Petitioning for 970 Refund

[spaceace420]

Man this is some entertaining shit here, mope your points make more sense if any of the US etailers had corrected the specs or even added an up to. As it stands right now they have not so they are partly at fault here. If you think Amazon is not going to nail Nvidia on this you are mistaken. False advertisement is pretty cut and dry here, {NG}Fidel you are great in your stance and I hope there are more of us who want to make sure tech giants cannot deceive consumers whether on purpose or not. I can almost guaranty Nvidia will add an up to on the bandwidth of the next batch of cards.
Quick note also-Unless purchased from worst buy no one bought the card from nvidia, they sell to the aib who sold to the etailer, then they sold to the end user.

 

[MavericK]

Of course you didn't--Newegg offered to take the card back with a full refund or give you 10% store credit, but you're happy with the card and simply want cash in your pocket out of theirs so neither suffices.

No, I didn't because it didn't make sense to, for the reasons I posted that you conveniently forgot to include in your quote.

 

[Ocellaris]

Man this is some entertaining shit here, mope your points make more sense if any of the US etailers had corrected the specs or even added an up to.

Of course this also show how much the retailers really care about the issue. Not updating the specs means they are trying to just ignore this issue until it goes away.

Also anyone who thinks the AIB partners didn't know the real specs for these cards or that the final 512MB of VRAM accesses slowly is kidding themselves.

 

[{NG}Fidel]

Interesting way to misread the quotes. They are the same people you claim to be standing up for...people claiming they are happy with their cards while *simultaneously* demand partial refunds from Amazon and Newegg :roll eyes:

And yes, when you go and take money from someone who isn't responsible for the damage done to you, and justify it because the person responsible is hard to reach or the person you steal from is in a better position to get back at the person responsible, it doesn't get you off the hook from your immoral behavior.

On a not so interesting note I am pretty sure everyone expected you to dodge the question of providing proof that the retailers are footing the bill. You have no evidence its just a stance you take in order to give your non-credible point of view some forced credibility.
Again, if you can provide proof that the retailers are footing the bill for this mistake then I would love to see it. Otherwise you are just completely making it up. So far all we have heard is that they are not and we have heard that from Kyle of [H]ardOCP, not Mope of...well nothing.

 

[mope54]

So far all we have heard is that they are not and we have heard that from Kyle of [H]ardOCP, not Mope of...well nothing.

Kyle never stated that.

The quote you provided has Kyle stating that nVidia will reimburse for returned cards, not for partial refunds at the customer service level.

Not even going to bother anymore. The rest of the board took at look at this thread and also agrees you guys are off your rockers. Have fun.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

I don't feel like I need some lofty, for the benefit of humanity reason to get a partial refund, and still enjoy the product I got. It's a good product. If I couldn't get a partial refund, I'd still keep running it. I feel the card performs fine. However, as a human being, I feel I have the right, however delayed my reaction might be, to be a little miffed about being mislead. At first I didn't care that much, and still don't care as much as most of the people in this thread seem to. However, if I can get a little easy compensation for that, I still feel better. Hopefully, in the process, this will get passed all the way back to Nvidia. At least, I hope that it causes the retailers to put a little more pressure on them before they release more products, to put the right specs out. At worst, hey, I got a little compensation for it.

I'm not claiming any high road, but I also refuse to be put into the opposite category. I like my card just fine. I like that Amazon provided above and beyond customer service. They get nothing but praise from me. It's not like I try something like this all the time. In fact, this is the first time ever. It will however, keep me going back to them. I already spend a huge percentage of my disposable income through them anyway, so they've just ensured that this keeps happening.

Win, win, and possibly a third win there.

If you don't like that I got a bit of a refund, and enjoy the card I have... well... I don't really care...

 

[jwcalla]

I don't feel like I need some lofty, for the benefit of humanity reason to get a partial refund, and still enjoy the product I got. It's a good product. If I couldn't get a partial refund, I'd still keep running it. I feel the card performs fine. However, as a human being, I feel I have the right, however delayed my reaction might be, to be a little miffed about being mislead. At first I didn't care that much, and still don't care as much as most of the people in this thread seem to. However, if I can get a little easy compensation for that, I still feel better. Hopefully, in the process, this will get passed all the way back to Nvidia. At least, I hope that it causes the retailers to put a little more pressure on them before they release more products, to put the right specs out. At worst, hey, I got a little compensation for it.

I'm not claiming any high road, but I also refuse to be put into the opposite category. I like my card just fine. I like that Amazon provided above and beyond customer service. They get nothing but praise from me. It's not like I try something like this all the time. In fact, this is the first time ever. It will however, keep me going back to them. I already spend a huge percentage of my disposable income through them anyway, so they've just ensured that this keeps happening.

Win, win, and possibly a third win there.

If you don't like that I got a bit of a refund, and enjoy the card I have... well... I don't really care...

Permit me to play devil's advocate for a moment here.

If nvidia releases a driver update for your card and the update enables DX12 / glNext support and because of this the card experiences a very large performance improvement over what the card showed during your buying decision, will you be giving nvidia an additional $20, $30, $50 whatever in return for the performance bump?

 

[Dayaks]

Of course this also show how much the retailers really care about the issue. Not updating the specs means they are trying to just ignore this issue until it goes away.

Also anyone who thinks the AIB partners didn't know the real specs for these cards or that the final 512MB of VRAM accesses slowly is kidding themselves.

Retailers most likely have to put down what nVidia tells them or face litigation. Just a guess though.

To jwcalla's post above mine. Also if nVidia wanted to they could charge for dx12/glnext. Getting the product you paid for is important... If nVidia wants to do something for "free" which they justified via future sales anyways, that is nVidia's choice

Is there a way to block a thread? I can't stop clicking on this damn thing and some of these posts are so assinine they are unhealthy for me to read.

 

[Kalmado]

Retailers most likely have to put down what nVidia tells them or face litigation. Just a guess though.

To jwcalla's post above mine. Also to if nVidia wanted to they could charge for dx12/glnext. Getting the product you paid for is important... If nVidia wants to do something for "free" which they justified via future sales anyways, that is nVidia's choice

Is there a way to block a thread? I can't stop clicking on this damn thing and some of these posts are so assinine they are unhealthy for me to read.

I've already blocked jwcalla, mopes, and a few others as their idiocy is mind boggling and knows no bounds. It's a hard truth people like this actually exist and that a grown adult doesn't understand the difference between right and wrong.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

Permit me to play devil's advocate for a moment here.

If nvidia releases a driver update for your card and the update enables DX12 / glNext support and because of this the card experiences a very large performance improvement over what the card showed during your buying decision, will you be giving nvidia an additional $20, $30, $50 whatever in return for the performance bump?

No, because I wasn't dishonest about anything. Like my reasoning or not, I put it right out there. I'm not hiding anything, misrepresenting anything. That is the only reason I took that partial refund. More or less because I was annoyed. Annoyed by a somewhat questionable practice by the mfg. Not because there's much wrong with the product. In fact, it's a pretty nice card all said. You can disagree with me, and maybe there's an ethical issue in your eyes. There isn't in mine for this particular problem. I acknowledge your right to disagree with me. I buy a lot of hardware. I pay full price (or close to it) for most of my games. I don't quibble over much, and I rarely exercise my right as a consumer for compensation of this sort. I also don't try to inversely nickel and dime companies. If I like something I buy it. It's just in this case, I was rubbed the wrong way by a company that I generally praise. Not because I'm a brainless fanboy, but because their products just plain work for the things that I throw at them. Nice product or not, as a fairly loyal customer (as loyal as I'd allow myself to be anyway) it felt a little shady.

However, let's say that you're spot on, and I get more performance out of it. By that same token the advanced games that are making use of those two APIs are also making heavier use of local memory. I might just finally run into this problem. I'm not running into it now, but I might then. Also, by that time, I will probably have already bought a new card, and there is a 99% chance that it will be another Nvidia card because I still have issues with AMD's drivers any time I try one of their cards. (mainly with id games, and some other older games, but they're still games that I play fairly heavily. I also like PhysX. not that it's proprietary, but the games that use it are markedly more interesting visually)

Anyway, I'm not completely disagreeing with you, but there we are.

Edit: Edited for clarity on my position.

 

[jwcalla]

No, because I wasn't dishonest about anything. Like my reasoning or not, I put it right out there. I'm not hiding anything, misrepresenting anything. That is the only reason I took that partial refund. More or less because I was annoyed. Annoyed by a somewhat questionable practice by the mfg. Not because there's much wrong with the product. You can disagree with me, and maybe there's an ethical issue in your eyes. There isn't in mine for this particular problem. I acknowledge your right to disagree with me.

However, let's say that you're spot on, and I get more performance out of it. By that same token the advanced games that are making use of those two APIs are also making heavier use of local memory. I might just finally run into this problem. I'm not running into it now, but I might then. Also, by that time, I will probably have already bought a new card, and there is a 99% chance that it will be another Nvidia card because I still have issues with AMD's drivers any time I try one of their cards. (mainly with id games, and some other older games, but they're still games that I play fairly heavily. I also like PhysX. not that it's proprietary, but the games that use it are markedly more interesting visually)

Anyway, I'm not completely disagreeing with you, but there we are.

Sounds reasonable and fair. I agree there can be some uncertainty with how some games will perform in the future. And on the flip side nvidia is consistently working to improve performance of the card since its launch date.

 

[Flogger23m]

No, I didn't because it didn't make sense to, for the reasons I posted that you conveniently forgot to include in your quote.

Return card, take 10%. Rebuy card at 10% off.

I'd contact Amazon myself, but I fear my account will be locked. As I mentioned a few pages back, I got some faulty EVGA 560s some years back and returned some other items (HDD giving some errors ect.). This put me on their no-no list apparently. Point being, Amazon CS certainly is good, but if you do have to do some RMAs or ask for replacements/refunds you may get your account locked. There is more leeway but they only make exceptions a few times.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

Sounds reasonable and fair. I agree there can be some uncertainty with how some games will perform in the future. And on the flip side nvidia is consistently working to improve performance of the card since its launch date.

Agreed.

Also, I didn't make that decision immediately. I actually thought about it for a while, and at first kind of blew the whole thing off. (as you'd notice from my earlier comments in this thread) The more I thought about it though, the more annoyed I was just over the stupid business decision to skew the facts.

In my opinion it's still not THAT big of a deal. However, I don't really want to encourage it either, and at the end of the day, me being the one that spent the money here, it just made me stop questioning this altogether. I have a decent video card, that's longevity may just be slightly less than I thought, but I was compensated for it, so fuck it. I'm happy, they still made a sale to chalk up, and Amazon has a lot more continued mileage out of me. (for better or worse )

 

[TrevorR]

I knew about the 970 gtx false advertisement and the same day I still went to best buy and bought the 970 gtx. I saw all the benchmarks on the card and thats what decided it for me and people act as if the cards performance was all of a sudden crappy just because this information came out.

Just this generation of people acting like self entitled brats. Technically, the card DOES have 4gb, does it not? On the packaging, it it doesn't specify those specs that all of you keep mentioning. So I'm going to assume that Nvidia is going to brush this suit off and win based on technicalities and rightfully so.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

I knew about the 970 gtx false advertisement and the same day I still went to best buy and bought the 970 gtx. I saw all the benchmarks on the card and thats what decided it for me and people act as if the cards performance was all of a sudden crappy just because this information came out.

Just this generation of people acting like self entitled brats. Technically, the card DOES have 4gb, does it not? On the packaging, it it doesn't specify those specs that all of you keep mentioning. So I'm going to assume that Nvidia is going to brush this suit off and win based on technicalities and rightfully so.

I agree that the class action suit is pointless, and maybe even counter-productive. I also agree that the card is pretty nice overall. In the long run though, NV takes a little hit from my partial refund, but still probably makes thousands upon thousands more off of me, because they make hardware that works for me. As far as feeling entitled, no. The partial refund I got just nulled out my annoyance with what I hope will not be a continued practice on their part. I would have survived just fine without it. However, now I don't even care, other than engaging in conversation here.

 

[{NG}Fidel]

It does specify bus size and bandwidth on many of the boxes and advertisements.

Memory Bandwidth (original) – 224 GB/s for 4GB VRAM
Memory Bandwidth (actual) – 196 GB/s for 7 memory chips totalling 3.5 GB, and 28 GB/s for the remaining 512 MB 8th memory chip.”

IT CANNOT MAGICALLY PERFORM AT 224GB/s! THAT'S FALSE ADVERTISEMENT CUT AND DRY JUST ACCEPT IT!

The GTX 970 has 4GB of memory but that number doesn't sum up the situation. Due to the card's architecture, only about 3.5GB of that memory can be utilized at maximum bandwidth. The remaining 0.5 GB of memory is accessed several times slower. This means that if you'll see worse performance when you're using all four gigs of memory

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

If some folks like getting reamed, just let 'em be.
If you don't, put your money where your mouth is and switch to whichever camp is currently arse-tickling you at the moment.

<-- Dumped 2x 780 for 2x 290 @ 290X.

 

[jwcalla]

It does specify bus size and bandwidth on many of the boxes and advertisements.

Those are theoretical maximums though.

The card can meet the theoretical maximums of 256-bit bus and 224 or whatever the f GB/s, but it can only do this under two scenarios: reading the first seven channels while simultaneously writing to the last one, or writing to the first seven channels while reading from the last one.

So the advertised max is possible.

 

[Nenu]

Those are theoretical maximums though.

The card can meet the theoretical maximums of 256-bit bus and 224 or whatever the f GB/s, but it can only do this under two scenarios: reading the first seven channels while simultaneously writing to the last one, or writing to the first seven channels while reading from the last one.

So the advertised max is possible.

Nothing theoretical about them, they are the capabilities of the hardware.
Also, the 2 blocks of memory cannot be accessed simultaneously. Read the thread.
You have no case.

 

[Zinn]

^ it's also a theoretical 4gb card by that logic

 

[TrevorR]

I agree that the class action suit is pointless, and maybe even counter-productive. I also agree that the card is pretty nice overall. In the long run though, NV takes a little hit from my partial refund, but still probably makes thousands upon thousands more off of me, because they make hardware that works for me. As far as feeling entitled, no. The partial refund I got just nulled out my annoyance with what I hope will not be a continued practice on their part. I would have survived just fine without it. However, now I don't even care, other than engaging in conversation here.

Fair enough, at this point I'm still within my 15 day period to return my 970 gtx and I'm not going to.

However, if they offer a partial refund or even a free game as compensation, I'd gladly take it. I act entitled sometimes too.

 

[MavericK]

Return card, take 10%. Rebuy card at 10% off.

Can't return the card AND take the 10%; it was one or the other. And only in-store credit, as well.

 

[{NG}Fidel]

Nothing theoretical about them, they are the capabilities of the hardware.
Also, the 2 blocks of memory cannot be accessed simultaneously. Read the thread.
You have no case.

Exactly right.
I think even Jwcalla knew the absurdity of his post when he used this

 

[FlipCody]

It does specify bus size and bandwidth on many of the boxes and advertisements.

{NG}Fidel, I imagine that you have not updated your signature but I want to confirm. I have asked this on 2 other occasions and I do not believe you have answered. Do you own a GTX 970? If not what video card do you own?

 

[Factum]

Nothing theoretical about them, they are the capabilities of the hardware.
Also, the 2 blocks of memory cannot be accessed simultaneously. Read the thread.
You have no case.

Why do you spread false information?
I have posted a link in this very thread debunking that claim:

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...Full-Memory-Structure-and-Limitations-GTX-970

UPDATE 1/27/15 @ 5:36pm ET: I wanted to clarify a point on the GTX 970's ability to access both the 3.5GB and 0.5GB pools of data at the same. Despite some other outlets reporting that the GPU cannot do that, Alben confirmed to me that because the L2 has multiple request busses, the 7th L2 can indeed access both memories that are attached to it at the same time.

Please stop posting false information as a "argument".

 

[Factum]

Exactly right.
I think even Jwcalla knew the absurdity of his post when he used this

More absurd than going for a direct personal attack on a poster, based on old, debunked and false information?

 

[trick0502]

Why do you spread false information?
I have posted a link in this very thread debunking that claim:

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...Full-Memory-Structure-and-Limitations-GTX-970



Please stop posting false information as a "argument".

From the article you love naked

"Let's be blunt here: access to the 0.5GB of memory, on its own and in a vacuum, would occur at 1/7th of the speed of the 3.5GB pool of memory. If you look at the Nai benchmarks floating around, this is what you are seeing."

 

[jwcalla]

From the article you love naked

"Let's be blunt here: access to the 0.5GB of memory, on its own and in a vacuum, would occur at 1/7th of the speed of the 3.5GB pool of memory. If you look at the Nai benchmarks floating around, this is what you are seeing."

That's true. But what I said was also right: 256-bit bus width and 224 GB/s are possible in certain scenarios. So by a technicality these specs are right, and probably why they're not being "corrected" on various advertising.

 

[Factum]

From the article you love naked

"Let's be blunt here: access to the 0.5GB of memory, on its own and in a vacuum, would occur at 1/7th of the speed of the 3.5GB pool of memory. If you look at the Nai benchmarks floating around, this is what you are seeing."

You seem to be missing that the article was updated, is that on purpose?
Do you have anby gaming benchmarks (aka real world usage) that shows this behaviour?


I am now the owner (via my daughter) of a GTX970 unlike, I suspect, most of the people that are "up in arms over this"...are you?

 

[Factum]

Actually after people started getting partial refunds people felt sorry for Amazon and someone asked if this was coming out of Amazon's pocket.
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041433738&postcount=1082

Here is what Kyle said
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041433742&postcount=1083



Due you have any idea how HUGE Amazon is? I read that WORLDWIDE 1 million 970s were sold. I read the rate of return is 5%. How many calls did Amazon get? Saying this is costing Amzon 'a ton' of money is laughable.

I read the return-rate of GTX970 was <5%...and that number includes RMA and all other returns.

 

[spaceace420]

and all the people who were stonewalled are not included &#65533;&#65533; how many times is this thread going to circle to these posts roflmao. So factum you own one of the cards huh........ do me a favor and get us a screenshot showing your card using above 3650MB - 4000MB with the latest driver please. I have tried monitoring with MSI afterbuner - GPUZ - Precision x as well as gigabyte's own tool. I have not been able to get into the last 512 of memory since I updated the driver and I mean seriously pushing. If you are able to I would love to see it, Nothing fancy and I was pushing well above that before the new driver and stuttering. I am one of the people absolutely pissed at how Nvidia is dealing with this but also am Happy with my card but smart enough to realize it's not what they originally said it was.

request goes out to anyone who wants to try, Even with settings in games I know would love to use the last 512 Highest I have hit it like 3612 for a few seconds. That includes a 4k ultra shadow of mordor that used to hit 3900 and look like a stutterfest at 1080p. No furmark test for me though but I'm not sure if that would count because of the open gl options.

 

[Factum]

and all the people who were stonewalled are not included &#55357;&#56837; how many times is this thread going to circle to these posts roflmao. So factum you own one of the cards huh........ do me a favor and get us a screenshot showing your card using above 3650MB - 4000MB with the latest driver please. I have tried monitoring with MSI afterbuner - GPUZ - Precision x as well as gigabyte's own tool. I have not been able to get into the last 512 of memory since I updated the driver and I mean seriously pushing. If you are able to I would love to see it, Nothing fancy and I was pushing well above that before the new driver and stuttering. I am one of the people absolutely pissed at how Nvidia is dealing with this but also am Happy with my card but smart enough to realize it's not what they originally said it was.

What game uses more than 3.5 GB?

Just tested ARMA3 on max settings....3.2 GB on my GK110, it the most demanding game I use (1920x1080, everything at max, 8xAA etc. except viewrange @ 3500 meters, but that is more due to CPU than GPU load.)

Do you know any games using more VRAM than this?

 

[Tgrove]

The easiest way would be via dSR

 

[spaceace420]

Just push up the view range and see if it will access it, if not try some DSR of 2715 x 1527 and that should do the trick. I am not wanting to see if it is playable or stuttering just if it is getting into the last bit. Use MSI afterburner to monitor since it is known to actually see the last 512 already. Not even concerned about frametimes or rates just wondering if the newest driver made it even harder to get up there .Newest hitman maxed out with some dsr should do it as well but not for me, maxed out of course and make sure mfaa is disabled in nvidia control panel to remove the variable. The best game to get up there used to be SoM but it won't budge above it for me now even at 4k dsr.

"For users that are attempting to measure the impact of this issue you should be aware that in some cases the software you are using report the in-use graphics memory could be wrong. Some applications are only aware of the first "pool" of memory and may only ever show up to 3.5GB in use for a game. Other applications, including MSI Afterburner as an example, do properly report total memory usage of up to 4GB. Because of the unique allocation of memory in the system, the OS and driver and monitoring application may not always be on the page. Many users, like bootski over at NeoGAF have done a job of compiling examples where the memory issue occurs, so look around for the right tools to use to test your own GTX 970. (Side note: we are going to try to do some of our own testing this afternoon.)"

 

[Factum]

Will try and see if I can get AMRA 3 over 3.5 GB with max viewrange (or find another gam that can)

And then I need to install that game on my daughters PC (if she will let me..teens have their own mind :S *L*)

I do some testing om my GK110 and see if I can surpass 3.5 GB

 

[Factum]

Viewrange at 12.000 meters
Objects at 12000 meters
Shadows at 200 meters

Max VRAM usage 3268MB

Seems like I need some ridiculous DSR settings combined with max AA to get over 3.5 GB..if at all possible

I dropped from 60 FPS to 35 FPS at these settings.

Looks more and more like a none.issue too me.

 

[spaceace420]

Thank you for being willing to try, I'll do some more testing myself as well. I think they adjusted the algorithm to make it even harder to access the last memory pool if not block it off in the games that people were noticing issues with.
Wow that is a tiny increase for upping that much, if you get a chance try firing up some DSR on that so it will use more vram. I don't have ARMA 3 yet or I would try myself.

 

[Factum]

ARMA3 3840x2160(1920x1080 4xDSR) MAX settings (8xMSAA + FXAA ultra + everything at max, 12K viewrange/objects, 200 shadows etc)

18-24 FPS Max VRAM 3968MB

We are in the realm of unrealistic real world gameplay settings.

I will return with data from the GTX970 when I get ARMA 3 installed on my daughters PC (migth take a few days, she is very "It's MY PC dad, you have your own!")

 

[spaceace420]

Oh no problem on the time we all know how teens are I am sure. I'll try to get my card up in that range now and update with a post showing what I mean.

 

[lee0539]

So i have 970 sli. One was bought from tigerdirect so I have to keep it or sell it online. The other one I bought from newegg so I can get full refund as store credit. Anyone know when the store credit expires? Also should I break up the 970 sli and just keep it as one card then upgrade later when there are better cards with more vram? I run games at 3440X1440.

Issue is what am I going to buy with the store credit. Right now I'm thinking a new case, case fans, and watercooler.