compensation from nvidia

Venturi

Venturi

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 23, 2004
Messages
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we are here in this forum because we are more or less fans of different products and capabilities, and we are here to exchange information to help one another out, and mostly because we are quite technical in nature and have a good community - better than most forums


So, with that said:


How is nvidia planning to compensate all the folks and fans that bought a 3rd or 4th pascal based on nvidia 's announcement of the enthusiast key in the published pdf and white paper ?

If nvidia said it would have a website and enthusiast key for 3 and 4 way sli, and folks bought the cards on the communication, isn't nvidia liable to make good or compensate those folks who made the additional purchase?


It has nothing to do with weather or not someone likes 3 and 4 gpu solutions, so don't focus on that, it's about purchases made based on nvidia claiming a method to enable it via an enthusiast key.

and
the enthusiast key was not limited to benchmark suites alone, when the paper was released, there were no stipulations other than enabling the 3 and 4 way sli.

the pdf, the white paper and the announcement -all described unlocking with the enthusiast key.
Changing that commitment AFTER people have bought the cards is where the issue is. It has nothing to do with weather or one agrees with 3 or 4 way SLI

On that point alone, nvidia should compensate individuals or follow through with the full promise to make those capabilities available.



Copy paste from 1080gtx announcement, pdf, and the white paper:

"""""
Enthusiast Key
While NVIDIA no longer recommends 3 or 4 way systems for SLI, we know that true enthusiasts will not be swayed...and in fact some games will continue to deliver great scaling beyond two GPUs. For this class of user we have developed an Enthusiast Key that can be downloaded off of NVIDIA’s website and loaded into an individual’s GPU. This process involves:
1. Run an app locally to generate a signature for your GPU
2. Request an Enthusiast Key from an upcoming NVIDIA Enthusiast Key website
3. Download your key
4. Install your key to unlock the 3 and 4-way function
Full details on the process are available on the NVIDIA Enthusiast Key website, which will be available at the time GeForce GTX 1080 GPUs are available in users’ hands.

""""""
 
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Less and less games are supporting AFR rendering, I have always said multi GPU setups isn't for gaming lol.
 
Minimalist said:
we are here in this forum because we are more or less fans of different products and capabilities, and we are here to exchange information to help one another out.


So, with that said:


How is nvidia planning to compensate all the folks and fans that bought a 3rd or 4th pascal based on nvidia 's announcement of the enthusiast key in the published pdf and white paper ?

If nvidia said it would have a website and enthusiast key for 3 and 4 way sli, and folks bought the cards on the communication, isn't nvidia liable to make good or compensate those folks who made the additional purchase?


It has nothing to do with weather or not you like 3 and 4 gpu solutions, so don't flame or troll on that, it's about purchases made based on nvidia claiming a method to enable it via an enthusiast key.

and
the enthusiast key was not limited to benchmark suites alone, when the paper was released, there were no stipulations other than enabling the 3 and 4 way sli.

the pdf, the white paper and the announcement -all described unlocking with the enthusiast key.
Changing that commitment AFTER people have bought the cards is where the issue is. It has nothing to do with weather or not you agree with 3 or 4 way SLI

On that point alone, nvidia should compensate individuals or follow through with the full promise to make those capabilities available.
Click to expand...

Did you?
 
I think he is saying they are back tracking and no longer supporting 3 or 4 way sli. Meaning you can't generate they key to unlock it
 
H-street said:
I think he is saying they are back tracking and no longer supporting 3 or 4 way sli. Meaning you can't generate they key to unlock it
Click to expand...
Although I hadn't seen this and only knew of 2way. But it does beg the question as to recourse if it is truly the chronological outcome.
 
The whole issue got corrected pretty quickly and also taking into account that the 1080s where hard to find (people had problems getting one, let alone 3-4) I really don't see a problem with it. Unless someone was stubborn after the fact that we won't get 3 and 4way SLI and still held on to cards in the hopes of the mythical key making a reappearing, it's his/hers problem
 
well I would disagree with that.. if Nvidia advertised a future Key for 3 / 4 SLI and someone bought 3 or 4 1080's with this expectation than this was a blatant sense of false advertising and is not his or her problem. Even though like you said the numbers may be small, this would be an easy class action lawsuit win against Nvidia and would be a lot more settlement per user vs the paltry 30$ for the 970 fiasco
 
Pretty sure their supply chain woes solved that issue since people couldn't really get their hands on one let alone three.

Given the current market, you could probably sell them for the same price you bought them. It wouldn't surprise me if they weren't going to do anything in this instance.
 
H-street said:
well I would disagree with that.. if Nvidia advertised a future Key for 3 / 4 SLI and someone bought 3 or 4 1080's with this expectation than this was a blatant sense of false advertising and is not his or her problem. Even though like you said the numbers may be small, this would be an easy class action lawsuit win against Nvidia and would be a lot more settlement per user vs the paltry 30$ for the 970 fiasco
Click to expand...

You can disagree but not even in the copy paste from Nvidia does it state that 3-4way would work in games. They will go "hey we got rid of the key you only need drivers to push 3-4way SLI numbers in 3d mark" or whatever synthetic bench gives you thrills + you need support from game devs for them and we sometimes barely get if for 2way, so the ball is in another court (pun intended). If someone is stupid enough, pardon me, rich enough to sue Nvidia over this, I wish the the best of luck, they will learn a valuable lesson.This is not even remotely close to the 970 fiasco.
 
weather one agrees with 3 or 4 way sli, the point is that this - was not upheld:

"""""
Enthusiast Key
While NVIDIA no longer recommends 3 or 4 way systems for SLI, we know that true enthusiasts will not be swayed...and in fact some games will continue to deliver great scaling beyond two GPUs. For this class of user we have developed an Enthusiast Key that can be downloaded off of NVIDIA’s website and loaded into an individual’s GPU. This process involves:
1. Run an app locally to generate a signature for your GPU
2. Request an Enthusiast Key from an upcoming NVIDIA Enthusiast Key website
3. Download your key
4. Install your key to unlock the 3 and 4-way function
Full details on the process are available on the NVIDIA Enthusiast Key website, which will be available at the time GeForce GTX 1080 GPUs are available in users’ hands.

""""""
 
I'm not sure what the whole story here is, but if nVidia said 3-way and 4-way SLI was possible with a key unlock and then failed to provide the key, that is straight-up false advertising. Doesn't matter whether you think 3- or 4-way SLI is worth it...if they said one thing that caused people to buy extra cards and then took it away, that is some fucked-up shit.
 
OP is already spamming this on multiple forums. He is seriously pissed you guys!
 
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Couldn't you just use 2-way SLI and use the 3rd card for PhysX?
I know it's not 3-way and Nvidia fucked you guys over with the big middle finger and they should buy back your extra cards at Retail price.
 
thx guys,

at the end of it I know its the huge nVidia and I'm just a lowly consumer and that I really won't get anywhere.

There is more to the story: though my business I have multiple workstations and run those rigs with multiple 4k displays.For many applications and games scaling for 3 and 4 way sli sucks. if one is willing to work with a vendor and do custom profiles you can get better scaling, but its still not optimal. I tried the quadro cards but they are not any better at those high resolutions and frankly $4500 is a lot for a single card The 4gpu profiles I have for the application I use actually gives me good scaling through the custom profile and AFR2 I have for the app. Yes for most folks its about gaming, but I use my stuff to also make a living. Anyhow, I returned 17 1080 gtx cards and cancelled the order for 8 titan pascal. I kept 2 1080gtx and 4 pascal titans for personal experimentation and hope. But while these cards have a lot of potential, single pascal cards can't run multiple 4k displays smoothly, hence the need for 3 or 4 gpu sli.

I had toyed with the p6000 but the price point was staggering when instead a set of 3 1080 gtx sli would run the app well; and the p6000 still can't do multiple 4k smoothly. side note, our 4k displays are 4096x2160, not 3850x2160. So when trying to outfit my personal workstation and several other for my business, it became a larger decision. So a substantial order was made based on the information rendered and then the information was changed after the order was paid for. So most of it was returned and had to eat shipping an time and effort


So yes, i felt mislead.


And this, I hope will not get me trolled to death, but:

I like nvidia, I like AMD just as much and over many years have made use of both. I admire many aspects of AMD. However, I feel that if AMD had a competing product at the high end of the video cards, that many of the latest sli shenanigans would probably not have taken place. I hope AMD can return to healthy high end video competition to nvidia and provide high end choices. The current "price point" competition at the sub 300 level is somewhat in AMD's favor and I can appreciate the strategy. However there is a huge VOID from AMD for the 4k market and as such nvidia was able to drop several new products ahead of AMD's capabilities in a vacuum at that level. I suspect the SLI misleading marketing and ever changing info is just one aspect of the fallout of a lack of competition. I have also three Linux workstations and unfortunately the AMD driver situation makes it relatively impossible for me to select them for that role, which has limited me to nvidia.
Nvidia does a poor job on the open source driver front so that does not make nvidia perfect for that role either. I have too few options to get it done "perfectly". So I'm hoping AMD gets to a neck and neck competition with nvidia one day, and not just at the low end "price point".


The short
I'm disappointed in the misleading approach nvidia has used. I realize that calling it "lying" may be considered too strong a word and it would be completely inappropriate to wave the proverbial middle finger at them for what they did, so I won't do that.


Thank you
 
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i dont see them doing anything for you at all. just sell/trade the extra cards and move on.
 
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Before going to press with this story I asked NVIDIA for comment directly: when was the community finally going to get the Enthusiast Key website to unlock 3-Way and 4-Way SLI for those people crazy enough to have purchased that many GTX 1080s? The answer was quite surprising: NVIDIA is backing away from the idea of an "Enthusiast Key" and will no longer require it for enabling 3-Way and 4-Way SLI.
Click to expand...

From:

GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 3-Way and 4-Way SLI will not be enabled for games | PC Perspective

More:

NVIDIA clearly wants to reiterate that only 2-Way SLI will get the attention that we have come to expect from the GeForce driver dev team. As DX12 and Vulkan next-generation APIs become more prolific, the game developers will still have the ability to directly access more than two GeForce GTX 10-series GPUs, though I expect that be a very narrow window of games simply due to development costs and time.

NVIDIA will enable support for three and four card configurations in future drivers (without a key) for specific overclocking/benchmarking tools only, as a way to make sure the GeForce brand doesn't fall off the 3DMark charts. Only those specific applications will be able operate in the 3-Way and 4-Way SLI configurations that you have come to know. There are no profiles to change manually and even the rare games that might have "just worked" with three or four GPUs will not take advantage of more than two GTX 10-series cards. It's fair to say at this point that except for the benchmarking crowd, NVIDIA 3-Way and 4-Way SLI is over.

We expect the "benchmark only" mode of 3-Way and 4-Way SLI to be ready for consumers with the next "Game Ready" driver release. If you happened to get your hands on more than two GTX 1080s but aren't into benchmarking, then find those receipts and send a couple back.

So there you have it. Honestly, this is what I was expecting from NVIDIA with the initial launch of Pascal and the GeForce GTX 1080/1070 and I was surprised when I first heard about the idea of the "enthusiast key." It took a bit longer than expected, and NVIDIA will get more flak for the iterated dismissal of this very niche, but still pretty cool, technology. In the end, this won't have much impact on the company's bottom line as the quantity of users that were buying 3+ GTX GPUs for a single system was understandably small.
Click to expand...
 
This whole thing about creating a website, keys and whatnot already smelled fishy.

2 way SLI is still supported though... and Vulkan/DX12 allow game developers to bypass SLI/Crossfire.

I wouldn't be surprised if nVIDIA drops support for SLI at the next architecture in favor of something like Crossfire (no bridge). 4K/ High refresh rate screens will keep multi-GPU relevant.
 
Ocellaris said:
OP is already spamming this on multiple forums. He is seriously pissed you guys!
Click to expand...
If it isn't an issue for ledra to do it then why Is it an issue here? Legitimate issues should should be brought to light. You can't tell consumers one thing and then back pedal on it. To say limited supply meant no one could obtain 3 is pretty stupid as well. Sometimes i wish people would just admit a problem is a problem and move on. Same applied to the 480 power issue and the 970 incorrect spec issue. Just call out the bs so they stop.
 
I doubt Nvidia will do anything to compensate anyone. I would guess only a VERY small handful of people actually got their hands on more than 2 cards before the changes came out.

For the OP: Exactly what compensation would you like to see? Money? A heart-felt apology signed by the CEO? A free Titan X?

If you want a refund for the price of the card, go pop it up on eBay and you'll get that plus more.
 
all of you are right,
what I really want is just for them to not backpedal and stick to the original endeavor.

I just feel that when (I'm not going to call it outright laying and deceiving) NVidia mislead people, folks should NOT just say "ok" , "please do it again", and "thank you sir may I have another".

Otherwise, it goes without any reciprocity
 
Minimalist said:
all of you are right,
what I really want is just for them to not backpedal and stick to the original endeavor.

I just feel that when (I'm not going to call it outright laying and deceiving) NVidia mislead people, folks should NOT just say "ok" , "please do it again", and "thank you sir may I have another".

Otherwise, it goes without any reciprocity
Click to expand...

I agree with you on all counts - the fact that 99% of users had no need (or were unable to procure) more than 2x1080s is irrelevant. Nvidia had communications explicitly stating 4 way support with the use of an enthusiast key, and you were misled as a consumer.

With that being said, the only means of recourse you are entitled to legally is a refund for the cards purchased - as long as you made whole (either by Nviida or the store you purchased the cards from), then Nvidia is in the clear legally. You are unfortunately not entitled to any compensation for "what you could have done" with the cards, or opportunity cost of time. I suppose if enough people complained, a class action suit can be made, but I doubt that's going to happen.

I think the best solution would be to contact Nvidia engineers and work with them in perhaps getting beta drivers that will suit your purpose. It is not entirely unheard of for companies to custom create solutions for customers (although I haven't heard of it happening with video cards), but it never hurts to ask.
 
Why blame the OP. I Actually wasn't aware of this and when I read the whole thing I understand his frustration. It seems like nvidia went back on their word. Which in it self is wrong. If someone has 3-4 cards and nvidia back tracked on this wouldn't anyone else be pissed?

Don't shoot the messenger. What's wrong is wrong. Don't blame people for buying 3-4 cards just like we don't blame people for buying titan x for 1200. So at the end it's the principle of doing business. You don't just straight up bullshit people and then not come through.
 
Hold on...

Did the OP Buy 3 or more 1080's? because so far you've quoted white papers and memos and never came out and said one way or another if you bought more than one.

That AND they literally pull support before 1080's were in stock, unless you got the cards from NVIDIA, I'm not seeing how you managed to snag 3 or 4 prior to the support clarification announcement.
 
skeeder said:
Hold on...

Did the OP Buy 3 or more 1080's? because so far you've quoted white papers and memos and never came out and said one way or another if you bought more than one.

That AND they literally pull support before 1080's were in stock, unless you got the cards from NVIDIA, I'm not seeing how you managed to snag 3 or 4 prior to the support clarification announcement.
Click to expand...

Why does any of that even matter. I love these cards but I am not going kiss nvidia's ass because of it. Whether he has the cards of not, as a company that sells these in hundreds and thousands you can't set an expectation and fail to deliver on it. I don't know about compensation and crap, but its the principle of doing things and they simply got people to buy more cards. You really think people that wanted to buy more than 2 care about price gouging. They weren't available at retailers but they were 3rd party.

Again its simple principle of doing things and that is where this fails. I am not here to make any excuses for them about stock availability. If you are not going to do it, don't fuckin say you are going to do it. Its not a mom and pops shop that we are talking about here, its Nvidia. We should take them for their word.
 
skeeder said:
Hold on...

Did the OP Buy 3 or more 1080's? because so far you've quoted white papers and memos and never came out and said one way or another if you bought more than one.

That AND they literally pull support before 1080's were in stock, unless you got the cards from NVIDIA, I'm not seeing how you managed to snag 3 or 4 prior to the support clarification announcement.
Click to expand...
I'm fairly certain he already said so and you didn't read the thread.

"Yes for most folks its about gaming, but I use my stuff to also make a living. Anyhow, I returned 17 1080 gtx cards and cancelled the order for 8 titan pascal. I kept 2 1080gtx and 4 pascal titans for personal experimentation and hope. But while these cards have a lot of potential, single pascal cards can't run multiple 4k displays smoothly, hence the need for 3 or 4 gpu sli."
 
If you read the clip from the article I posted above, nVidia says they are no longer providing drivers fro 3 or 4 way SLI except for a couple of benching programs. So the whole "key" thing went away, but you can't force them to provide 3 or 4 way SLI driver support. So let's say they did provide a "key" - you still wouldn't get driver support.

DX12 has really turned things on ear, now it's up to the developers to provide mGPU support. My advice to the OP would be to contact the manufacturer of the programs he needs 4 way SLI for and tell them he wants 4 way SLI code incorporated into the program.
 
No

Nvidia did not help me at
I reversed engineered what to do



Some critical updates for those technically minded individuals (all the members of this forum)
as far as i know, this is the first fully functional 4-way pascal rig where games and apps are actually using all 4 GPU's in SLi.






Current build:
Supermicro X10DRG-Q
2x E5-2699 v4 (44 cores/ 88HT) (3.7ghz turbo)
512GB ram DDR4 2400mhz ecc reg
(QUAD SLI) 4 Titan X PASCAL
2x Samsung NVMe 961 Pro pcie 3.0 (os drives)
10x Samsung 850 Pro SSD RAID (apps drive)
LG 31MU97z 4096x2160 true 4K rev C
modded P5 case, Noctua heatsinks
Digital power supply 1650w
Windows Server 2012 R2 Data Center, Ubuntu 15



I have functional quad sli using the new Titan x pascal cards.

The cards came with a back plate which acted as a thermal insulator, removed the back plate and heat dissipation is so much better. If you buy these cards remove the back plate immediately. The back plate is paper this aluminum with a plastic layer on the inside. Obviously it was just for looks at the price of cooking the cards
One can remove the back plate without making any changes to the front of the card





Detailed pictures and explanation to follow next:

I am only using the game benchmark as way of using a reproducible standard

So I'm using the built in 'benchmark c5l1" and "benchmark c5l2"


So here is the setup
Driver 372.54

Test material apples to apples

Painkiller Black
Havok physics enhanced mod multi threaded
FXAA - more than that is wasted at that resolution
Visual enhancement mods
Resolution - 4096x2160 (true 4k)


Running full eye candy Sli 4-GPU AFR 2 custom profile

From the bios shot you can see the layout I selected, please notice the what cpu goes to what pcie slot



Here is the view with the glass side off




Here are the bridge choices



Here are some of my selected manual bridge builds, these picture is only an example, not my final config



Important - my motherboard type -the x10drg-q is the only board type in the world with reverse order pcie sockets. The primary video card is the first socket on the bottom of the board, NOT the closest socket to the cpu(s) like all the other motherboards. Yes, it comes from supermicro that way.

this means that my sli pattern is completely different not just upside down since the order is reversed, opposite and upside down.

So
This is the score I can get with default brige - 303Fps is not bad at 4096x2160 with the fullest eye candy, havok mod, custom profile is the same for all tests running benchmark c5l1



This is with the higher v2 bridge (2 year old bridge) a 50fps increase, not bad



Same bridge installed upside down so that primary card has both connections, score only went up a few fps, but look at the minimum frame count go up
this is also because my primary video card with the monitor is the lowest one on my type of motherboard- which makes the primary card the coldest.



And various manual sli ribbon configs with all 8 sockets connected
Manual build layout running the more intensive benchmark c5l2 with greater physics

This is a custom sli bridge of ribbons layout using the metal connectors from three destroyed 4-way evga v2 bridgesThe metal connectors have grab pins on both sides for the card sli plug this makes the "upgrade to a better bridge.." exclamation mark go away


390FPS average, peak 1024FPS (game engine limit)



the "benchmark c5l2" is heavy on explosions and object trajectories, particles etc, so its a good test, as well of course as carrying the heavy mods for havoc and visual enhancement


...and honestly, --with full eye candy and physics, HD mods, almost 400 FPS-- at 4096x2160, isn't all that bad...

If I take the default painkiller black build and the custom profile without the additional eye candy/mods I get over 500fps


I have other games I have running in excess of 200fps at 4096x2160

(**but right now I'm having a tough time getting "No Man's Sky" running smoothly past 40-60 fps at 4096x2160 - the gane just doesn't run well at all, something just plain feels wrong with it, but that's another story.)



So, just on bridge config at 4096x2160, I went from 302FPS average, to 390FPS average.
here is an example of "any" game:







Thx

J
 
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