 

Future proofing is a fallacy, yes. However, the VRAM wasn't properly disclosed as it should have been and people who don't like that are trying to be prospective by looking at what issues can happen given some time.

[AngryGoldfish]

It doesent matter the RAM loss doesent effect u unless ur playing heavily modded games or 4k (if u have 4k i doubt u have a 970) so stop whining! Unless your playing modded games you have nothing to worry about, yes i agree this is not fair as its a 4GB card BUT there is no reason to be butthurt. At launch the 970 got a certain number of FPS in battlefield 4 for example, just because we now know about a problem does not make the card not as good unless as i said your playing modded game like far cry or 4k. If i had a 970 i would be a bit frustrated but i dont play modded games so no issues.

 

The card actually performs better now because the drivers are more optimized. Still sore about all it, though. Don't like being either lied to or being forced to accept the mistakes of others. Whatever my reasons, I think they are mine to control, not yours.

[mr moose]

Huge companies simply do not "miscommunicate".

 

It is a fact that the specs they sent out/published are wrong, it is not a fact that it was intentional.  Unless you work for nvidia I doubt you will ever know. 

 

People here have a lot of funny ideas about company size.  According to many it means they have cash to waste, screw over their employees/customers, have no morals and can't make mistakes.

 

They fucked up, all companies make mistakes, sometimes they are intentional and sometimes they are not.  Unless you have proof it is intentional then rephrase your opinion to reflect that, rather than make it sound like an absolute fact.

[Whorax]

It is a fact that the specs they sent out/published are wrong, it is not a fact that it was intentional.  Unless you work for nvidia I doubt you will ever know. 

 

People here have a lot of funny ideas about company size.  According to many it means they have cash to waste, screw over their employees/customers, have no morals and can't make mistakes.

 

They fucked up, all companies make mistakes, sometimes they are intentional and sometimes they are not.  Unless you have proof it is intentional then rephrase your opinion to reflect that, rather than make it sound like an absolute fact.

Either way they lied. And obviously not much effort was put into the grand scheme of things to prevent it.

 

And I don't believe I need to "rephrase my opinion". Seeing as how Nvidia is such a large company, they should have multiple teams of people overseeing the production and marketing/sales of the GPU. Therefore these mistakes should never be made. It's part of being a leader in the market. Thanks for the suggestion though, pal.

[Lewellyn]

Either way they lied. And obviously not much effort was put into the grand scheme of things to prevent it.

 

And I don't believe I need to "rephrase my opinion". Seeing as how Nvidia is such a large company, they should have multiple teams of people overseeing the production and marketing/sales of the GPU. Therefore these mistakes should never be made. It's part of being a leader in the market. Thanks for the suggestion though, pal.

[mr moose]

Either way they lied. And obviously not much effort was put into the grand scheme of things to prevent it.

 

And I don't believe I need to "rephrase my opinion". Seeing as how Nvidia is such a large company, they should have multiple teams of people overseeing the production and marketing/sales of the GPU. Therefore these mistakes should never be made. It's part of being a leader in the market. Thanks for the suggestion though, pal.

 

So you admit that it being unintentionally is entirely possible but you still want to tell everyone it was intentional?

[Whorax]

So you admit that it being unintentionally is entirely possible but you still want to tell everyone it was intentional?

Does it matter to you that much?

[mr moose]

Does it matter to you that much?

it matters to everyone, if it didn't this thread would only be 2 pages.

[Whorax]

it matters to everyone, if it didn't this thread would only be 2 pages.

Then in that case yes, I do still stick with my original statement.

[mr moose]

Then in that case yes, I do still stick with my original statement.

 

and now we go round in circles...   I'll leave before it becomes another 2 pages longer and no one any happier.