So, in the "aftermath" of the latest NVidia scandal I'm now curious what the driving factor was in the purchase of the GTX970 by everyone. So, simple poll. 4 options as you can see. So, why did you buy your GTX970? If you don't own a GTX970, don't vote in the poll. There's no reason to be a douche and intentionally skew the results. This is just for my curiosity since so many are complaining about the spec changes....any flaming/bashing/etc will immediately be reported to mods.
Performance reviews. When I looked at the specs for the card, I was actually doubtful that could it be that good, seeing as the high-end segment of the 700 series had way, way more of everything. I can say that I was pleasantly surprised. I do still have to admit that I am a little disappointed that the original specs were wrong, but I'm over it already. This card is light-years ahead of the HD6970 I had until recently.
i lied; i don't have one. but i never have an over interest w/specs on a piece of paper. it's what translate to real world performance imo. seriously, that's like buying a card for gaming not based on gaming results but synthetic benchmarks.
@sykozis: While this idea is good and people should realize impact is not that big, were there performance reviews showing actual performance of GTX970 when utilizing over 3.5GB? I think from now on HH should do another comparison as bonus between cards. And that is how much vram is used over time while having same settings in benchmark. Or some similar way to see how different memory compression algorithm affects total utilization, so people have better image on relative amount of vram. Like having 2 flash drives with same capacity but different HW level compression which saves space. And then filling them with data to see which will have more space left afterwards.
I got one for my nephew for college it went 1500 in benches( shhhhhh don't tell him at least I did not put it on dice), all because he was jelly that I gave a 290x dc II card to my other nephew.
Combination. While the card still performs well, it's not as future proof as I was led to believe. That is the core of the issue for most people. Nvidia was less than honest, there's no way in 2015 that the entire design team lived in an information vacuum and didn't know the specs posted were outright lies.
I'm pretty thorough when it comes to doing research on computer components since I'm quite price-conscious, so I read the reviews and pay attention to the specs. I was very impressed when I compared the (original) specs of the GTX 970 with the GTX 980. The only significant difference between the 2 is only in the number of shader and texture units? Both have the same number of ROPs? Identical memory subsystem and speed? And it costs only $350 and also $200 less than the GTX 980? SOLD! The GTX 970 is my first high-end card since all my previous cards have been mid-range (Ti4200, 6600GT, 7600GT, 8600GT, 9600GT, GTS 250, GTX 460, GTX 660 Ti which I bought for the price of a regular GTX 660 due to price list mistake, hehe). It's the most expensive card I've ever bought, but I was willing to spend the money for it because I thought it was such a great value, which was derived from the benchmarks and specs. Of course, now we know it's a bit too good to be true specs-wise. While the value of the card has gone down a bit in my eyes, I certainly do not regret the purchase one bit. It performs as great as I expected it to compared to my previous GTX 660 Ti. I love the card, but I'm pissed at Nvidia for making such a stupid marketing "mistake". Such "mistakes" remind me again why I hate how Nvidia do business even though I obviously like the GPUs they make.
Guys, please read the first post before bashing NVidia.... That is not the intended purpose of this thread.
Not sure if this is directed at me, but I'll elaborate. While it's true that a single 970 lacks the processing grunt to deal with a game that will use somewhere between 3.5GB and 4GB more often than not, not so the case of two in SLI. It's my opinion that the misinformation regarding specs hurt those of us who bought two moreso than those who bought one, and yes, the specs originally listed were a large part of my decision to purchase two.
Didnt buy one, I might get one out of spite though, see what the problem is with all these new users.
I picked none of the above. I got 980 SLI to try it out and then traded for 970 SLI,which I then sold and got some AMD cards. I must say the 970 SLI cards are great and I did have low GPU usage in a few games which is normal. SLI scaling was bad in quite a few games which was below normal for me. Single 980/970 cards are the best Nvidia cards I have owned and once you shut of FPS counter there is no real difference in gaming. That said I would not buy 970 cards again
Love the card so far, its my 1st nvidia card since my 8800GTX and i was using a 5870 1gb prior to the 970...would buy another if the price is right