Official Nvidia GTX 970 Discussion Thread

[Syntaxvgm]

Fire hasn't died quite yet, feel free to stoke it.

ok

See my member title 

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[Trik'Stari]

In a situation that you need more than 3.5gb of Vram, it does not have more than 3.5gb of Vram.

 

Nvidia needs to apologize for lying, and retailers need to put an asterisk next to 4gb saying "only 3.5 usable at any one time"

 

End of story.

[Lewellyn]

ok

See my member title 

<<<<<<

 

Did you ever get that testing + benchmark finished?

[Syntaxvgm]

Did you ever get that testing + benchmark finished?

I did a little more testing, but right now I'm behind on crap, working a lot, and failing a couple of college classes. I'm trying, I promise!

[LAwLz]

In a situation that you need more than 3.5gb of Vram, it does not have more than 3.5gb of Vram.

 

Nvidia needs to apologize for lying, and retailers need to put an asterisk next to 4gb saying "only 3.5 usable at any one time"

 

End of story.

Except:

1) It has more VRAM than 3.5GB. There is in fact 4GB of it on the card and you can use all of it at the same time. It's that 512MB of it is slower. According to some reports on Reddit (yeah, not exactly a reliable source) there is no longer a performance drop when going above 3.5GB of VRAM use. It seems like Nvidia has made it so that the least important parts of data gets stored in the slow VRAM and the important data gets stored in the fast VRAM. If you need all the 4GB at any one time then yes it will be slow, but chances are the GPU core will be the bottleneck in those situations anyway.

 

2) They have not lied (other than the part about the cache and ROPs which I really believe was a miscommunication, and it doesn't actually change anything anyway). It would be lying if they said "only 3.5 usable at any one time" because that is in fact a lie. You can use more.

I don't get why people keep saying that they have lied. There is not a single lie on their website or on the boxes. The only "lie" was the cache and ROP count, but that changes nothing at all. They could have said it had 1 ROP, or 100 ROPs and the card would still have performed exactly the same.

[meritmaster]

Except:

1) It has more VRAM than 3.5GB. There is in fact 4GB of it on the card and you can use all of it at the same time. It's that 512MB of it is slower. According to some reports on Reddit (yeah, not exactly a reliable source) there is no longer a performance drop when going above 3.5GB of VRAM use. It seems like Nvidia has made it so that the least important parts of data gets stored in the slow VRAM and the important data gets stored in the fast VRAM. If you need all the 4GB at any one time then yes it will be slow, but chances are the GPU core will be the bottleneck in those situations anyway.

 

2) They have not lied (other than the part about the cache and ROPs which I really believe was a miscommunication, and it doesn't actually change anything anyway). It would be lying if they said "only 3.5 usable at any one time" because that is in fact a lie. You can use more.

I don't get why people keep saying that they have lied. There is not a single lie on their website or on the boxes. The only "lie" was the cache and ROP count, but that changes nothing at all. They could have said it had 1 ROP, or 100 ROPs and the card would still have performed exactly the same.

...............

"It has more VRAM than 3.5GB." - Sure, technically it does.

 "It's that 512MB of it is slower. According to some reports on Reddit " - Not just according to the gossip site of Reddit, but also from Toms Hardware, Pcper, and even from Nvidia:

 

"Information Provided by NVIDIA

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.

Here's an example of some performance data:

 

  GTX980 GTX970 Shadows of Mordor     <3.5GB setting = 2688x1512 Very High

>3.5GB setting = 3456x1944 72fps

55fps (-24%) 60fps

45fps (-25%) Battlefield 4     <3.5GB setting = 3840x2160 2xMSAA

>3.5GB setting = 3840x2160 135% res 36fps

19fps (-47%) 30fps 

15fps (-50%) Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare     <3.5GB setting = 3840x2160 FSMAA T2x, Supersampling off

>3.5GB setting = 3840x2160 FSMAA T2x, Supersampling on 82fps

48fps (-41%) 71fps

40fps (-44%)

• On GTX 980, Shadows of Mordor drops about 24% on GTX 980 and 25% on GTX 970, a 1% difference. On Battlefield 4, the drop is 47% on GTX 980 and 50% on GTX 970, a 3% difference. On CoD: AW, the drop is 41% on GTX 980 and 44% on GTX 970, a 3% difference. As you can see, there is very little change in the performance of the GTX 970 relative to GTX 980 on these games when it is using the 0.5GB segment.

  Trusted Technical Publications

  PC Perspective

  http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-Discloses-Full-Memory-Structure-and-Limitations-GTX-970

  Tom's Hardware

  http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-specifications,28464.html"

 

"there is no longer a performance drop when going above 3.5GB of VRAM use. " - That is not true. Source?

"They have not lied" - They either lied, or misrepresented their product.  Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erf0kyU0NAY#t=991 "224 gb/s total memory bandwith" http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-specifications,28464.html "196 GB/s (3.5 GB)

28 GB/s (512MB)" Once i sent in this information, i was contacted by Newegg, and they offered me a full refund. 

[LAwLz]

"It's that 512MB of it is slower. According to some reports on Reddit " - Not just according to the gossip site of Reddit, but also from Toms Hardware, Pcper, and even from Nvidia:

Ehm... You are reading that wrong. There is a period between "slower" and "according", and the sentence starting with "according" goes on for quite some time.

I am not saying that "according to some people on reddit, the last 512MB of RAM is slower". I am saying "The last 512MB of VRAM is slower (period). According to some people on reddit there is no longer a performance drop going above 3.5GB".

You read 1.5 sentences as a single one.

 

 

 

"there is no longer a performance drop when going above 3.5GB of VRAM use. " - That is not true. Source?

Reddit thread someone linked earlier. The OP even uploaded 3 videos of games using more than 3.5GB of VRAM and he shows the rendering time of each frame.

Shadow of Mordor

Assassin's Creed Unity

Evolve

 

 

 

"They have not lied" - They either lied, or misrepresented their product.  Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erf0kyU0NAY#t=991 "224 gb/s total memory bandwith" http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-specifications,28464.html "196 GB/s (3.5 GB)

28 GB/s (512MB)" Once i sent in this information, i was contacted by Newegg, and they offered me a full refund. 

But the card can push 224GB/s. measurements like these are always based on the theoretical maximum. You have never been able to get the maximum throughput at all times. If you measure the actual speed on your 980, or my 7850 you will find that it is very often well below the maximum speed given by the manufacturers.

Theoretical maximum (which is what all manufacturers gives you, including previous generations of Nvidia cards and AMD as well) != what you will see at all times in real world scenarios.

[Joshua Ondangan]

It's nVidia, they didn't miscommunicate at least on the 4GB part. They just didn't want to come clean during the big holiday sales season. AMD's cards would've sold a lot more if they had come clean. Seriously if I was buying a GPU during that time, this would have DECIDE whether I'd go for a 970 or 290(x). 

 

99% of the people don't like to be lied to. People invest $400 for a GPU to be futureproof. That 500mb less of VRAM would've made 970 much less futureproof. Anyone who wants to SLI it to run games at 1440p or 4k for upcoming games or even just ACU is going to be seriously pissed about this.

yep this is true but its not like all people are clean who has never lied in their life.

 

for 1440p or higher going 980 would be a better solution right now although I do agree with price to performance sli 970 is good but fact is still fact majority of people who bought the card base it on benchmark even if it had 3gb vram only.

 

anyways in computer pretty much the only future proof thing you can buy is a case unless you break it or get tired of it and buy a new one. even psu they last long but it still has parts that can fail with mass production there would be a small percent that can fail anytime. so future proofing is never and should never be counted for in computers.

 

heck even 980's ain't that looking pretty on 4k on some titles what more for a 970.

 

edit: It's how the world works about company us consumer will never know if they really miscommunicated or not we have no 100% facts but just speculations if what they say is true or not. after all let's not forget that company will prioritize money over customers most of the time so with this mindset we can come up with a conclusion of nvidia fucking us up as usual but we could be wrong so I came up with a 50/50 basis. 

 

as humans we tend to just go with whatever is easier on us so I also understand

[jaggysnake57]

...............

"It has more VRAM than 3.5GB." - Sure, technically it does. 

 "It's that 512MB of it is slower. According to some reports on Reddit " - Not just according to the gossip site of Reddit, but also from Toms Hardware, Pcper, and even from Nvidia:

 

"there is no longer a performance drop when going above 3.5GB of VRAM use. " - That is not true. Source?

"They have not lied" - They either lied, or misrepresented their product.  Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erf0kyU0NAY#t=991 "224 gb/s total memory bandwith" http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-specifications,28464.html "196 GB/s (3.5 GB)

28 GB/s (512MB)" Once i sent in this information, i was contacted by Newegg, and they offered me a full refund. 

 

this is the problem. people see what they want then stick to it.  they don't understand how advertising works then have a hissy fit because they think they have been done. as stated before 224 is the theoretical max. as for the performance drop, its 1-3% so thats anything from .3fps to 1.8fps given the range of fps that this "issue" will kick in at (30-60). also you knew about this before you bought the card. the benchmarks showed this hit. when you look at it you haven't been done at all

[TheGosuStandard]

this is the problem. people see what they want then stick to it.  they don't understand how advertising works then have a hissy fit because they think they have been done. as stated before 224 is the theoretical max. as for the performance drop, its 1-3% so thats anything from .3fps to 1.8fps given the range of fps that this "issue" will kick in at (30-60). also you knew about this before you bought the card. the benchmarks showed this hit. when you look at it you haven't been done at all

 

"Don't understand how advertising works"? Sure it still has 4gb, but it can push past 3.5 efficiently, hence bad advertising. This is just like Coca-Cola's Vitamin Water advertising.

[Tasuma]

I went red team this time around. I love Nvidia and didn't have any issue with my 660. But I just can't bring myself to pay more for a worse card. Got an r9 290x for $300.

[JustCallMeVlad]

I went red team this time around. I love Nvidia and didn't have any issue with my 660. But I just can't bring myself to pay more for a worse card. Got an r9 290x for $300.

 

 

A worse card? A 970 is faster than a 290X at stock clocks. What do you think happens when you push it up to 1550 core and 8000 mem?

[Tasuma]

Its even at 1080p but starts beating it at 1440p and 4k. Even if it is "worse" in some games the price point difference at time of purchase was much better value.

 

Edit: Didn't mean to post twice. Was posting from my phone.

[Tasuma]

Its even at 1080p but starts beating it at 1440p and 4k. Even if it is "worse" in some games the price point difference at time of purchase was much better value.

[LAwLz]

STOP USING REDDIT AS A SOURCE. STOP. I don't care what your position and frankly I agree (not with the conclusion that there is a driver update but of certain performance), but oh my god, how many times do people have to say that they officially stated there was no driver?

Why not use Reddit as a source? The guy posted videos showing memory usage, frame times and memory usage.

What do you mean "there was no driver"? The driver is right here.

[JustCallMeVlad]

Its even at 1080p but starts beating it at 1440p and 4k. Even if it is "worse" in some games the price point difference at time of purchase was much better value.

 

Edit: Didn't mean to post twice. Was posting from my phone.

 

What? LOL

 

Slower at 1080P

 

 

Even at 1440P

 

 

Faster at 4K

 

[Tasuma]

If you read my post for price to performance AT THE TIME it was a much better deal.

 

Edit: Also is that with a reference r9 290x? I was reading that reference r9 290x's are slower. I got an MSI gaming non-lightning.

[LAwLz]

....

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2876802/nvidia-plans-geforce-gtx-970-driver-update-for-memory-performance-concerns.html

 

>Drivers are made to improve overall performance across the entire product line.

>The drivers and games have gone through multiple updates in the 4 month time frame.

>Nvidia stated it is making no specific driver for the 970

>Nvidia stated the card is quote, "Working as intended"

 

And your conclusion from one poster on reddit is that is was made by nvidia to solve memory allocation on the 970.

 

 

Stop using reddit as a source.

They were just saying they won't release a driver specifically for the 970, which they haven't. This is a normal driver update with the usual bug fixes and performance improvements across the board, not just specifically for the 970.

 

Why are you so hostile? Why am I not allowed to use Reddit as a source (even when clarifying that nothing has been confirmed yet, just that it appears like the issue has been minimized) when someone from there has posted very well made tests? Honestly you seem less and less rational every time I see you post. It's as if you don't want this to be over because you just want to continue to bitch and moan.

 

 

I am going to clarify my post again because it seems like people here are unable to read properly.

 

Someone on Reddit has posted videos showing that after this new driver, the memory allocation has been changed. You used to have to force games to use more than 3.5GB of RAM (by for example enabling super sampling) and when you did that the performance would drop like a rock. Both of these things appears to have been fixed. Games will now use over 3.5GB of RAM with standard settings, and the frame times don't dramatically go up like they used to once you pass 3.5GB.

 

The PC World article you linked disproves none of this. You can't just disregard the videos and tests someone ran because "Nvidia deleted a post that said they would release a specific 970 driver!".

 

To me, the card working better are good news. Of course you can't eliminate a hardware limitation though software but you can minimize the impact of it. If the post on Reddit is correct (I have already said Reddit is not the most reliable source, but you can't just discard it completely) then that appears to be the case.

[R_Golden]

Might as well highlight BS I keep seeing now and again:

 

"People who frequently resort to personal attacks and insults when somebody has a view that is not their own, regardless if their own views were sensible in the first place or not. People who use terms like "fanboy" and "sympathizer" solely to discredit others' potentially valuable input. People who cannot see the infinite shades of grey and they only see the two colors of black and white. People using the ignore list as a social weapon for no other reason than pure spite. People openly disregarding the CoC so that they they could win some petty e-peen battle of their own making."

This is a fantastic example of a pot calling the kettle black.

[jaggysnake57]

"Don't understand how advertising works"? Sure it still has 4gb, but it can push past 3.5 efficiently, hence bad advertising. This is just like Coca-Cola's Vitamin Water advertising.

 

what? is english your first language?  im going to assume that you mean that after 3.5gb ram performance tanks.....your wrong and have little to no evidance to support your claim but......

 

Might as well highlight BS I keep seeing now and again:

 

 

"People who cannot see the infinite shades of grey and they only see the two colors of black and white. 

 

this made me chuckle. this from the person who has ignored points that show him to be wrong, who gets personal the second he has no retort.  this from the person who clings desperately to the idea that he was ripped off by nvidia inspite of mounting evidence to the contrary.   your argument is like an iceberg melting in a sea of your own ignorance and BS and you my friend are about to drown.  

 

its been 3 weeks now and after all the BS and flamin in the end it amounted to nothing the card has no major issue and is fine....next story please

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

Might as well highlight BS I keep seeing now and again:

 

"People who frequently resort to personal attacks and insults when somebody has a view that is not their own, regardless if their own views were sensible in the first place or not. People who use terms like "fanboy" and "sympathizer" solely to discredit others' potentially valuable input. People who cannot see the infinite shades of grey and they only see the two colors of black and white. People using the ignore list as a social weapon for no other reason than pure spite. People openly disregarding the CoC so that they they could win some petty e-peen battle of their own making."

 

 Do not take my post out of context!

 

The first point applies to you as well, so you highlighting that for LAwLz is a moot point.

The second point, which you have conveniently ignored, is EXACTLY what you have been doing up to now.

The third point... see my comment about the first point.

I have seen you pulling the asinine gag I have mentioned in my fourth point a number of times.

You have also made a direct mockery of other members, as well as the CoC itself, in your signature, so again, the fifth point falls on you.

 

As @M_Shane has already mentioned, this is the case of the pot calling the kettle black.

[Rovert19]

Messaged Asus about this and all I got a was a copy and paste response about the configuration of the card. They also didn't address my dissatisfaction or even attempt to answer the question I asked. It's rather funny since the first sentence in the reply was that they "deeply care about their customers". I don't have high hopes for this.

[TheGosuStandard]

what? is english your first language?  im going to assume that you mean that after 3.5gb ram performance tanks.....your wrong and have little to no evidance to support your claim but......

 

Of course not, why would English be my first language.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

-snip-

 

Was I ever talking about the 970 then? No!

 

I was talking about the context of that quote of mine that you used, and now you are evading what I have said to continue your complaints about the 970 fiasco.

[Majestic]

This is a fantastic example of a pot calling the kettle black.