Petitioning for 970 Refund

[chenw]

As much as I want nVidia to start offering refunds on it, regardless of what happens, I have no intention of going to AMD purely out of principle. I know I will just gimp myself out of performance of games where I would actually need.

Yes, the games in question are the Ubi$hit games, but I own them, I have no reason to go for cards that only looks good on paper and not in real world. I am not willing to trade actual gameplay smoothness purely out of principle, if I have to deal with the devil, so be it.

Do I feel comfortable rewarding nVidia for this mess? Not even in the slightest, but AMD is not exactly providing a viable alternative. I am keeping the 970's, but if AMD does manage to get their act together next time, I may very well jump.

 

[LurkerLito]

how many people are actually gaming at 4k today (around .03% according to the latest Steam hardware survey)...seems like the issue is more about the principle for most (which is valid)...as a home theater videophile/audiophile it somewhat reminds me of people nitpicking every Blu-ray for flaws...if you really want to dig into every minute, miniscule detail then you're bound to find some (green color tint on the Fellowship of the Ring Blu-ray comes to mind even though the director approved the new color timings)

The number of people gaming @ 4K is higher than the hardware survey would be able to show thanks to DSR. You can do 4K with DSR easily, I have and it is great if not a serious performance hit. And yes there are issues with 2560x1600, and the whole Nvidia response is pretty much terrible. Complete and unquestionable fraud and yet thanks to the US lax consumer protection, we are potentially going to be screwed over. Seriously, we need a petition to get a refund? That is idiotic they outright scammed people no different than Bernie Madoff just for less money.

Here's a clue to you Nvidia supporters, no one should have to read a box that says 4GB on it and have to go out and look for some esoteric review/spec sheet to figure out that only 87% of that is useable or the advertise bandwidth on the memory will drop by about that same 87%. Sorry it doesn't work that way. You advertise put on the actual BOX that a card has 4GB of ram then that ram better all be available at the same EXACT speed for the whole of it or it's fraud period. You should be here supporting this action regardless of how you think it might be frivolous because guess what, if Nvidia gets away with it be prepared when your next piece of technology requires you to have PHD in Electrical Engineering to figure out why you suddenly lose 87% of your performance under certain conditions.

 

[Tgrove]

i find it funny that the people calling us ridiculous, does not own the hardware in quetion..

i smell envy manifested as an oppinion.

this reminds me of people not owning the swift calling it a crap monitor due to it being TN.

Just sad really.

Agreed

 

[notarat]

how many people are actually gaming at 4k today (around .03% according to the latest Steam hardware survey)...seems like the issue is more about the principle for most (which is valid)...as a home theater videophile/audiophile it somewhat reminds me of people nitpicking every Blu-ray for flaws...if you really want to dig into every minute, miniscule detail then you're bound to find some (green color tint on the Fellowship of the Ring Blu-ray comes to mind even though the director approved the new color timings)

To those who do play at 4K and purchased 1 or 2 or 3 GTX970s it matters and they don't need people coming around trying to minimize their issue or say to the effect, "Well, it only affects a few people so who cares?"

 

[p3sty]

I bought the 970 in good faith that it would perform to spec ...well it doesn't so I want compensation or a refund.

 

[polonyc2]

the big issue as a 970 user who games at 1920 x 1200 is that Nvidia lied about the specs...I don't believe it was a mistake as they claim...now that being said how it impacts performance is not as cut and dry...it still basically performs as advertised for most if not all current titles at my resolution...the intelligent heuristic approach for that 512MB memory allocation sounds interesting to me and if they can refine it in a future driver update then it might actually be worthwhile...future game titles worry me a bit but I really don't see any easy solution

if I get a refund I don't want to but a new 980 as the price/performance is not the same...a straight refund is also tricky because I don't want to go back to my older GTX 580 or get a 290X...and there's no new mid/high end card on the horizon

 

[BroHamBone]

Nvidia still advertised false specifications and if you are okay with being lied to as a consumer, you are the real sheep.

I cant grasp the fact of many people saying "oh deal with it", even some 970 owners. I guess those are the ones who enjoyed being lied to or just dont care...which allows companies to get away with false advertisement.

Plain and simple the card was advertised at 4GB, but has MAJOR issues pushing past 3.5GB resulting in unattainable 4GB VRAM specs

Watch nvidia mark down the 970's in a few months....

 

[{NG}Fidel]

Yeah it sure is ridiculous pushing a mid range range with settings that are FAR beyond what it was designed for and calling for a refund...

I really thought the hard forums was better than this, but the sheep are just following the herd.

Oh look!! At 150% resolution scale and DSR and 4XMSAA my card stutters!!!! I want a refund!! nvidia sucks!!!

I honestly thought you were better than this.
Everyone that tries to make this a non-issue is really just going to go on my ignore list.
The gameplay settings they are running at are within the VRAM amount that Nvidia sold them on. How was anyone supposed to expect that they really couldn't hit 4GB on their 4GB card?
You cant lie to people when you know its going to impact 2,3, and 4 card SLi setups.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Here's my post made to summarize the whole thing for people on the nvidia forums:

---------------


The problem here isn't just that the framerates go down more than they should, but primarily the huge stuttering and frametime inconsistencies additionally. In reviewers' cases they usually don't actually play/sit in front of the computer while their testing is done but rather just let it do its thing while they are not monitoring it, just taking the data after. Add in that the vast majority of reviews didn't push high resolutions and settings, and had no reason to expect there be an issue doing so because of NVidia's false advertising, and a lot of reviews were positive since it appeared at first glance and based on NVidia's marketing that it was a great product.

Turns out, once we owners got the cards into our systems... it simply wasn't accurate in actual usage, and as my testing shows, there are immense inconsistencies as a result in the frame timing and this creates an unplayable, juddery, and hitching gameplay experience as a result with the GTX 970 cards in these situations. I noticed issues almost from the start but chalked them up to other causes due to this, as you can see in the picture below I was one of the very first people to get their GTX 970 cards on launch!

(Which, due to a physical fan defect ended up being exchanged for two MSI Gaming GTX 970 cards soon after: http://i.imgur.com/Xnypg0w.jpg ).

Regarding false advertising and nvidia's wrongly published specs:

Nvidia provides review samples to these sites (linking them here as approved reviews http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-970/reviews ) and asks them to pass spec and performance info on to customers on their behalf. Additionally they falsely advertised a full 4GB of high-speed VRAM, which they have now disclosed after being called on it, was simply not true. Add in the impact it has for gaming for many such as myself as a 2x GTX 970 SLI user in addition to the false advertising (which, while I'm not a lawyer, I'm pretty sure is illegal, no?).

Now that we have the false advertising part cleared up, let's move on to the performance and impact it has in a practical manner, as well:

Full-size: http://i.imgur.com/cLUvSNO.jpg

They falsely advertised the number of rops, l2 cache, and the fully accessible memory capacity at advertised speeds. Only 3.5gb of the 4gb physically installed is capable of providing the proper performance levels, and dipping into that other 0.5gb segment due to their purposefully-flawed-by-design memory segmentation results in major gameplay issues as I have shown with my testing in my SLI GTX 970 configuration.

So, when I see some people still trying to say what the guy in the animation is below...

It's very clear they haven't read up on the whole problem, whatsoever. Nvidia needs to take responsibility now for the consequences of their actions, providing an acceptable and equitable remedy for GTX 970 owners to be in the same or better position as they were prior to buying based on false product information.

Whether this includes a full refund including pre-paid shipping costs back to the vendors, an upgrade to the GTX 980 (which would be the proper solution considering there's no other product they manufacture that is similar but for the GTX 980 which is almost the same card bar the disabled areas that caused this whole issue due to their false advertising in the first place, and thus a refund would leave us out of cards period), etc. needs to be determined and actioned upon promptly.

 

[BroHamBone]

*Not directed at you GT

 

[Brackle]

how many people are actually gaming at 4k today (around .03% according to the latest Steam hardware survey)...seems like the issue is more about the principle for most (which is valid)...as a home theater videophile/audiophile it somewhat reminds me of people nitpicking every Blu-ray for flaws...if you really want to dig into every minute, miniscule detail then you're bound to find some (green color tint on the Fellowship of the Ring Blu-ray comes to mind even though the director approved the new color timings)

I would say alot higher since you can use DSR now for 4k. And you can notice it then.

A Survey isnt going to tell you who is playing at 4k res with DSR going.

 

[Meeho]

Or you dont play at 4k res, where you can easily spot it.

The 970 GTX is a great 1080 card, but 1440/1600p (to some extent) and 4k can all show the issue.

There are examples of 1080 gameplay being affected with yesterday's games. It is only about to get worse with upcoming titles. It isn't a high resolution/unrealistic settings problem, not that it would matter if it was only that.

 

[TheHobbyist]

I'm mostly disappointing at what this does for a price/performance champion option for team nvidia.

I've got an ROG Swift monitor and 4GB 970 SLI seemed like a strong option. Not so much now for my setup. Now that leaves me with a 980 which is not a price/performance leader, or a team AMD card which is not a good pairing with a GSYNC monitor =(

What would you guys do?

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

Yeah it sure is ridiculous pushing a mid range range with settings that are FAR beyond what it was designed for and calling for a refund...

I really thought the hard forums was better than this, but the sheep are just following the herd.

Oh look!! At 150% resolution scale and DSR and 4XMSAA my card stutters!!!! I want a refund!! nvidia sucks!!!

My concern would be the games that cache vram using that slow 512mb partition when it isn't necessary.

 

[TekRok]

Be careful guys, or Kyle will lock this thread as well. Dont know if Nvidia paid him to keep it hush hush, or hes locking them because people are insulting each other. Dont insult each other, that way we know it was the other reason for a locked thread.

 

[Dayaks]

Be careful guys, or Kyle will lock this thread as well. Dont know if Nvidia paid him to keep it hush hush, or hes locking them because people are insulting each other. Dont insult each other, that way we know it was the other reason for a locked thread.

I imagine they got sick of deleting posts and people acting like children. If they were paid off I think the threads would disappear all together.

 

[MavericK]

I do have to say, though, that I find the silence from [H], and now both discussion threads being locked, very odd indeed.

 

[Meeho]

The other two main threads on the subject were for the most part civil, certainly not less so than many of other topics on the forum. I wish they had removed the problematic posts, explained why and let the discussion continue. This way we have no way of knowing what is or isn't allowed. Are we allowed to discuss the 970 controversy at all, post benchmarks, people's experiences or are some things forbidden and why?

I imagine they got sick of deleting posts and people acting like children. If they were paid off I think the threads would disappear all together.

I didn't get the impression there were many of those, or at least I've missed them. Don't see how warnings or temp bans for repeated offenders wouldn't have fixed that if that were the case.

 

[Bladestorm]

As the user of two GTX 970's and a 4K G-sync monitor, I am not at all happy about this. It is far too late to return the cards and monitor, so short of Nvidia doing the right thing, what recourse do I have?

 

[Meeho]

As the user of two GTX 970's and a 4K G-sync monitor, I am not at all happy about this. It is far too late to return the cards and monitor, so short of Nvidia doing the right thing, what recourse do I have?

If Nvidia doesn't step up, your only chance is to try and work something out with your retailer and/or card manufacturer. If that doesn't work, try taking it up with FTC. Some retailers like Amazon are taking returns, EVGA is offering step ups to 980. Things are somewhat better in EU, with more retailers and manufacturers giving refunds.

 

[Bladestar]

The other two main threads on the subject were for the most part civil, certainly not less so than many of other topics on the forum. I wish they had removed the problematic posts, explained why and let the discussion continue. This way we have no way of knowing what is or isn't allowed. Are we allowed to discuss the 970 controversy at all, post benchmarks, people's experiences or are some things forbidden and why?

I didn't get the impression there were many of those, or at least I've missed them. Don't see how warnings or temp bans for repeated offenders wouldn't have fixed that if that were the case.

Yeah, those threads had their fair share of trolls/fanboys, but then again, so have many other threads on here.

Problem now is locking topics without saying why gives people the impression that someone is pulling strings to get them locked.
Could it be Nvidia's PR team letting the hounds loose in an effort to get these topics locked ? Possible. It is happening in other forums as well.

For people that have multiple cards, or have something that needs 4GB RAM, then, it does look like Nvidia broke SEC's rule 10b-5 by making fraudulent statements of what their product does/is capable of doing to review sites.

 

[Crosshairs]

I do have to say, though, that I find the silence from [H], and now both discussion threads being locked, very odd indeed.

before the conspiracy machine gets to full throttle, I am the one who locked those threads, and I did it because they were becoming a nuisance, not to mention mostly redundant....

having posts get reported every 10 minutes gets old and it takes up way too much admin time...this is why we cant have nice things.

 

[doz]

NV laying the smack down. Close the threads or no reviews for you!

This is really a shame that people believe its ridiculous to request a refund or compensation. Advertising a product that is different than what you sold is not right ;/

 

[TekRok]

If you think about it, [H] and all other review sites are also to blame. They are part of the problem, and that maybe the reason why Kyle and the rest are quiet.
Some people purchase solely based on reviews and benchmarks, so pretty much all review websites are responsible just as much as Nvidia. This should give them a good reason to REALLY test the cards. I am surprised this memory issue wasnt exposed sooner.

 

[Crosshairs]

I imagine they got sick of deleting posts and people acting like children.

exactly this.

 

[Meeho]

before the conspiracy machine gets to full throttle, I am the one who locked those threads, and I did it because they were becoming a nuisance, not to mention mostly redundant....

having posts get reported every 10 minutes gets old and it takes up way too much admin time...this is why we cant have nice things.

Wouldn't it have been better to remove repeated offenders (or false flaggers) from the discussion, merge the threads and leave the discussion open? This is one of the biggest scandals in recent history in our industry, surely deserving of an open discussion. If there is ever a time when moderators have an increased workload, it is times like this and to be expected.

 

[MavericK]

before the conspiracy machine gets to full throttle, I am the one who locked those threads, and I did it because they were becoming a nuisance, not to mention mostly redundant....

having posts get reported every 10 minutes gets old and it takes up way too much admin time...this is why we cant have nice things.

No problem, didn't mean to imply a conspiracy, just the whole thing seemed very strange. Thanks for the clarification.

So I guess this means it would be possible to have a new thread with a civil discussion? Or at least a place to post breaking news about the whole thing.

 

[haz_mat]

I do have to say, though, that I find the silence from [H], and now both discussion threads being locked, very odd indeed.

I'm right there with you. The [H] crew commands a good bit of respect in the community, and to hear nothing but silence from them is suspicious to say the least. I can only hope they are indeed working on an article and want to be on very solid ground before setting the story straight. But if they let this one go I will lose some faith in them.

I think those who want refunds should get them. Having to sign a petition is absurd.

 

[FrgMstr]

Be careful guys, or Kyle will lock this thread as well. Dont know if Nvidia paid him to keep it hush hush, or hes locking them because people are insulting each other. Dont insult each other, that way we know it was the other reason for a locked thread.

I have not locked any thread. The mods, which are 100% insulated from ANY business dealings with NVIDIA, are here to keep the peace and make sure the RULES are followed. So the only thing that would impact any threads here are what people are posting.

 

[Crosshairs]

So I guess this means it would be possible to have a new thread with a civil discussion?

of course....might even be better and not so convoluted...and since we have lost a few members from the other thread, it may even remain civil.

 

[FrgMstr]

If you think about it, [H] and all other review sites are also to blame. They are part of the problem, and that maybe the reason why Kyle and the rest are quiet.
Some people purchase solely based on reviews and benchmarks, so pretty much all review websites are responsible just as much as Nvidia. This should give them a good reason to REALLY test the cards. I am surprised this memory issue wasnt exposed sooner.

We do not review cards using benchmarks. We review video cards using actual game play. Our opinions of the hardware are based on hardware's performance. We still fully stick by our reviews. Quite frankly, I would not even publish hardware specifications if we did not have to. Let the hardware's value be determined on its performance.

 

[Cali3350]

Continuing Kyle's thought the GeForce GTX 960 is a good example where perceived performance via specifications is deceiving. You look at the 128-bit memory bus and think "slow" or "constraining." However, our gaming performance tests reveal it is not constraining or slow and even does well at high resolutions compared to a video card with a wider memory bus. This is due to the architecture differences.

Therefore, perceived performance via specifications and theoretical benchmarks are deceiving and do not tell you the real-world performance while gaming. This is why we perform real-world gaming evaluation from actually playing the games and sharing our experiences with you. In this way, you know what gameplay performance to expect when making buying decisions.

That's fair, however the issue many people have with this card is limited to a scenario where the VRAM is specifically pushed high. While this may not show up in a real world test today, it DOES have a meaningful impact on how well a card will perform in future games, and that is just as valid a concern to a potential buyer of hardware. Several people on these forums themselves have shown that when forcing the card to go above 3.6GB or so they see significant hitching appear via FCAT / similar frame timelines.

 

[Sycraft]

Continuing Kyle's thought the GeForce GTX 960 is a good example where perceived performance via specifications is deceiving. You look at the 128-bit memory bus and think "slow" or "constraining." However, our gaming performance tests reveal it is not constraining or slow and even does well at high resolutions compared to a video card with a wider memory bus. This is due to the architecture differences.

Therefore, perceived performance via specifications and theoretical benchmarks are deceiving and do not tell you the real-world performance while gaming. This is why we perform real-world gaming evaluation from actually playing the games and sharing our experiences with you. In this way, you know what gameplay performance to expect when making buying decisions.

And that is why this whole situation seems so damn silly to me. Is there really anyone out there that had the 970 been a 3.5GB card would have skipped on it? I think not, people bought it because ti gives stupidly good performance at about half the cost of a 980. The numbers on the FPS counter are the only ones that matter.

 

[MavericK]

But it's not simply a 3.5 GB card. It's a card where you get unplayable stuttering if a game chooses to use that last 0.5 GB of VRAM. Arguably the reality is worse than if it were just a straight-up 3.5 GB card.

 

[§kynet]

The numbers on the FPS counter are the only ones that matter.

Absolutely not. There is a mix of stats that matter, FPS, frametimes, image quality to name a few. Now to say that specs don't matter, of course they do. Testing 3-4 games may give a good indicator of performance today, but not in 1-2 years or more. And in this case the specs being wrongly supplied by Nvidia has seriously mislead people because they did not get a card with a full 256bit memory bus. This has shown to adversely affect frametimes when you get above the fast block of RAM, having these specs up front would have been very useful for people to make an informed choice.

 

[{NG}Fidel]

NVM didnt refresh the thread.

 

[Iklos]

Yeah it sure is ridiculous pushing a mid range range with settings that are FAR beyond what it was designed for and calling for a refund...

I really thought the hard forums was better than this, but the sheep are just following the herd.

Oh look!! At 150% resolution scale and DSR and 4XMSAA my card stutters!!!! I want a refund!! nvidia sucks!!!

*sigh* another happy owner that really feels for us suckers.. thanks man! that was an eyeopener..!

well i might just have an 4k screen allready.. since you know.. nvidias DSR dosent work in sli.. ohh yeah.. i pushed all the right buyers buttons..

so not being able to game fully in 4k with my sli 970gtx setup... (i must be a chump! i should never try to save any kind of money when buying pc equipment.. )

the fault lies squarely at my feet.. trying to use the cards and saying "Oh look!! At 150% resolution scale and DSR and 4XMSAA my card stutters!!!! I want a refund!! nvidia sucks!!!"

I am just a sad sad man apparently. Nvidia is not to blame.. i should have known!!!

 

[n=1]

And that is why this whole situation seems so damn silly to me. Is there really anyone out there that had the 970 been a 3.5GB card would have skipped on it? I think not, people bought it because ti gives stupidly good performance at about half the cost of a 980. The numbers on the FPS counter are the only ones that matter.

Read up on AMD's frame pacing issues prior to Catalyst 13.8 to understand why the last sentence you wrote is completely wrong.

 

[Brackle]

I understand, and I didnt want to point you out as the prime suspect. I mentioned your name because you own H. I also got an infraction for that statement, in which I wasnt even trying to troll.
You have to look at it from our side, 2 big threads were locked on the same issue, as more and more people posted. Yes there were a few bad apples as always that started insulting one another, but look at it from our end. This is by FAR the BIGGEST issue in the hardware market in a very very long time. Nvidia went on a damage control which backfired horribly, so the next obvious thing was to control the places that do the reviews. I understand that mods dont have the resources to watch each post, but they could have at least simply suspended those people insulting one another and combined threads so there wouldn't be lots of "redundant" information as another Moderator put it.
It just seemed VERY fishy to lock threads, thats all.

The reason the other 2 threads were locked is because adults cannot act normally to discuss the topic. Even I slip up once in awhile on here. If people didn't act like idiots those 2 threads would still be open.

 

[TekRok]

The reason the other 2 threads were locked is because adults cannot act normally to discuss the topic. Even I slip up once in awhile on here. If people didn't act like idiots those 2 threads would still be open.

Yes thats clear now. Personally I would have simply given those people a suspension and combined all threads on this issue.