Petitioning for 970 Refund

OwNjaH said:
Well I was able to successfully return the 970 I purchased back on Black Friday @ Newegg. The RMA took a while even though they sent me a 2 day air shipping label to send the card back.

Even though I hated doing it I ended up going with a 980 because I needed a card now and wasn't going to be able to wait until the new 300 series from AMD. Newegg ended up giving me free next day shipping so that was nice I guess.

The whole process took about two weeks. If my RMA had gone through in time I guess it would have taken less time.
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I went ahead and ordered the EVGA 980 FTW this afternoon from Newegg as they finally processed my 970 RMA. This whole return was nothing but a hassle for how long it took them to approve it to the point that they had the card for 3 days before even beginning the refund process even after I called them almost everyday.

On top of the gift cards I was given last week by the manager, he was able to give me a discount on the new card due to the RMA issues I experienced with them this week on the 970. If it wasn't for the manager being awesome, this Newegg experience has been a royal PITA.

Hoping that this is a good card, like you I couldn't wait to see what the 300's had to offer and the 290X would of lit up my ITX case like a toaster.
 
convexion said:
Good luck, I stopped ordering from TigerDirect because their CS is lacking at best.
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Late last year I had a pleasant experience with them. I returned an Acer 4k monitor with no issues. Full amount credited back on my TigerPay card.
 
Nothing will come of this, let it go. Wait until AMD releases their new cards and if you have enough balls to stop the fanboish behavior you will simply switch. The Nvidia rep on the forum has stopped replying to my PMs long ago, where he offered to help get a refund, figures. They will simply ignore the issue and sell the cards as is.

Live and learn, and make a decision next time when new products come out.
 
hey guys, wondering if you could help me decide on this...

I purchased a Msi golden 970 in November and another one a few weeks ago for SLI. I just found out about this memory problem. Newegg has offered to take both cards back for store credit. Do you think I should do it and get a single 980? or 980 SLI? Or would it be worth it to keep the 970's and upgrade my system to a x99 platform. I'm currently running x58 with a stock i7950 on the Rog Swift 1440p.

thanks in advance!! :)
 
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Yup grab a single 980 and see how it is or just get 2. No sense staying with the 970 in sli as you will notice the issue.
 
Thanks guys. Sucks, these golden cards look so badass too. They seem to perform well in some games, but others like dying light and sections of fc4 stutter, but not sure if its the game itself or the vrm. Well, think I'm gonna pick up two evga SC 980s, hopefully will last for a couple years.
 
Newegg finally caved and let me return my cards, though for store credit only.

I'll probably sell my 4K G-sync monitor, go back to 1440p (FreeSync?), and get a 290X or wait for a 390X.
 
captainzombie said:
I went ahead and ordered the EVGA 980 FTW this afternoon from Newegg as they finally processed my 970 RMA. This whole return was nothing but a hassle for how long it took them to approve it to the point that they had the card for 3 days before even beginning the refund process even after I called them almost everyday.

On top of the gift cards I was given last week by the manager, he was able to give me a discount on the new card due to the RMA issues I experienced with them this week on the 970. If it wasn't for the manager being awesome, this Newegg experience has been a royal PITA.

Hoping that this is a good card, like you I couldn't wait to see what the 300's had to offer and the 290X would of lit up my ITX case like a toaster.
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What kind of discount did you end up getting? I got like 25 bucks back for the next day shipping but that was pretty much it.

Also, since I used a coupon originally they discounted like 17 bucks from the original card price. When I told them that the 970 was pretty much the only part of the build I put together that was not discounted, they ended up giving me a 17 dollar gift card to use at Newegg.
 
Very surprised to see the name of the website lol. Not trying to make this about religion but I just didnt expect Christian Today to cover this, either way kudos to them. First article that does not try to shy away from calling Nvidia out.
 
Very doubtful any company would want bad press like this just to get people to buy there high end card.

I always bough high end and funny thing is that this was the first budget card I bought (been building my own pcs since 94) and look what happends. :/ last time I do that.
 
But I for one hope that the refunds end up being fair to both parties, NVIDIA and the customers. In the automobile business, we would be crucified and before congress it we took away 1/8th of the storage capacity for performance because we couldn't deliver on both!
 
Bladestorm said:
Newegg finally caved and let me return my cards, though for store credit only.

I'll probably sell my 4K G-sync monitor, go back to 1440p (FreeSync?), and get a 290X or wait for a 390X.
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Not sure if it's too late for you, but I was able to return my cards to Newegg for a full refund. They offered me store credit at first, and I almost accepted until I remembered that the CSR I was speaking with had no real financial stake, so I remained firm and asked again for a refund. She "spoke with her manager" again and agreed to it.

If I were you I'd at least call back and see if you can't get money back.
 
potam said:
Not sure if it's too late for you, but I was able to return my cards to Newegg for a full refund. They offered me store credit at first, and I almost accepted until I remembered that the CSR I was speaking with had no real financial stake, so I remained firm and asked again for a refund. She "spoke with her manager" again and agreed to it.

If I were you I'd at least call back and see if you can't get money back.
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I only dealt with them through email, and already shipped the cards back on Friday. I suppose I could call them and try to get a real refund. I'm not too concerned about store credit though since I'll have to get new cards anyway.
 
xxBlackCrossxx said:
hey guys, wondering if you could help me decide on this...

I purchased a Msi golden 970 in November and another one a few weeks ago for SLI. I just found out about this memory problem. Newegg has offered to take both cards back for store credit. Do you think I should do it and get a single 980? or 980 SLI? Or would it be worth it to keep the 970's and upgrade my system to a x99 platform. I'm currently running x58 with a stock i7950 on the Rog Swift 1440p.

thanks in advance!! :)
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Have you had any issues with your 970s?
 
xxBlackCrossxx said:
hey guys, wondering if you could help me decide on this...

I purchased a Msi golden 970 in November and another one a few weeks ago for SLI. I just found out about this memory problem. Newegg has offered to take both cards back for store credit. Do you think I should do it and get a single 980? or 980 SLI? Or would it be worth it to keep the 970's and upgrade my system to a x99 platform. I'm currently running x58 with a stock i7950 on the Rog Swift 1440p.

thanks in advance!! :)
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My own experience with 970's and swift is that I have so far only experienced one game in which 970s will hit the VRAM issue, which is AC:U, when playing the game on ultra settings with 2x MSAA, I haven't tried other games, as I don't have that many current AAA titles under my sleeve. But I am inclined to think, if you feel uncomfortable about 970's, return one of them, and save the money for either double VRAM version of 970 or 980, or ti versions.

Spending an extra $400 just to avoid the VRAM issue seems VERY expensive to me, especially considering that a pair of 980's may not last that much longer than 970's. Granted, some of the games that hit this VRAM issue might be just having an allocation rather than actual usage, but a few are already really using that much VRAM, 980's real 4GB won't be far behind 970's. If anything I really feel that this whole 970 issue has actually dramatically lessened my opinion on 980's value (which was already pretty low to begin with). I expect 980ti or its equivalent version to be better value than 980.

Also, with other highly anticipated AAA games on the horizon (TW3 and GTA5), specs could be turned upside down and even 980's might not be able to handle it.

If money is no issue or you value problem free performance much more, 980's would be prudent. If money is anywhere in that equation, the most I would do is return 1 of the 970's and wait for the big maxwells, I just don't feel 980 has any longevity, especially for its price, and espcially after the 970 VRAM issue has blown open.
 
FlipCody said:
Have you had any issues with your 970s?
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chenw said:
My own experience with 970's and swift is that I have so far only experienced one game in which 970s will hit the VRAM issue, which is AC:U, when playing the game on ultra settings with 2x MSAA, I haven't tried other games, as I don't have that many current AAA titles under my sleeve. But I am inclined to think, if you feel uncomfortable about 970's, return one of them, and save the money for either double VRAM version of 970 or 980, or ti versions.

Spending an extra $400 just to avoid the VRAM issue seems VERY expensive to me, especially considering that a pair of 980's may not last that much longer than 970's. Granted, some of the games that hit this VRAM issue might be just having an allocation rather than actual usage, but a few are already really using that much VRAM, 980's real 4GB won't be far behind 970's. If anything I really feel that this whole 970 issue has actually dramatically lessened my opinion on 980's value (which was already pretty low to begin with). I expect 980ti or its equivalent version to be better value than 980.

Also, with other highly anticipated AAA games on the horizon (TW3 and GTA5), specs could be turned upside down and even 980's might not be able to handle it.

If money is no issue or you value problem free performance much more, 980's would be prudent. If money is anywhere in that equation, the most I would do is return 1 of the 970's and wait for the big maxwells, I just don't feel 980 has any longevity, especially for its price, and espcially after the 970 VRAM issue has blown open.
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Thanks man, really appreciate the post and advice! For the most part the cards seem to do well. In most games I can't really run any type of AA or it gets fairly choppy. In Dying Light, there is some hitching when panning the camera, but for the most part its very smooth. FC4 runs very good,except when traveling by vehicle.... but cant run TXAA, SMAA runs ok, but that is buggy with the menus. I have since overlocked the cards a bit and things run better, however the top card runs pretty hot 82-86c. On my asus px586de board, the two blue pcie slots are right next to each other. There is a gray pcie slot on the bottom but wasn't sure if I could use that or not (16x or 8x?).

You're right though, it does seem like a very expensive way of avoiding the vrm issue. I wonder when the new NVidia cards would be coming out?

I felt kinda burned by the VRAM thing after reading through this thread and just on principal and for any future games like you mentioned (witcher 3) and I was thinking I needed to jump quick on the newegg rma. I haven't returned the cards yet. I wonder if overclocking my 950 would help with some frame rate dips/AA? I'm a total noobie when it comes to ocing cpus though, so I've been researching how to go about it lately. I've been building rigs since around '97 but never really experimented with overclocking beyond video cards.

Maybe if I keep the cards, I could sell them down the road and grab two new cards and sli them...?
 
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xxBlackCrossxx said:
Thanks man, really appreciate the post and advice! For the most part the cards seem to do well. In most games I can't really run any type of AA or it gets fairly choppy. In Dying Light, there is some hitching when panning the camera, but for the most part its very smooth. FC4 runs very good,except when traveling by vehicle.... but cant run TXAA, SMAA runs ok, but that is buggy with the menus. I have since overlocked the cards a bit and things run better, however the top card runs pretty hot 82-86c. On my asus px586de board, the two blue pcie slots are right next to each other. There is a gray pcie slot on the bottom but wasn't sure if I could use that or not (16x or 8x?).

You're right though, it does seem like a very expensive way of avoiding the vrm issue. I wonder when the new NVidia cards would be coming out?

I felt kinda burned by the VRM thing after reading through this thread and just on principal and for any future games like you mentioned (witcher 3) and I was thinking I needed to jump quick on the newegg rma. I haven't returned the cards yet. I wonder if overclocking my 950 would help with some frame rate dips/AA? I'm a total noobie when it comes to ocing cpus though, so I've been researching how to go about it lately. I've been building rigs since around '97 but never really experimented with overclocking beyond video cards.

Maybe if I keep the cards, I could sell them down the road and grab two new cards and sli them...?
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I feel the same way as you guys about my 970 sli setup. Yes 980 would be much better but the extra cost of two 980s in sli would be pretty substantial. I might as well wait for cards to come out that have 6 to 8 gb of vram and just fiddle with texture and resolution to keep the vram usuage below 3.5 gb. So far that has worked out okay for me and very few stutter issues with games. Yes i can't run them max but with 3440X1440 resolution I don't really expect to with every game
 
lee0539 said:
I feel the same way as you guys about my 970 sli setup. Yes 980 would be much better but the extra cost of two 980s in sli would be pretty substantial. I might as well wait for cards to come out that have 6 to 8 gb of vram and just fiddle with texture and resolution to keep the vram usuage below 3.5 gb. So far that has worked out okay for me and very few stutter issues with games. Yes i can't run them max but with 3440X1440 resolution I don't really expect to with every game
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Right on man, yeah wow, you're running super high, that's 4k right? Yeah it sucks, but might be better in the long run like the previous poster said. I'm learning towards sticking with what I have now, keeping them in good condition and selling them down the road. I mean as it is now, for the most part, on my x58, these games are running pretty great. The swift definitely helps as well.
 
3440x1440 is still not 4k region, it only has about 60% of the pixel count of 4k (4,953,600 vs 8,294,400 pixels), which shows how demanding 4k really is when something that is 3/5th of pixels isn't managing it.

I feel that, as a 970 sli owner, I am at a very unique position where I don't like being lied/misinformed about the specs, but I got the performance I was expecting and I can't change that without making sacrifices (money if going 980's, performance and G-Sync if going 290x's) I am not willing to make. It's like being stranded on a deserted island with the captain sticking a finger at you while it is leaving, but you grow to like the scenery of the said island...
 
I just got off of Amazon chat. They refunded me 20% ($70) for my Asus Strix GTX 970.
Other's have reported success also in getting 20% refunded. Some are saying they got denied though.
 
AjFreimuth said:
I just got off of Amazon chat. They refunded me 20% ($70) for my Asus Strix GTX 970.
Other's have reported success also in getting 20% refunded. Some are saying they got denied though.
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Do you have a chat record you can post up on this?
 
AjFreimuth said:
I just got off of Amazon chat. They refunded me 20% ($70) for my Asus Strix GTX 970.
Other's have reported success also in getting 20% refunded. Some are saying they got denied though.
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What method did you go about this?/ Was your return window expired?
 
using MSI Afterburner I'm showing 3.6GB+ VRAM usage playing Evolve with my GTX 970 (1920 x 1200, everything maxed at Very High, AA= SMAA 1Tx)...no stuttering...how is the game showing 3.6GB+ when the 970 apparently tops out at 3.5GB before switching to the separate memory allocation...is Afterburner reading it wrong?
 
Here:

=================
Initial Question: Hi, it has recently come to light that the Nvidia GTX970 was incorrectly described as having 4GB of usable VRAM when it only has 3.5GB of Vram. I've seen many other Amazon customer's responding to the issue on News sites, and forums about the issue stating they where refunded 20% of the purchase price due to the false information given. I was contacting to see if I could get my 20% refund also.

07:32 AM PST Amazon(Amazon): Hello, my name is Rahul. I'll be happy to help you
07:32 AM PST Tony: Hello and thanks. :)
07:32 AM PST Amazon(Amazon): Hello Tony
I am really sorry for the inconvenience caused to you
I will definitely look into this,may I have the order number please?
07:33 AM PST Tony: Order# *********************
07:33 AM PST Amazon(Amazon): ASUS STRIX-GTX970-DC20C-4GD5 Graphics Cards STRIX-GTX970-DC20C-4GD5 this is your product ?
07:33 AM PST Tony: Yes
07:34 AM PST Amazon(Amazon): Okay, So now you want 20% discount on this product ?
07:34 AM PST Tony: Correct.
07:35 AM PST Amazon(Amazon): But the return window is Expired on Saturday, January 31, 2015
07:36 AM PST Tony: Yes, but the information about the 4GB of Vram not being accurate has only come out recently. You can check online that many other's have gotten the 20% refund from Amazon, Newegg is also offering the same thing and other sites as well.
07:36 AM PST Amazon(Amazon): Okay, Now as an one time exception I am refunding 20% discount
07:36 AM PST Tony: Thank you
07:36 AM PST Amazon(Amazon): You are most welcome
07:37 AM PST Amazon(Amazon): Now please allow me a minute
07:37 AM PST Tony: Sure
07:38 AM PST Amazon(Amazon): Now I am issuing an refund for $ 70 to your account
07:38 AM PST Tony: Great that's wonderful.
07:38 AM PST Amazon(Amazon):
You are most welcome
07:39 AM PST Amazon(Amazon):
Refund Summary
Refund Successful
For Amount: $ 70.00
Now the amount will be credited to your account within next 2-3 business days
07:39 AM PST Tony: Perfect thank you very much.
07:39 AM PST Amazon(Amazon):
You are welcome and have a pleasant day ahead!.
Is there anything else I can do for you today?
07:40 AM PST Tony: Will that show up under the "gift card" balance then? Pretty sure I used gift cards for the original purchase.
07:40 AM PST Amazon(Amazon): Yes, It will be refunded to your original payment method
07:40 AM PST Tony: That should be it then.
07:41 AM PST Amazon(Amazon): You are welcome and have a pleasant day ahead!
Thanks for visiting Amazon.com. We hope to see you again soon! To close this window, please click the "end chat" button
Bye Tony :)
07:41 AM PST Tony: Bye you have a wonderful day also.
===================
 
Keep doing that and Amazon will ban you. They don't care.

Google [email protected]. They will give you the utmost best customer service until you abuse their system too much, then they will ban you and all the people you have shipped to over the years.

If this was your first request with them, then ok, but be careful. I use to buy their warehouse deals all the time then I bought a series of them and they were physically damaged/defective. I returned about 4 items consecutively and received an email from CIS. I didn't get banned but they surely let me know that I was riding that fine line with them.
 
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Microcenter took my MSI 970 back 65 days after the window had passed and let me get a Strix 980 (paid the difference) instead.

Not sure if that has any bearing here but worth mentioning I think, even MC's chat was aware of the issue (which was amazing).
 
What gets to me about this whole dustup is that nVidia admitted that the 980 is just like the 970 in that it has only 3.5GB accessible by the main memory bus on the card...but everyone is fixated on the 970...;) According to nVidia, in some games the 980's performance drops ~47% after the 3.5GB boundary, and it's for exactly the same reasons the 970 drops ~50% after the 3.5GB boundary in the same games--but nobody seems to care about the 980! The 980's cost more, so you'd think people would be more upset about that. Go figure...;)
 
This is some hefty horseshit...glad I decided NOT to jump on a pair of 970's a while back.

Granted, the lower power draw and especially the lower heat output vs my 780's would be fantastic, but I'm not going to move off of my 780's until either nVidia gets this fixed (whether it be correcting the VRAM partitioning with a future BIOS revision or not pulling this stunt with the desktop Maxwell 3.0 refresh/die shrink) or when Volta/Pascal emerges (and with no similar problem).

Feel bad for you guys and gals that are having to go through this crap.
 
WaltC said:
What gets to me about this whole dustup is that nVidia admitted that the 980 is just like the 970 in that it has only 3.5GB accessible by the main memory bus on the card...but everyone is fixated on the 970...;) According to nVidia, in some games the 980's performance drops ~47% after the 3.5GB boundary, and it's for exactly the same reasons the 970 drops ~50% after the 3.5GB boundary in the same games--but nobody seems to care about the 980! The 980's cost more, so you'd think people would be more upset about that. Go figure...;)
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care to link us the source of your comment?
 
WaltC said:
What gets to me about this whole dustup is that nVidia admitted that the 980 is just like the 970 in that it has only 3.5GB accessible by the main memory bus on the card...but everyone is fixated on the 970...;) According to nVidia, in some games the 980's performance drops ~47% after the 3.5GB boundary, and it's for exactly the same reasons the 970 drops ~50% after the 3.5GB boundary in the same games--but nobody seems to care about the 980! The 980's cost more, so you'd think people would be more upset about that. Go figure...;)
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Source?
 
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