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[Costia]

What people seem to be missing here is that Nvidia is selling a card with 3.5GB of usable VRAM as a 4GB card.
They are trying to justify it by saying that the performance difference between 3.5GB and 4.0GB is minor.
If they advertised the 970 as a 3.5GB cheaper version of the 980 card in the first place this would have been fine.

 

[CambriaRising]

So basically they are hand waving selling a card as something it's not. Glad I didn't buy a 970.

 

[kitch9]

I'm not seeing an issue here given the stats.

They are stats Nvidia want you not have an issue with.

It's taken them 2 weeks of "investigation" to respond with that.

The next few days is going to be very interesting.

 

[Seanspeed]

I'd caution against taking the claims of a corporation at face value who has an interest in maintaining sales and avoiding potential threats of lawsuits/recalls. I don't know what the truth of the situation will turn out to be, but any company will first try to talk their way around an issue or put out tilted explanations and evidence to the contrary. They may very well be truthful and on the up and up, but you should really wait for third party verification and explanations/tests from third party experts before you come out with the "Booya, told ya! Read the OP MORAN!" responses.

I'm all about being sceptical and wanting more tests. But he was acting as if this *confirmed* that there was definitely something wrong. Which it obviously doesn't. I'm not trying to say his overall suspicion is wrong, just that his comments did not match what was said in OP.

 

[General Lee]

Still pretty shifty. I'm not quite sure if those tests show the worst case though, games tend to allocate way more memory than they truly need just for caching purposes, and the difference might not be easily noticeable in average framerate, but instead in occasional hitches or stuttering. On a technical level it's understandable why this happens on the 970, and I doubt it's the only card in history to have similar issues.

 

[Thrakier]

Because an average doesn't take into account stuttering.

60 60 60 60 0 60 60 0 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 0 60 60 60 60 60

Total average is still high but will be awful to play. On average during the course of you life you will not be on fire in fact probably closer to over 99% of your life, so why bother about being on fire for less then 1%! Fun with averages.

So, which example proofes that the vram issue actually leads to stutter like you describe it? Some reactions in this thread are hilarious. I'm NOT happy with this news, but the 970 in my machine doesn't get worse because of this and I had a very good time with it so far.

 

[michaelius]

So.. a paired down GPU performs slightly worse than a higher spec GPU? Would it be fair to say that people are just worried and concerned because a limitation is brought to their attention rather than an actual legitimate issue with the GPU?

Or am I being unfair and misrepresenting the issue? I haven't really kept up with this.

Issue is in false or dishonest advertising as you are still getting same performance reviews showed.

 

[GravityMan]

It appears that Nvidia did this on purpose (i.e. they knew about it and its shortcomings all along) to help the GTX 970 reach its pricepoint. AKA cutting corners.

This is deception on their part, plain and simple.

 

[wowzors]

This is leaving a sour taste in my mouth. I prefer nvidia to and for performance but as a company I think AMD is more responsive and less shady.

 

[teiresias]

They are stats Nvidia want you not have an issue with.

It's taken them 2 weeks of "investigation" to respond with that.

The next few days is going to be very interesting.

Indeed, a great many hardware review sites will show whether they have any balls at all or will just run with Nvidia's PR BS in order to keep up appearances so they keep getting interviews and review cards.

 

[Hzoltan69]

I'm definitely going to see where this goes. Nvidia's explanation stinks from a mile!
I have a pair of 970s which I bought to replace my 780s just for the extra vram, so I'm going to be pissed if it turns out to be a scam.

 

[Seanspeed]

What people seem to be missing here is that Nvidia is selling a card with 3.5GB of usable VRAM as a 4GB card.
They are trying to justify it by saying that the performance difference between 3.5GB and 4.0GB is minor.
If they advertised the 970 as a 3.5GB cheaper version of the 980 card in the first place this would have been fine.

Nobody is missing that. We're just trying to figure out whether there actually is some noteworthy problem with that last 0.5GB or not. This has not been confirmed yet.

 

[MaLDo]

Oh look! 970 performs like a 980 in every game benchmark being a lot cheaper. Oh, what a luck no game uses more than 3.5 GB when both gpu were released.

 

[opticalmace]

I'm looking forward to someone replicating nvidia's tests but including frametime info in the results.

 

[Zafir]

What people seem to be missing here is that Nvidia is selling a card with 3.5GB of usable VRAM as a 4GB card.
They are trying to justify it by saying that the performance difference between 3.5GB and 4.0GB is minor.
If they advertised the 970 as a 3.5GB cheaper version of the 980 card in the first place this would have been fine.

But that's not what the card is? It does have 4GB of VRAM, it's just the last 0.5GB has higher bandwidth and so is only accessed if the game really needs it.

There should have been more clarity, sure, but that's not what you're saying.

 

[Serandur]

You guys know what this means? Nvidia's confirmation it's a hardware issue due to SMM cutting may mean that ANY Maxwell card not using the fully enabled chip may have the same problem, including the cut-down version of GM200 (the next Titan).

$700 cards with memory allocation problems that won't even use their full 6 GBs effectively... imagine it.

 

[Portugeezer]

Don't really care about the performance crap, but if they're selling it as a 4GB card then Nvidia are just taking the piss really. People pay more for Nvidia, but not for this bullshit.

 

[Nachtmaer]

They did something like this with my GTX 660 2GB. 0.5GB of it is shitty slow DDR3 RAM or something.

This is something different. The 660 had 2GB RAM on a 192-bit bus by using 1 and 2Gb GDDR5 chips.

 

[Horsemama1956]

What a bullshit response. I don't recall reading about this feature in any preview or review. I've never heard of a GPU doing this unless it was directly related to the memory controllers(192Bit cards) and not having the actual GPU cut down.

You can max out VRAM without completely maxing the game to an unplayable state(which is what they're saying), but this would effectively force you to reduce settings even if your performance would otherwise be fine because of busted hardware.

 

[Daedardus]

Also, ITT: lot's of 970 owners defending their purchase and believing corporation that the hardware issue in not an issue, but a feauture.

Well, yeah, apart from the fact that my card still works, performs great especially for the power draw and is still a beast for 1080p since it doesn't run into 3.5GB VRAM often and when it does, it's not severely gimped.

 

[Faith]

I thought not every task needs the maximum bandwidth of the GPU? Maybe the problem isn't really a problem at all?

 

[Mononoke]

Well then. Kind of glad I held off getting my next SLI set up.

 

[DevilFox]

My first Nvidia card.. lucky me, as always. Performance are good, sure, but it still pisses me off :\

 

[Damian.]

Not looking good for this being a fixable issue. Nvidia is skirting around the issue as expected.

 

[Anion]

Do you guys think someone is going to sue them for this?

 

[Costia]

But that's not what the card is? It does have 4GB of VRAM, it's just the last 0.5GB has higher bandwidth and so is only accessed if the game really needs it.

There should have been more clarity, sure, but that's not what you're saying.

It looks like the last 0.5GB has significantly lower bandwidth - which would make it unusable for textures. Your game will run fine on average, but when you turn your view to include a texture that is stored in that last 0.5GB, your game will crawl or stutter since it can't fetch the texture on time.
What you are suggesting is that as long as you don't actually use those last 0.5GB - it would be the same. I mean you don't really need to turn your view around and look at those textures, do you? so the game doesn't really need those extra 0.5GB.
This card should have been advertised as a "3.5GB" or a "4GB with 3.5GB usable VRAM". Like during the transition from 32 to 64 bit cpu's some PC specs said something like "4GB RAM, 3GB usable on 32bit"

 

[opticalmace]

PCPer have updated their article some, including this opinion from Josh Walrath:

A few days ago when we were presented with evidence of the 970 not fully utilizing all 4 GB of memory, I theorized that it had to do with the reduction of SMM units. It makes sense from an efficiency standpoint to perhaps "hard code" memory addresses for each SMM. The thought behind that would be that 4 GB of memory is a huge amount of a video card, and the potential performance gains of a more flexible system would be pretty minimal.

I believe that the memory controller is working as intended and not a bug. When designing a large GPU, there will invariably by compromises made. From all indications NVIDIA decided to save time, die size, and power by simplifying the memory controller and crossbar setup. These things have a direct impact on time to market and power efficiency. NVIDIA probably figured that a couple percentage of performance lost was outweighed by the added complexity, power consumption, and engineering resources that it would have taken to gain those few percentage points back.

 

[Dictator93]

Don't really care about the performance crap, but if they're selling it as a 4GB card then Nvidia are just taking the piss really. People pay more for Nvidia, but not for this bullshit.

I recommened this card to two people who bought them. I did this with the mind that their comp's would have 4GB of framebuffer avilable for future games. This actually shits on SLI users pretty hard.

I feel kinda like a dolt for recommending it to people and it being on their lap now...

 

[The Wraith]

Do you guys think someone is going to sue them for this?

Oh absolutely, lawsuits will be coming from this.

 

[Uhyve]

I am very angry about this. I think I'll need a free game to make up for this betrayal.

 

[SneakyStephan]

Oh nvidia...

(I hope they get sued good)

 

[teiresias]

Welp, PCPerspective is falling in line and touting the "average" Nvidia PR. I expected more from one of the first hardware websites that took the measurement of frrametimes seriously.

If I was still looking to upgrade and hadn't been given my 980 as a gift I would certainly be waiting on the next round of AMD cards. From this point forward any card from Nvidia that has featues of the full core turned off is suspect - you better be buying the core variant that has nothing disabled if you're going the Nvidia route.

 

[Azure Dream]

They'll probably throw a free game at people and call it a day.

 

[Porcile]

I am very angry about this. I think I'll need a free game to make up for this betrayal.

"Here's a free copy of Shadow of Mordor!"

 

[Piers]

Not looking good for this being a fixable issue. Nvidia is skirting around the issue as expected.

It's not an issue but a choice in development, as it seemingly turns out.
Which is the outcome that was feared the most.

 

[Kayant]

My first Nvidia card.. lucky me, as always. Performance are good, sure, but it still pisses me off :\

.

I mean it's not an issue for me yet but I also brought it in mind with it being "future-proof" based on the Vram.

 

[Zafir]

It looks like the last 0.5GB has significantly lower bandwidth - which would make it unusable for textures. Your game will run fine on average, but when you turn your view to include a texture that is stored in that last 0.5GB, your game will crawl or stutter since it can't fetch the texture on time.
What you are suggesting is that as long as you don't actually use those last 0.5GB - it would be the same. I mean you don't really need to turn your view around and look at those textures, do you? so the game doesn't really need those extra 0.5GB.

This is just technicalities and how you look at it though so it's kind of a pointless argument. They technically aren't lying that it's 4GB.

They should have damn well been clearer about what the card entails, and the fact the 0.5GB isn't as useful as it should be though. I totally agree with that.

Games that scale based on the amount of RAM don't seem to use the last 0.5GB either in my experience.

 

[Qassim]

Issue is in false or dishonest advertising as you are still getting same performance reviews showed.

Well it /can/ address al 4GB of memory right? A stripped down GPU not being as good (in various respects, including addressing memory) as the full GPU it is based on isn't unheard of is it?

 

[Orayn]

Christ, I was about to buy this card. Nvidia legitimately deserves to get sued for this.

Well it /can/ address al 4GB of memory right? A stripped down GPU not being as good (in various respects, including addressing memory) as the full GPU it is based on isn't unheard of is it?

I'd say this is like Intel or AMD selling a "quad-core" CPU where one of the cores has dramatically lower performance than the other three and not disclosing that information.

When you say something has four cores, you make a pretty strong implication that they all have the same functionality because that's the standard.

 

[Finaika]

"Here's a free copy of Shadow of Mordor!"

Most people would probably prefer a new game than a measly 0.5GB VRAM.

 

[Seanspeed]

Do you guys think someone is going to sue them for this?

If it can be confirmed that that last 0.5GB isn't useable, then I don't see why not.

 

[Serandur]

Should resale value be affected by this mess? I'm sitting on two 970s, I've had nothing but issues (including VRAM issues), and I want to at least sell one of them now, the other later in favor of AMD's new flagship.

I'm done, I've had it, I should have bought a 290 in the first place instead of a 780 and then 970s while chasing the VRAM dragon.

 

[Porcile]

Most people would probably prefer a new game than a measly 0.5GB.

Just pointing out the potential irony as this is one of the games which is known to be problematic.

 

[Dictator93]

Most people would probably prefer a new game than a measly 0.5GB VRAM.

If I had a 970, I would prefer a new video card to be honest.

 

[Terbinator]

An average FPS number tells you nothing about the low points, stuttering, and frametime inconsistencies. It's just an average, not representative of the actual performance and issues.

The performance gap is still the same/there during 99th percentile frames anyway.

An attorney will look at this as Nvidia having officially admitted they knowingly and intentionally misstated and/or misrepresented the memory capabilities of the product.

But they haven't done any of that?

 

[Reallink]

Do you guys think someone is going to sue them for this?

The question isn't whether someone will sue, but whether the judge will understand the potential issue enough to reject Nvidia's motions to dismiss and allow the class action case to proceed. An attorney will look at this as Nvidia having officially admitted they knowingly and intentionally misstated and/or misrepresented the memory capabilities of the product.

 

[Zane]

I recommened this card to two people who bought them. I did this with the mind that their comp's would have 4GB of framebuffer avilable for future games. This actually shits on SLI users pretty hard.

I feel kinda like a dolt for recommending it to people and it being on their lap now...

You still recommended them an excellent card that will chew through anything you throw at it for the next few years.

 

[Seanspeed]

If I had a 970, I would prefer a new video card to be honest.

What card would you recommend I replace my 970 with?

 

[Flame Lord]

If I had a 970, I would prefer a new video card to be honest.

That'd be pretty nice.

 

[JRW]

So If im reading this right it would be better to have a true 3.5GB VRAM card rather than a 4GB card with a shitty last 0.5GB of usable space, since this space can cause performance hitches etc. when being used.