GTX 970 flaw

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It makes me sad that everyone is fighting one another here about this issue.

There is an article linked below that casually addresses the issue and provides opinions and factual information to help be informed and discuss the issue rationally.

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/does-the-geforce-gtx-970-have-a-memory-allocation-bug.html

To me the issue is false advertising, (Rather blatantly), of actual hardware specs
-The amount of memory that performs at a certain Bandwidth
-that there are different speeds of parts of the 4GB of mem at all

I'm a gamer and father/husband who isn't flush with disposable income. I have to plan years ahead with building my dream 4K gaming system and rely on facts to make informed decisions purchasing upgrades on that path.

For the premium price generally attributed to Nvidia products I expect to get the best quality and everything I paid for and I'm sure I'm not alone there.

The fact that this wasn't noticed earlier I believe can be attributed to the fact that it's an issue that shows up with true 4K gaming which isn't anywhere near mainstream.

Anyway hope this ends well for users who bought under false info and some sort of standard testing tool of memory throughput is incorporated into reviews too.
 
notarat said:
This.

64 ROPs and 2048 KB of L2 cache is what consumers were told multiple times. 56 ROPs and 1792 KB of L2 cach was what was actually shipped.

What the apologists forget (rather conveniently, I might add) is that there are consumer protection laws in place to protect consumers against companies making false claims.
Click to expand...

Yes I agree it is not good and it has put me off nvidia for my next GPU, all I was saying is that the actual performance loss for 90% of people is not a lot, the card still performs well and has more ram than a 780ti... But yes in principle it is not good at all and is false advertising... I know there are laws but I bet we will not get anything out of it.
 
^^^

This.

In my position, my GTX 970 has performed well, EXCEPT for a consistent crash and some TDR issues.

When I play a certain game (Combat Mission) and a certain map, the graphics are very heavily loaded. In OpenGL. That's when it locks. I've got to hard reset my machine.

The TDR occurs at other times (not during that game).

Is the lockup due to the slow memory?

Are the TDR messages due to the slow memory?

I really don't know. What I'd like, would be to have an option to "delete" the slow memory from the card (access table, and all the other arcane ways that hardware and software "know" about one another). If that cures my issues, well, then we know what the problem was.

Shrug.

Poor showing, NVidia.

Ken
 
Alben frankly admitted to us that Nvidia "screwed up" in communicating the GTX 970's specifications in the reviewer's guide it supplied to the press. He said that the team responsible for this document wasn't aware that the GTX 970 takes advantage of Maxwell's ability to disable selectively a portion of L2 cache.

From AT.

Plausable deniability much?
 
OzzyBob said:
It makes me sad that everyone is fighting one another here about this issue.

There is an article linked below that casually addresses the issue and provides opinions and factual information to help be informed and discuss the issue rationally.

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/does-the-geforce-gtx-970-have-a-memory-allocation-bug.html

To me the issue is false advertising, (Rather blatantly), of actual hardware specs
-The amount of memory that performs at a certain Bandwidth
-that there are different speeds of parts of the 4GB of mem at all

I'm a gamer and father/husband who isn't flush with disposable income. I have to plan years ahead with building my dream 4K gaming system and rely on facts to make informed decisions purchasing upgrades on that path.

For the premium price generally attributed to Nvidia products I expect to get the best quality and everything I paid for and I'm sure I'm not alone there.

The fact that this wasn't noticed earlier I believe can be attributed to the fact that it's an issue that shows up with true 4K gaming which isn't anywhere near mainstream.

Anyway hope this ends well for users who bought under false info and some sort of standard testing tool of memory throughput is incorporated into reviews too.
Click to expand...

+1

I agree. I feel sorry for the guys who have one and thought they would have true 4K gaming without issues.. Not out of rage, but for the consumer.
It reminds me of the plastic Newegg "Nigerian Core i7" rage from 5 years ago. I feel sorry for the consumer but there will likely be an apology and a fix.
I surprised there hasn't been a Hitler Downfall video yet. Consumers aren't "red" or "green", they are the ones who get screwed, and we all lose.
 
Dying Light comes out today and guess what, it's a VRAM hog. Already seeing complaints of 970 users hitting 3.5 GB and causing frame rate drops.

The game runs like ass on everything though.
 
Nvidia are irritating me a bit now to be honest.... My last 3 cards were AMD and I had some minor issues but since this 970 I have had a) coil whine b) HDMI RGB problem and C) now I only have 3.5gb of RAM, other than that the card is good to be fair but all of these things are nvidia cost cutting when they are already a lot more expensive than AMD, this 3.5gb thing is the "straw that broke the camels back" so it will be back to AMD for me next time. Legally they should seriously be required to refund all 970 owners 15% of the purchase cost, but I am sure they will worm out of it :/
 
[05:48:49 AM] Hi, my name is Kenny. How may I help you?
[05:49:38 AM] John W: Hi there, I am not happy about the gtx 970 specs being changed after I purchased the card.
[05:50:03 AM] Kenny: Kindly accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience you may have experienced.
[05:50:41 AM] Kenny: GTX 970 has 4 GB of vRAM However it has two memory segments. 3.5GB & .5 GB
[05:50:52 AM] Kenny: The GPU has higher priority access to the 3.5GB section
[05:51:03 AM] Kenny: When a game needs less than 3.5GB of video memory per draw command then it will only access the first partition, and 3rd party applications that measure memory usage will report 3.5GB of memory in use on GTX 970, but may report more for GTX 980 if there is more memory used by other commands. When a game requires more than 3.5GB of memory then we use both segments.
[05:51:09 AM] Kenny: official statement : https://forums.geforce.com/default/...tx-970-3-5gb-vram-issue/post/4432672/#4432672
[05:51:55 AM] John W: What you fail to mention is that the final 0.5GB operates at an extremely low bandwidth
[05:52:52 AM] John W: Nvidia sold a product that doesn't exist
[05:52:59 AM] John W: the specs are different than what was sold
[05:54:11 AM] John W: I need 4gb operating at full bandwidth
[05:54:16 AM] John W: thats why i bought the card
[05:54:42 AM] John W: You advertise it as 4gb running at full bandwidth
[05:55:08 AM] John W: then after I buy it you say..."hey, actually, only 3.5gb is usable at high bandwidth"
[05:55:19 AM] John W: explain how this is acceptable?
[05:56:52 AM] Kenny: As you know 4GB is still there, it's just that it's designed in a different way
[05:57:42 AM] John W: But, when it accesses the final 0.5, the low bandwidth causes stutters due to high frame times
[05:58:01 AM] John W: So, oly 3.5GB gives acceptable in-game performance
[05:59:10 AM] Kenny: Did you try to play other games also and facing stuttering?
[05:59:32 AM] John W: Only have stuttering when I exceed 3.5GB
[05:59:41 AM] John W: before 3.5GB is smooth
[06:00:15 AM] Kenny: OK
[06:00:33 AM] John W: Ok?
[06:01:00 AM] Kenny: I mean I understand what you said
[06:01:33 AM] John W: Go on.....
[06:01:46 AM] John W: So, the card doesn't function as a 4GB card
[06:01:55 AM] John W: it functions as a 3.5GB card
[06:03:08 AM] John W: Also, the new specs are lower than the advertised specs
[06:03:45 AM] Kenny: Who is the card manufacturer?
[06:03:56 AM] John W: Asus
[06:04:09 AM] Kenny: OK
[06:05:21 AM] Kenny: Did you try to make the GPU run at better clock speed while gaming to avoid stuttering?
[06:06:02 AM] John W: The fps doesn't drop.
[06:06:28 AM] John W: I can get 60fps under 3.5GB smooth gameplay
[06:06:42 AM] John W: Then I get 60fps over 3.5GB, but I get stutters
[06:06:48 AM] John W: because of the bandwidth
[06:06:52 AM] Kenny: I see
[06:07:08 AM] John W: Nvidia sold cards that cannot run 4GB effectively
[06:07:25 AM] John W: Because the last 0.5GB has extremely low bandwidth
[06:07:33 AM] John W: A fact that was hidden before
[06:09:01 AM] John W: Why are you telling me to run the gpu at a better speed?
[06:09:28 AM] Kenny: That was to check if that reduces the stuttering
[06:09:38 AM] John W: But then my warranty would be void
[06:10:02 AM] Kenny: I think you are referring to Overclocking
[06:10:20 AM] Kenny: Overclocking the graphics card is one way to improve the Frame rate in games
[06:10:38 AM] John W: Poiontless conversation
[06:10:44 AM] John W: I am not overclocking anything
[06:10:52 AM] Kenny: The act of overclocking is to force a component to run at a higher cock speed than the stock speed shipped by the manufacturer of the product
[06:10:57 AM] John W: The problem is because nvidia lied about the specs
[06:11:00 AM] Kenny: I wasn't suggesting you to do that
[06:11:05 AM] John W: Yes you did
[06:11:11 AM] John W: you said run gpu faster
[06:11:17 AM] Kenny: I just was suggesting you to make the GPU run at the top speed which is supposed to
[06:11:21 AM] Kenny: That's not overclocking
[06:11:38 AM] Kenny: Overclocking is something you run the gpu faster that it is supposed to
[06:11:43 AM] John W: anyways, how do I get my refund for the card
[06:11:48 AM] Kenny: I can give you the steps if you want
[06:12:08 AM] John W: No, i dont want to overclock anything
[06:12:33 AM] John W: I want the card that has full access to the 4GB at full bandwidth as promised when i paid my money
[06:12:38 AM] Kenny: It's not over clocking
[06:12:46 AM] Kenny: That we will never recommend
[06:13:03 AM] John W: please stop talking about it anyways
[06:13:10 AM] John W: and answer the important details
[06:14:47 AM] John W: so, how do I get the card with the specs I bought?
[06:15:05 AM] Kenny: As explained before that is the design of the GPU
[06:15:04 AM] John W: Not the cut down specs trhat nvidia announced yesterda
[06:15:10 AM] Kenny: It is in 2 segments
[06:15:26 AM] John W: Nope, this wasn't explained when I bought it
[06:15:32 AM] John W: It was hidden
[06:15:51 AM] John W: The specs mentioned 4GB GDDR5 running at 224GB/S
[06:16:03 AM] John W: That is not what I got
[06:16:11 AM] John W: The specs said 64 ROPs
[06:16:21 AM] John W: I got 56
[06:16:50 AM] John W: The specs said 2MB L2 cache...I got 1.75
[06:17:22 AM] John W: There is 3 specification of the GTX 970 that is different from when I purchased the card
[06:17:38 AM] John W: So, how do I get the card that was promised
[06:17:39 AM] John W: ?
[06:18:21 AM] Kenny: The card will remain as it is
[06:18:52 AM] John W: The card is not what I paid for
[06:19:04 AM] Kenny: if you have complaints I can pass it along as a feedback to the next level team
[06:19:55 AM] John W: No, just confirm the following answers to these questions.
[06:20:13 AM] John W: Will Nvidia give me a refund for my GTX 970?
[06:20:38 AM] Kenny: For Refund you may need to contact the graphics card manufacturer as we are the chipset maker
[06:20:53 AM] Kenny: However I can understand the concern you are pointing out
[06:20:54 AM] John W: The chipset maker who lied about the official specs
[06:21:03 AM] John W: Answer yes or no
[06:21:12 AM] John W: Will Nvidia give me a refund for my GTX 970?
[06:22:40 AM] John W: Will Nvidia give me a refund for my GTX 970?
[06:23:32 AM] Kenny: Refund/warranty issues has to be addressed by the graphics card manufacturer, however I can pass it along to the concerned team.
[06:23:43 AM] Kenny: I can pass your case to the next level team
[06:23:49 AM] John W: Yes or No
[06:23:51 AM] John W: Will Nvidia give me a refund for my GTX 970?
[06:25:27 AM] Kenny: Your case is being already Escalated to the next level team and they will answer this question
[06:25:54 AM] John W: Ok, I will await their respomse.
[06:26:02 AM] Kenny: Appreciate it
[06:26:12 AM] John W: Thank you for your time, have a nice day.
[06:26:19 AM] Kenny: Most welcome
[06:26:25 AM] 'John W' disconnected ('Concluded by End-user').
 
I would be pissed to spend $350 for a card that didn't meet expectations.
My condolences to those who have,

I've own both nVida and AMD, so no fan boy here. I hoped to get the R9-390 with HBM but I think I'll wait till the cards are thoroughly reviewed, as I would hate to receive bad karma from the fan boy shit some AMD users are giving.


Power to the consumer!!
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
Dying Light comes out today and guess what, it's a VRAM hog. Already seeing complaints of 970 users hitting 3.5 GB and causing frame rate drops.

The game runs like ass on everything though.
Click to expand...
Supposedly the Day 1 patch broke the game. TB was saying that the game ran great on his system yesterday morning, but when the patch was pushed through in the evening it cut performance in half.

https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/559902585227059200
 
AMN3S1AC said:
[05:48:49 AM] Hi, my name is Kenny. How may I help you?
[05:49:38 AM] John W: Hi there, I am not happy about the gtx 970 specs being changed after I purchased the card.
[05:50:03 AM] Kenny: Kindly accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience you may have experienced.
.
.
.
Click to expand...

Where is that from?
 
I like the Asus 970 and I want to go SLI. I haven't had any stuttering in Farcry 4 but I have had a few freezes though. I have about a 2.5 week return window on the card. I play games at 1080P. I have to just wait and see.
 
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hottubjohn said:
I like the Asus 970 and I want to go SLI. I haven't had any stuttering in Farcry 4 but I have had a few freezes though. I have about a 2.5 week return window on the card. I play games at 1440. I have to just wait and see.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what are you waiting to see?
 
Arct1c0n said:
Wcq4OBo.gif
Click to expand...

Hahahahaha
 
AMN3S1AC said:
[05:48:49 AM] Hi, my name is Kenny. How may I help you?
[05:49:38 AM] John W: Hi there, I am not happy about the gtx 970 specs being changed after I purchased the card.
[05:50:03 AM] Kenny: Kindly accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience you may have experienced.
Click to expand...

Are you John W.? If so, why were you giving the customer service rep such a hard time? Kenny's OC suggestion (or non-suggestion) was absurd, but I fucking hate seeing people pull this "I'm the customer and you're a doormat" bullshit.
 
Looking at the benchmarks it is indeed 3.5gb and almost unplayable at >3,5gb...

So erm something should be done about this, 970 buyers should be legally entitled to a refund or a 15% refund, but if that will actually happen i don't know as big corporations can basically get away with anything.
 
SPARTAN VI said:
Are you John W.? If so, why were you giving the customer service rep such a hard time? Kenny's OC suggestion (or non-suggestion) was absurd, but I fucking hate seeing people pull this "I'm the customer and you're a doormat" bullshit.
Click to expand...

he is making his voice heard about being lied to, what's wrong with that? Kenny works for NV as a customer service rep, and John W is voicing his dislike in being lied to by nVidia, now Kenny can go and bring it up to his manager, nothing will change if we all sit idly on our hands while companies (which are making millions from our purchases) lie.
 
On one hand I'm looking at some of the reaction to this situation and thinking "wow this is over the top".

On the other hand I feel like a bowl of petunias.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
he is making his voice heard about being lied to, what's wrong with that? Kenny works for NV as a customer service rep, and John W is voicing his dislike in being lied to by nVidia, now Kenny can go and bring it up to his manager, nothing will change if we all sit idly on our hands while companies (which are making millions from our purchases) lie.
Click to expand...

Being displeased with the misleading specs on a product you bought does not excuse you from acting like a total dbag to customer support staff. "John W" acts like a petulant 8 year old having a temper tantrum to someone who has absolutely no say in the direction the company takes on it's product spec sheets.

If you want to communicate your displeasure, you are fully able to do so in a civil manner. If I were on the receiving end of a complaint, I'd be far more likely to listen to someone that treats me like a human than someone that acts like a whiny little b****, yelling and crying because he didn't get his way.
 
hottubjohn said:
Waiting to what AMD has coming up next and is it worth the wait.
Click to expand...

That makes sense. Unfortunately the rumors are strongly pointing to several months before we see something new from AMD. I'm waiting for it as well... but I over-committed a long time ago. :)
 
Spirit_Retro said:
On one hand I'm looking at some of the reaction to this situation and thinking "wow this is over the top".

On the other hand I feel like a bowl of petunias.
Click to expand...

I thought that when I first read it and saw the benchmarks saying 1-3% performance drop, but after reading that it is unplayable due to stuttering at over 3.5gb I am quite p****d off about it now because if it was advertised as a 3.5gb 56rop card I would have probably bought a 290 for £100 less, now I will have to lose money selling my 970 when the new AMD card comes out, I was probably going to get one anyway but if I would have known all 970 cards were 3.5gb 56rops I would have bought a 290. So technically it is fraud and we *should* be entitled to a full refund or a partial refund of 15-20%, but I don't see that happening.
 
The only problem I have with the above exchange between NV Kenny and John W is that this was posted without Kenny's permission. Private should be kept private.

I'm firmly in the camp that believes nVidia is in bad business form. Not really upset over it because this isn't the first time a corporation has lied to its customers nor will it be the last. ALL corporations lie to their customers. It is called advertising and is why we in the tech community rely on 3rd party benchmarks to verify what the advertising states.

The only part I don't understand is why it is necessary to cut the ROP/memory channel count if the SMMs go through a Crossbar. I know this wouldn't solve the SMM/ROP bottleneck but leaving all registers intact would eliminate the xfer rate to the full 4GB. Only thing I can assume is that ROPs can also be defective, which also means that any one of the four memory clusters can be crippled. Wonder if that makes a performance difference if cluster one is crippled vs. cluster four?

Now. I can see where the engineers at nVidia thought this would be a good idea because 3GB + 1GB crippled ( I'm counting the entire cluster instead of half of it ) is better than just 3GB.

I have a 970 ITX, but I have always understood that lesser-spec chips based on the same die will be crippled in some way. My 970 will NEVER see anything beyond 1920 x 1200 and will be relegated to older titles that I still enjoy playing. I never bought the 970 expecting it to run at 4k and probably would have never considered it for SLI. My only concerns for this particular purchase for an SFF system at 2K gaming was an increase in FPS and reduced heat/power consumption. The 970 ITX was an excellent replacement for the 760 ITX. 40% faster and 30 less watts.

The only thing nVidia should do at this point is offer up some kind of free game for current 970 owners and address the issue in a " 970 2nd Edition " or " 970 Ti " with a full set of ROPs and maybe 14 SMMs.
 
I have a 970 ITX, but I have always understood that lesser-spec chips based on the same die will be crippled in some way
Click to expand...

aye, but why is crippled you know before you buy a card, with true specs given , we did not have all the informatiion, even more we had false information when deciding what to buy
 
VonGriffin said:
aye, but why is crippled you know before you buy a card, with true specs given , we did not have all the informatiion, even more we had false information when deciding what to buy
Click to expand...

Totally agree. I looked at the games I'm likely to play on this system and the resolution and determined that a 2GB card would be fine BUT I also wanted to have better performance. I would have never bought a 970 to run 4K. I'm planning on getting a 4K monitor as soon as a good, affordable one comes out, but I'll still play games in 2K simply because the FPS will be higher. In the end, nVidia will probably pay for this blunder, but it doesn't affect me personally.
 
My thoughts are about the same, happy with the cards, just not so much with the company (if it is a genuine error, it's a pretty big f up, if it is deliberate deception, even worse), but none of that or the revelation of 970 having only 3.5GB VRAM have an impact on the already known performance of 970, and my opinion on the cards itself.

While I wasn't going to follow GPUs anymore after my 970's, I guess I will pay closer attention in the near future
 
jevans64 said:
The only problem I have with the above exchange between NV Kenny and John W is that this was posted without Kenny's permission. Private should be kept private.
Click to expand...

I don't think it falls under private exchange, and if one party records so can the other one. Or something...

The only part I don't understand is why it is necessary to cut the ROP/memory channel count if the SMMs go through a Crossbar. I know this wouldn't solve the SMM/ROP bottleneck but leaving all registers intact would eliminate the xfer rate to the full 4GB. Only thing I can assume is that ROPs can also be defective, which also means that any one of the four memory clusters can be crippled.
Click to expand...

More gradual binning.



chenw said:
My thoughts are about the same, happy with the cards, just not so much with the company (if it is a genuine error, it's a pretty big f up, if it is deliberate deception, even worse), but none of that or the revelation of 970 having only 3.5GB VRAM have an impact on the already known performance of 970, and my opinion on the cards itself.
Click to expand...

That is not necessarily true. There are many reports of people experiencing severe stuttering with >3.5GB usage and it is something that several sites are currently testing. We should know for sure if there is an impact by the end of the week hopefully.
 
Nicholars said:
I thought that when I first read it and saw the benchmarks saying 1-3% performance drop, but after reading that it is unplayable due to stuttering at over 3.5gb I am quite p****d off about it now because if it was advertised as a 3.5gb 56rop card I would have probably bought a 290 for £100 less, now I will have to lose money selling my 970 when the new AMD card comes out, I was probably going to get one anyway but if I would have known all 970 cards were 3.5gb 56rops I would have bought a 290. So technically it is fraud and we *should* be entitled to a full refund or a partial refund of 15-20%, but I don't see that happening.
Click to expand...

And due to you failing the geek test, you responded incorrectly to my post.

The petunias have flown directly over your head...
 
AMN3S1AC said:
[05:48:49 AM] Hi, my name is Kenny. How may I help you?.....
[06:22:40 AM] John W: Will Nvidia give me a refund for my GTX 970?
[06:23:32 AM] Kenny: Refund/warranty issues has to be addressed by the graphics card manufacturer, however I can pass it along to the concerned team.
[06:23:43 AM] Kenny: I can pass your case to the next level team
[06:23:49 AM] John W: Yes or No
[06:23:51 AM] John W: Will Nvidia give me a refund for my GTX 970?
[06:25:27 AM] Kenny: Your case is being already Escalated to the next level team and they will answer this question
[06:25:54 AM] John W: Ok, I will await their respomse.
[06:26:02 AM] Kenny: Appreciate it
[06:26:12 AM] John W: Thank you for your time, have a nice day.
[06:26:19 AM] Kenny: Most welcome
[06:26:25 AM] 'John W' disconnected ('Concluded by End-user').
Click to expand...

I know I don't usually post here, but as a long-time Nvidia buyer (since Riva 128 days) I'm very disappointed as I run my 970 SLI in a 1600p setup and have noticed stuttering in my modded skyrim. I tried to get newegg allow a return, but got this after going through 2 reps. Newegg is already being bombarded by this as they already have a canned response here that the reps are sending out on denials of refund.

This is an excerpt from a newegg chat:
nvidia screen shot by magbanutes, on Flickr

So we're being ping-ponged already as Nvidia says to contact retailer and retailer tells us to contact Nvidia. Pure and utter bullcrap.
 
This is blown out of proportion since people were trumpeting it like the greatest thing on earth one day then suddenly did a 180 when the info leaked. People need to learn to live with their purchase. If you didn't get the 980 then you got what you paid for.
 
mi7chy said:
This is blown out of proportion since people were trumpeting it like the greatest thing on earth one day then suddenly did a 180 when the info leaked. People need to learn to live with their purchase. If you didn't get the 980 then you got what you paid for.
Click to expand...

They DID NOT get what they've paid for, that is the very problem. They've paid for a 4GB 224GB/s card and received a 3.5GB 196GB/s card with 512MB 28GB/s L3 cache.
 
Meeho said:
They DID NOT get what they've paid for, that is the very problem. They've paid for a 4GB 224GB/s card and received a 3.5GB 196GB/s card with 512MB 28GB/s L3 cache.
Click to expand...

It was obviously a non-issue with people all "my precious" about the 970 before the info leaked. Plus, it's not uncommon for a lower tier model to have less video memory and/or bandwidth so live with it. All this drama just shows incompetence or two-face.
 
I've got news for yall. Nvidia and AMD have both been stuffing more RAM in to cards than the card is capable of using for ages. It's called marketing. You got what you paid for. Don't shame the seller, shame the buyer for not knowing what they were buying.
 
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