970 memory allocation issue revisited

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce' started by alanm, Jan 23, 2015.

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  1. ---TK---

    ---TK--- Ancient Guru

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    Like Loophole said its adding context to the discussion. I don't really care what amd does tbh. Just wanted a level playing field.
    Didn't mean to quote Anarion. On my fone.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2015
  2. morbias

    morbias Don TazeMeBro Staff Member

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    I've just looked at a few of the board partners sites and a couple of them (namely EVGA and Gainward) currently list the stock GTX 970 as having memory bandwidth of 224 GB/s, which could be a point of contention.

    Even though the bus width would allow for that with those memory chips it is technically not possible to achieve that number on a GTX 970 at stock clocks due to it only being able to access 3.5 GB at once, maximum theoretical bandwidth is 196 GB/s, is it not?

    I'm surprised they haven't updated their sites yet to be honest as that could be construed as false advertising.
     
  3. vbetts

    vbetts Don Vincenzo Staff Member

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    It sucks that this is happening, but 970 prices are dropping so much and it's still an upgrade from my 760! =]
     
  4. Loophole35

    Loophole35 Ancient Guru

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    Where have you seen them drop? I may grab a pair if they hit $300.
     

  5. vbetts

    vbetts Don Vincenzo Staff Member

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    If you have a Microcenter in your area, you can pick one up for $300. I'm going to the one in the Detroit area after work to get mine.

    Newegg has them starting off at $330 right now.
     
  6. Netherwind

    Netherwind Ancient Guru

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    Wow I read some of the posts by Peter. My god they're really trying hard to amend things. Must say that I'm impressed!

    I personally don't feel like it's worth to send anything back until the driver arrives. Partly because only the only games I've had problems in are Shadows of Mordor and FC4 (?) and partly because there isn't anything on the market to replace them with. Even if I'd get a 100% refund, buying two 980s would cost as much as buying a third 970.
     
  7. H83

    H83 Ancient Guru

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    The problem is not the actual card but how they advertised the same card using wrong specs! And even worse, the fact that they only recognised they lied about the specs after people started complaining about performance issues that shouldn´t exist if the card had the same memory layout as the 980, like they said it had. And even after that, they didn´t even bothered to release a simple statment saying that they are sorry and that this isn´t going to happen again in the future! By the way, in Nvidia´s website there´s no mention of this issue...

    Not to mention that any company interested in their customers would handled this in a different manner and would try to compensante the same customers to prevent them from stop buying their products in the future.

    Like i said before, the 970 is an amazing card and i have no regrets about buying it but if i was looking for a new card in this moment, i would by an AMD card because of Nvidia´s behavior.

    But this is just my opinion about this matter.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2015
  8. Loophole35

    Loophole35 Ancient Guru

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    Closest MicroCenter is Atlanta. I'm not driving 6 hours one way for that. I will continue to monitor the egg. Hoping the MSI gaming hits $300. Hell got my 780 Gaming for $400 shipped from them. It will happen.:)
     
  9. Hilbert Hagedoorn

    Hilbert Hagedoorn Don Vito Corleone Staff Member

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    Guys, I've got somebody from Nvidia who will join up in this thread soon.

    The goal is to answer your questions and concerns, feel free to vent .. but do keep your comments respectable. Most of you have shown exemplary behavior and I respect that very much.

    MrBenB is a verified representative from Nvidia.
     
  10. MrBenB

    MrBenB New Member

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    Hi everyone,

    I'm Ben and work for NVIDIA, based out of the UK. Although I read Guru 3D a lot and work closely with Hilbert, this is my first post (hopefully of many :)).

    I'd just like to start by saying sorry, we messed up.

    We posted the wrong GTX 970 spec and we didn't fully explain the memory architecture and I completely get why you guys are so annoyed.

    I do still believe that the GTX 970 is an amazing card, one we are really proud of and I do firmly believe it is the best price-performance card.

    I'd like to try and answer your questions. Anything I don't know or can't answer I promise to go away and get you a response as quickly as I can.

    Thanks,

    Ben
     

  11. WhiteLightning

    WhiteLightning Don Illuminati Staff Member

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    Hello Ben!
    good to see more rep here.
    Id like to wish you good luck! :thumbup:
     
  12. vbetts

    vbetts Don Vincenzo Staff Member

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    Guess I'll just start off!

    MrBenB, welcome to Guru3d! Happy to have you here!

    My question then is the specs that were released to the public are not the final specs of what the consumer will see. Will there be a price adjustment in the 970 for this assuming this cannot be fixed by drivers?
     
  13. DekerBSB

    DekerBSB New Member

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    Hey guys...
    I'm really feeling "cheated" with this GTX 970 "memory bug"...(I'm a lawyer)
    I've been using ATI/AMD cards for a looonnggg time...happily waiting for the R9 3xx series...but my MSI 6870 died in december and i had to purchase a new card...
    Was choosing between a R9 285, R9 280x or GTX 970, and ended up with a Zotac 970..mostly because the promised 224gb bandwidth and 4gb RAM...future proof stuff...
    ...
    Card is great for playing 1080p games with all candys on...but while not related I can't find good/proper color adjustments for video playback...no matter how much i play with the settings..and also can't find the proper settings for undescan/overscan on HDMI-TV...all that easily done with my previous Radeon Cards...
    ...
    I was planning to sell my 970 when the R9 3xxx hit the market, i'm really missing AMD control panel, but now with this memory bug...
    I have paid for a true 4gb card with 224 memory bandwidth...but I'm not comfortable knowing that my card have 3.5gb + 0.5 low speed memo that is "already" showing some performance hit with current titles and will always require some tricks on the driver to prevent bottlenecks...
    ...
    That's the price for going with the green team... :(
    Not happy...waiting to see nvidia final stand on the matter...
    Would gladly send my GTX 970 for a new R9 280x or R9 285...
     
  14. Netherwind

    Netherwind Ancient Guru

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    Howdy Ben!

    Thanks for taking your time to swing by the forum. Also please send my regards to Peter at the GeForce official forums. I've read quite a few of his posts and I must say that I'm so impressed by his dedication to help everyone.

    My first question is if you have any ETA whatsoever regarding the driver? Are you also considering a firmware update?

    I'm running SLI on a 1440p G-sync screen which can require a lot of VRAM to be addressed which is why I'm concerned. With games like the Witcher 3 on the horizon I'd like to be sure that my purchase was a good decision. I feel like smooth game play is a curial factor for my gaming experience and "hitching" or the like is not exactly something I feel comfortable with.

    A few games that I own and I'll be testing further is Shadows of Mordor, FarCry 4 and ACU.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2015
  15. MrBenB

    MrBenB New Member

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    Hi guys, thanks for the welcome.

    vbetts - we made a mistake with the specs, this was down to poor communication between the engineering and marketing/PR teams for this I'm sorry. The GTX 970 still offers the great performance you saw all the benchmarks you see on the reviews here on Guru 3D.
     

  16. MrBenB

    MrBenB New Member

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    Hi Netherwind, our driver team work flat out to always improve game perf and this is for all our GPUs.

    I'll work to get more info on this for you.
     
  17. vbetts

    vbetts Don Vincenzo Staff Member

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    Not a problem! :) I'm planning on picking one up still today seeing that it's still a nice upgrade from what I've got now.
     
  18. Pestul

    Pestul Active Member

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    Thanks for taking the time MrBenB. Why does GPU-Z and other vBIOS tools indicate the incorrect specs?

    And, will there possibly be a discounted upgrade program to the GTX980 for those who like the architecture, but are unsatisfied with the 4GB memory configuration?
     
  19. Wagnard

    Wagnard Ancient Guru

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    Hi, MrBenB

    Personally, even with me having 2x GTX 970 and knowing nVidia messed up, I can see how nVidia customers care is strong compared to others company I won’t name here.
    To me, a company that take care of its customers is a 50% buying argument from me when I'm selecting my new hardware. The other is the hardware / performance of it of course.

    Seeing how you guys do care for us, you can be sure that my next card will be an nVidia card.

    To me, your excuses are accepted. We are all humans and we do all errors.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2015
  20. MrBenB

    MrBenB New Member

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    Hi Pestul, thanks for asking a question!

    GPU-Z and vBIOS is a very good question and I'm personally looking into this too. Interestingly our CUDA calls did report back that the 970 had less L2 cache right from the beginning but, again, everyone missed this which is super embarrassing. For that I'm sorry. We will work with the guys at GPU-Z to correct this error ASAP.

    Regarding a discount upgrade program I have no information but will look into this for you.
     
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