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Petitioning for 970 Refund

All this talk about whether or not we all have grounds to be upset is great, but pretty much academic.

Has anyone else who bought from Newegg had luck with getting them to accept the return? I did an online chat and subsequently sent an email through their website (sadly, the limit of 300 characters is woefully inadequate for the description of the issue), but have gotten no response. The low level CSR on chat just told me no based on policy with a "but, we'll have a manager contact you in the next 3 days". It's now been more than that, and still nothing.

If they don't accept the return, I'm planning on calling Amex to see what recourse I have. I know for sure they will accept the returns even if Newegg denies it due to their return policy, but each item is capped at $300, so I wouldn't be able to get all of the cost back. I also plan to inquire about a charge back on the grounds that what was received was not what was ordered. Mainly because it just pisses me off that Newegg is pretty much the only retailer that's sticking on this whole issue. It's especially galling considering I'm a paying premier member and I'm requesting an exchange, not a flat out return.

Nvidia sucks for all this, but personally I'm getting pretty ticked at Newegg that they haven't handled this better.
 
Neon01 said:
Nvidia sucks for all this, but personally I'm getting pretty ticked at Newegg that they haven't handled this better.
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Unless legally obligated, NewEgg doesnt have to do anything, period. Could they? Sure, but why go out of your way if you dont legally have to? Its the corporate way.

Same for Best Buy which has also been pretty much useless on this.

Amazon it seems has been more receptive, but they have better CS than NewEgg or Best Buy has ever had imho.

Sad truth of it is, no one wants to get stuck with the shit from the fallout on this, esp if it costs them money.
 
FlipCody said:
I'm going to assume that he was not referring to almost 3600mb because of the nature of the article. In the paragraph after the "almost 3.6 GB" statement he also refers to using the last 512mb of memory. I find it highly unlikely that a site like Guru3D that is writing an article about using above the 3.5 gb of memory would actually not go above 3.5gb. I have sent Hilbert, the author of the article, an e-mail to clarify.
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My 7th grade math teacher Mr. Bogusz used to say: "to be terrific, you must be specific". I rechecked their article this morning and they never mentioned numbers in terms of MB, just "3.5 GB" and "3.6 GB" so it's about as clear as mud. I wouldn't be surprised if they read mid to high 3500 MB and called it "3.6 GB" though. Clarification would be excellent.
 
aldamon said:
Are returns being allowed in the EU with no questions asked? Why are US customers second-class?
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Also, EU has stronger truth-in-advertising laws there. Pretty lenient here in the USA.
 
Starrbuck said:
Just out of curiosity, rather than making general statements, can you guys please give specific examples?
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Sure! Click the link I provided in my post, and it will explain the UK law and the EU law, generally what is protected and who has what duties in the process. :D:cool:
 
Brent_Justice said:
I want to ask of the community who have purchased GTX 970s this question. Are you happy with the performance you are getting in your games with the 970? Does it deliver a good gameplay experience for you?

Just like any card, I think this is the most important question to ask yourself. If it doesn't provide this for you, and you have the money, then by all means find something that does satisfy this.
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I'm keeping mine - I only use 1080p and I try to mantain 60+ fps all the time so I don't use sky high resolutions/AA levels.

Plus it's only temporary card for me - I plan to get on gm200/amd 3x0 bandwagon once dust settles on who produces best 1440p 120+ Hz IPS monitor :D
 
David_Schroth said:
Sure! Click the link I provided in my post, and it will explain the UK law and the EU law, generally what is protected and who has what duties in the process. :D:cool:
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You misunderstand. I mean specific examples like how the UK or EU law helped someone and how the lack of it in the US hurt someone.
 
PRIME1 said:
Return rate of 970s is less than 5%. As I suspected. Storm in a teacup.
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Less than 5%...that could be anywhere between 1 card and 49,999 cards. (assuming 1 million cards sold)

Is there any sort of more accurate figure?

If it's 4.5% and they sold 1,000,000 cards, we're talking about nearly 14.5 million dollars they lost (maybe not much in the overall scheme of things, but I'd sure hate to lose 14.5M dollars)
 
Cali3350 said:
Thats actually WAY higher than expected. Im amazed 5% of sales even know about this issue.
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I would bet that includes returns for other issues as well.

Probably just the people trading in their 970s for 980s. :D
 
5% seems kind of low. I wonder what the actual acceptable defect rate is on the part.
 
I can't wait for the horde of Open Box and remanufactured cards on newegg and amazon.

I was thinking of getting a 960 but a $250~$280 970 sounds good to me.
 
PRIME1 said:
Return rate of 970s is less than 5%. As I suspected. Storm in a teacup.
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This is a great article. Only 5% have been actually returned.
What was the percentage of attempted returns? The article quotes 'less than 5%'.
How can this be?
What is the range of error?
Who was polled? "A source"
How many samples were collected vs the entire population?
Was this statistically significant enough to extrapolate for the entire population?

Is there any qualifying data like:
How many returns were attempted more than once?
How many attempted returns are pending approval?
What is the percentage of attempted returns that were denied?
What is the root cause for the returns accepted?
What is the root cause for the returns denied?
What is the per market distribution of returns? i.e. Are the bulk of returns in one geographical location suggesting a different response in global vs domestic markets?

Reads a lot like "GTX970 Owners Are Dead"
 
David_Schroth said:
EU law gives consumers the ability to do this for something like 2 years after purchase. The US does not have that sort of consumer protection laws in place (nor do I think that lobbyists will permit it to happen here).
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xorbe said:
Also, EU has stronger truth-in-advertising laws there. Pretty lenient here in the USA.
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My question was rhetorical and simply a response to Brent's condescending tone, but thank you for the additional facts.

PRIME1 said:
Return rate of 970s is less than 5%. As I suspected. Storm in a teacup.
Click to expand...

Here's the pull-quote from the article. This is how you take care of customers:

Last week Overclockers UK and Caseking.de – two leading European online stores from the U.K. and Germany – said that they would accept all GeForce GTX 970 graphics cards from all suppliers back if certain customers are unhappy. The window for returning a GeForce GTX 970 is between now and end of February.
Click to expand...
 
Stoly said:
I can't wait for the horde of Open Box and remanufactured cards on newegg and amazon.

I was thinking of getting a 960 but a $250~$280 970 sounds good to me.
Click to expand...

Yeah I was hoping for a glut of returns so I could get a refurbished one for like $200. I guess I'll be sticking with my 570 though.
 
Keeping mine. Nothing has changed for me through this discovery. Shady? Maybe... But largely a non-issue. I'll give NV the finger for lying, but the card still performs just fine for me. Maybe someday I'll hit the edge-case where this matters, but that will likely be after I want to upgrade anyway, and then this will make it into my living-room PC. No big deal. I do completely understand why some people are upset. I'm just not one of them. I got the performance that I paid for all NV tomfoolery aside...
 
My card went away... Shop sends it to Asus, when Asus confirms it works, I'm getting money back. on 290, I had in a drawer, till 3xx arrives. I wonder though, how much those who kept their 970s, will sell them for once 380/390 start rolling.
 
MorgothPl said:
I wonder though, how much those who kept their 970s, will sell them for once 380/390 start rolling.
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I don't sell mine at all. I just keep trickling down hardware until it's no longer worth much. My 970 will go to the living-room PC. From there, it will go to my son's PC. From there, it will go to my brother. From there, to my dad. After that, it will be relegated to one of his trickle-downs, or get recycled. Occasionally it comes back to me, and I find some odd use for it. That's the natural flow of hardware from me. Occasionally it will go to a friend or something, but usually my friends like to keep up with me hardware-wise anyway.
 
J3RK said:
Keeping mine. Nothing has changed for me through this discovery.
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That's basically the sentiment I've had on the issue.

The actual performance of the product was never misrepresented, so... meh?
 
Unknown-One said:
That's basically the sentiment I've had on the issue.

The actual performance of the product was never misrepresented, so... meh?
Click to expand...

Exactly. It's not that I condone fudging numbers like that. I also know that in some cases that does have a bit of an impact. (just none that I care about) Still though it performs how I would expect from a $300-350 card. It plays everything I throw at it extremely well. If anything, I hope Nvidia learned to just stick the real facts out there next time.
 
J3RK said:
Exactly. It's not that I condone fudging numbers like that. I also know that in some cases that does have a bit of an impact. (just none that I care about) Still though it performs how I would expect from a $300-350 card. It plays everything I throw at it extremely well. If anything, I hope Nvidia learned to just stick the real facts out there next time.
Click to expand...

So people can make informed decitions based on real facts? How dare you!!!!
 
Stoly said:
I can't wait for the horde of Open Box and remanufactured cards on newegg and amazon.

I was thinking of getting a 960 but a $250~$280 970 sounds good to me.
Click to expand...

Lol, was talking to a buddy about this last night! :D
 
"Due to vague sources with undocumented quantitative methods, the return rate is <5%".

Sounds legit. That being said most consumers don't care about how much they're abused.

Furthermore I'd guess a lot of the thing with returns is not whether someone would or would not want it returned and/or thinks it's a major issue. Rather, it's a question of how much of a pain in the butt returning the card is, especially if it's well past the return date. For many consumers, a simple date estimate will keep them from doing it.

This "5% return rate" evaluation is dubious in terms of its implications. The more telling thing would not be how many people care to return it, but how many sales Nvidia will lose because of this whole ordeal, going forward. That's a much harder number to get, but rumors and whatnot spread on the internet like wildfire, and Nvidia's reputation is going to go down because of this. There's no way around that.

Unknown-One said:
That's basically the sentiment I've had on the issue.

The actual performance of the product was never misrepresented, so... meh?
Click to expand...

It kinda was, supposing anything you play at all will ever touch that last 0.5GB, from now going forward. It won't perform like a card with 4GB VRAM.
 
Cali3350 said:
Thats actually WAY higher than expected. Im amazed 5% of sales even know about this issue.
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Same here, although this whole thing sucks, I would be surprised if the real return rate is anywhere near 5%. I doubt it. The discerning enthusiast is in the minority.
 
Knowing about this issue, I would still buy this card. I don't want an AMD product, and it's placed in the price-range that I'm willing to pay for a new graphics card, and performs on par with what I'd expect for this price. It just would have been nice if it was clear in the first place that this is how the memory was segmented. It's still just as good of a card as before everyone figured this out though.
 
Return rate might be higher if nVidia kept true to their initial intents to help you do it. I would of returned mine for a 290x lightning if I was able to.

Hence the point of this thread.:D
 
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StoleMyOwnCar said:
It kinda was, supposing anything you play at all will ever touch that last 0.5GB, from now going forward. It won't perform like a card with 4GB VRAM.
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Again, nothing was misrepresented performance-wise. These cards have performed this way since day-one. Tasks that are demanding on vRAM how shown performance penalties since day-one.

The only difference between launch-day and now, is we know WHY that performance dip is there.
 
My GTX970 will be refunded next week. Part of the 5% who did something about NV misrepresenting their stuff. 290x Lightning installed :D

Im sorry, but there needs to be some backlash and we are the only ones who can provide it by fighting for returns. Not sure why people believe its OK for a company to get away with it. Whether you are utilizing it right now or not, that should not matter IMO. Couple years down the road, there can potentially be issues. And while there are people who upgrade often, theres many more who dont. Why should they be subject to lower performance or a forced upgrade to due NV negligence.
 
^because it would appear that some can't comprehend that others sometimes fight just for the principle. nVidia has already pretty much gotten away with this without any consequences, so by not doing anything -- or worse, sending more money their way to upgrade to the 980 -- it basically tells nVidia it's OK to pull shit like this, because hey we'll still shove money your way because you can do no wrong.
 
I don't like being lied to, and I don't like the way nVidia is handling about it, and I don't like sitting around doing nothing.

However, due to a multitude of reasons, some personal, some practical. Consumer laws here is probably amongst the worst in the world, so I probably won't be able to get a refund from retailers voluntarily unless the manufacturers do so. Also 290x, the other available option I have will NOT be an upgrade in *experience* (I have several games that I know will run like crap if I switch to 290x). So there is really I nothing I can do, or want to do about it now.

The most likely time I will hit them is next time I upgrade, but that's assuming AMD can offer the same kind of user experience (not necessarily performance) as nVidia when I choose my next upgrade (currently not the case).
 
Unknown-One said:
Again, nothing was misrepresented performance-wise. These cards have performed this way since day-one. Tasks that are demanding on vRAM how shown performance penalties since day-one.

The only difference between launch-day and now, is we know WHY that performance dip is there.
Click to expand...


You realize that last sentence makes a night and day difference, right? Whereas before that might have been attributable to drivers or something that could change over time without consumer investment (or some immutable but still in line with stated specs hardware difference), it now is not. That's a definite misrepresentation, no matter how you spin it. Regardless of what performance charts showed, the reason for those performance dips being there is as relevant as the dips themselves. It went from "for some reason (probably drivers?) these perform strangely at the memory threshold for a 4GB card" to: "Yeah, this is why. You were lied to about the specs. These are actually 3.5GB cards with 500MB of worthless (in fact worse than worthless...) vram".

I'm fine with my 780. It performs exactly as a card with 3GB VRAM should. I would not be fine if I got one of these. I would feel like I bought a car to essentially later find out that it's a bit gimped and not according to spec (going to avoid any real analogy here, just giving a situational representation). Regardless of the difference, I was lied to. I think you guys should be fighting for returns simply based on the principle of it if nothing else.
 
So I bought Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. I have been meaning to pick up this game up for a while. The game really is a blast and it it looks amazing. I also wanted to see if I could stress out my single GTX 970 to the point where these issues are supposed to happen. I'm running a single GTX 970 at 1440p. I downloaded the Ultra HD texture pack as well. In a nutshell I had zero issues. The game ran butter smooth at maxed out settings when I was running over 3.5 gb. Here is a bit of my GPU-Z log to show that I was running over 3.5 gb (or more than 3,584 mb):
16461349745_d85811031d_b.jpg

I bought this card earlier in the week and I have to say I'm impressed. Everything I run on it runs great. It also is super quiet, it does not get too hot, and it does not use a lot of power. I have seen no issues with stuttering etc. though I'm "only" running at 1440p with a single card.
 
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I think Nvidia should run some kind of promotion for those that can't return their cards. Another free game for early adopters? I bought my card some months back, and can't return it. Though even if I could, I already sold my old GPU. And there is really nothing else I can replace a 970 with in terms of performance. AMD is not an option because some of the games I play don't run very well on their software/hardware.
 
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