p3sty
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there went my resale value mfr's
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Petitioning for 970 Refund
- Thread starter Nauseous
- Start date
Nvidia has been extremely shady about this whole thing. Regardless of whether or not the performance changes when you purchase a product and months later specs change it is pretty disheartening. I usually flip flop between ATI/AMD and Nvidia when it comes time to upgrade depending who offers the best card with the most features and the right prices but from here on out I think I will be a red guy... Nvidia's behavior in this whole situation has convinced me never to support them again.
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notarat
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Can you summarize the reddit link? That site's not available while I'm on duty
Some have done some testing that they think proves that the card goes from 3.5 GB VRAM straight to system RAM, so that additional 0.5 GB doesn't practically exist. Others have disputed this, so it is not something to be taken as a fact just yet.
Don't know how Asus US will react, but Asus in Europe will let consumers return their cards to get full refund. Any 970 that has been purchased before 1st Feb can be returned without any fee to retailer. They would have to do this, because EU consumer laws let you return products, if the consumer didn't know of the wrong specs or physical fault at the moment of purchase.
Nevertheless with official Asus policy, you can be sure, you won't have to deal with shops and convince them NV broke the law. Possibly US branch will do the same in your country.
Nevertheless with official Asus policy, you can be sure, you won't have to deal with shops and convince them NV broke the law. Possibly US branch will do the same in your country.
As sad as it sounds I'm thinking of contacting MSI to try and get my 970 replaced with a 980 and call it a day (sad because that means more money for nvidia in the end).
I played a VRAM heavy game (Ryse) and the the swapping was simply ugly. I googled about it and it really seemed to be people with a gtx 970 complaining left and right, go figure. And the proposed fix? Dropping texture quality to high, so that the VRAM usage drops (game locks textures to "very high" if it detects more than 3Gb of VRAM so you have to edit a config file). Right...
The whole 3.5+0.5Gb thing is bollocks, I'd be fine with a proper 3.5Gb (heck even just 3) card for that price but unless someone find a way to make sure those slow 512Mb are never used (no, I don't really believe in "caching" or any gimmicks like that) I won't be at peace. I'm about as anal as it gets as far as (micro)stuttering is concerned and I still won't be touching multi GPU setups for many more years (I know it got much better than it used to be!), all I ask for is a solid single GPU solution. A worthy successor to my GTX 670 (which I regret selling so quickly).
I played a VRAM heavy game (Ryse) and the the swapping was simply ugly. I googled about it and it really seemed to be people with a gtx 970 complaining left and right, go figure. And the proposed fix? Dropping texture quality to high, so that the VRAM usage drops (game locks textures to "very high" if it detects more than 3Gb of VRAM so you have to edit a config file). Right...
The whole 3.5+0.5Gb thing is bollocks, I'd be fine with a proper 3.5Gb (heck even just 3) card for that price but unless someone find a way to make sure those slow 512Mb are never used (no, I don't really believe in "caching" or any gimmicks like that) I won't be at peace. I'm about as anal as it gets as far as (micro)stuttering is concerned and I still won't be touching multi GPU setups for many more years (I know it got much better than it used to be!), all I ask for is a solid single GPU solution. A worthy successor to my GTX 670 (which I regret selling so quickly).
Starrbuck
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The $300 290x Lightning is after rebate, unless you know somewhere that has them for that price out the door. They are $329 at Amazon right now. I won't be ordering video cards from Newegg any more since they refused to take my 970s back.
IF the Reddit testings turns out to be true.... All those people that kept saying the card still performs this way. It's no big deal etc, etc... What now? I still think I'll be happy with the 970, but at this point I'd rather just have drivers that make it a 3.5GB card.
Question for the guru's out there: If a program/game uses more memory than what's on the card, what exactly happens? The GPU just becomes the bottleneck/limited? I'm assuming the "PC" doesn't jump to system memory to make up the difference as the memory bandwidth can't be better.
Question for the guru's out there: If a program/game uses more memory than what's on the card, what exactly happens? The GPU just becomes the bottleneck/limited? I'm assuming the "PC" doesn't jump to system memory to make up the difference as the memory bandwidth can't be better.
Nenu
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To me, it looks like system ram and the last 0.5GB are accessed simultaneously because when system ram speed is high enough, the benchmarked throughput exceeds PCI-E capability.
I'm not sure what you are saying here, if the game really needs (many games allocate a bit more VRAM than they actually need so there is a small safety margin) more memory than is available on the card it will start using system RAM and pagefile. Either that or you crash.
I wasn't really saying anything, that's why I asked.
My problem with that answer is why would the guy that downgraded from a 970 to a 570 handle a game better then? I'm assuming at most the 570 has 2 GB of memory compared to 3.5 on the 970. (of course maybe they have the settings turned down)
But, if what you're saying is correct (and I learned something new) then still the biggest problem here is the card only has 3.5GB VRAM "usable". Because the exact same stuttering problem will show itself on any card in which more VRAM is used than it has.
notarat
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Digital Viper-X-
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captainzombie
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I just got off the phone with a manager at Newegg and he said that they should have resolution by mid-week if not sooner as to how they are going to handle this situation with the customers that bought a 970. He said that they have had this happen with other products in the past and are going to handle it very similar. He gave me his email and took my cell to contact me directly. Guess they are getting flooded with these support calls. He told me that one of the customers told him they are going to contact the FTC and BBB over this on Nvidia. I told him I'm willing for a refund or an exchange as I would be getting another card and told him I'd even jump to the 980 which he said he might be able to do something with pricing and/or shipping.
Amazon will make them look very bad if they don't decide to accept returns. Hopefully at least that will make them do the right thing. Then the pressure form retailers to card vendors to Nvidia will make some difference.
Btw OcUK has over 100 returns so far.
captainzombie
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I agree, I told the manager that Amazon is accepting returns on the 970 no questions asked. If they want to keep peoples business that they really need to do the right thing here. They can get credit from Nvidia on the returns for sure so what if a few 1000 come back. I don't think there is that many of us having an issue over the 970 to where it makes them lose all this money.
Definitely. OcUK has over 20.000 sold IIRC, so the returns would hardly hurt anyone. Especially compared to how much tarnished reputation will.
I"m giving my back, not because of the high horse (though I hate, what Nvidia done)... but in Q2 380/390X appears, and value of 970 will drop, so I'll sell it for like 60-70% value of purchase. Right now I get an option to get full refund, and I can use old 290 I've somewhere, to last me till like June and 390X 
So why would I keep that card for 2 months more and loose money on it?
So why would I keep that card for 2 months more and loose money on it?
p3sty
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I"m giving my back, not because of the high horse (though I hate, what Nvidia done)... but in Q2 380/390X appears, and value of 970 will drop, so I'll sell it for like 60-70% value of purchase. Right now I get an option to get full refund, and I can use old 290 I've somewhere, to last me till like June and 390X
So why would I keep that card for 2 months more and loose money on it?
exactly
Please let us know what you hear back from Newegg. I have an EVGA 970 that I bought from them at New Years. I'd be interested to see what they say and what options they provide.
captainzombie
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Yup and the manager also told me that they might even offer people a credit or gift card of "X" amount so people can keep their cards as an option, they obviously don't want those returns so if they can give people something to keep them it benefits them. I just want a return or exchange because I am hitting a wall with this card.
[L]imey;1041401158 said:
I will keep you guys updated. Are you not within the return period? I would call them and try to exchange/return even though you might be past the 30 days, not sure how many days they give you through Newegg.
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well got my response from best buy
so much for supporting retail stores, will be buying amazon from now on
so much for supporting retail stores, will be buying amazon from now on
Zinn
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780 Ti?
290x. The lightning is on sale for $20-$30 cheaper than a 970 cost (plus $30 rebate ontop of that).
I"m giving my back, not because of the high horse (though I hate, what Nvidia done)... but in Q2 380/390X appears, and value of 970 will drop, so I'll sell it for like 60-70% value of purchase. Right now I get an option to get full refund, and I can use old 290 I've somewhere, to last me till like June and 390X
So why would I keep that card for 2 months more and loose money on it?
This is also my big issue. Its not so much that the card does not handle most things just fine currently but in the future what does it hold? Newer games can be more demanding and resale is also going to be KILLED by no only newer cards but because of this issue more and more people will be hesitant to purchase. Ill gladly get my money back now and get a well priced 290x that is just as fast, cheaper, and I wont have an issue selling later on.
I ordered a 290x Lightning from Amazon. I was going to order from Newegg to save some money, but I felt Amazon earned my business when they allowed me to return both of my 970s after 4 months. It should definitely hold me over until the 390x comes out in a few months.
I got my 970 return approved from Amazon but I'm wondering if I can also get them to discount a 980...anyone have any luck with that?
Did you buy your card during the "choose your path" promotion? I'm wondering if there would be an issue with that. I didn't really want any of the games offered but redeemed the code on the last day so it wouldn't go to waste.
MavericK
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Cool, let us know what they say...depending on the deal I might be tempted to go 980.
I redeemed the code...I don't think Amazon cares about getting that back...I have the card, box, all acessories
LurkerLito
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That's pretty cool that Amazon let you return the card. I am curious as to what Newegg will do so I am holding off with EVGA. I don't think I can go through Newegg since my card had a $10 rebate, and I sent it in so there is no longer a UPC on the box. So I think my only recourse is to keep it or go to a 980 using the EVGA step up.
StoleMyOwnCar
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I actually said this a long time ago too. In fact, I was suggesting some people cash in on the cheap used or whatever deals on the 780/780Ti vs 970/980 because I didn't think 3GB vs 4GB was going to make much of a difference for the money. Little did I know at the time that in the 780 vs 970 case, it was actually 3GB vs 3.5GB. Also the 780's hardly have any coil whine or other build quality issues afaik, so like I was saying... not actually a bad deal. People would miss out on that high resolution feature though. I play on an RoG Swift and I'm fine with 1440p. My 780 SLI solution is doing fine.
With the trend in the way games are going, you're going to want much higher than 3.5-4GB VRAM. At least twice the amount.... if you're interested in pressing the envelope with SLI anyhow. I know many people are satisfied with just one card. I like having the extra horsepower.
As for the whole "G-Sync is a scam" type of deal I saw mentioned here earlier, this discussion to that article replies to that claim fairly decently I think:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...ers-taste-of-mobile-g-sync#comment-1826515745
So no, it's not really a scam. The 3.5+0.5 vs 4 totally is though. Nvidia will lose trust because of this. I hope you folks get your money back. Product misrepresentation has no excuses.
Damar
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This doesnt surprise me really, and its why I hadnt even bothered to call them and try, especially since it took them nearly 3 months of back and forth emails just to get them to fork over the 2 pick your path codes they admitted they owed me right from the start.
As happy as I was to get the reference style cards, I'm thinking long term now about just redoing the airflow in my case so I can put in any card without heat worries down the road and doing my shopping only at Amazon for tech stuff from now on.
For me it's not that I thought 4GB VRAM was going to be "perfect" for 4k. It's that 4GB VRAM is a lot better than the 2GB VRAM on the GTX 680 I had. Either way, I haven't heard anyone claim 4GB VRAM was perfect for 4k. Only that it's better than 3.5.
now I'm considering the 290x Lightning as my 970 replacement...only problem is that the card is kinda old and the upcoming 380x sounds way better (stacked memory)...I know I'll have buyers remorse...I'm seriously considering just going back to my GTX 580 and waiting for the new cards from AMD/Nvidia...only upcoming game I'm going to be playing is Evolve and that doesn't seem like a GPU killer
Brackle
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If you cant return it, I would just hold out until 380x or titan 2. Rumors are june for 380x.