Petitioning for 970 Refund

the issue for me is that there's nothing currently out that matches the price/performance of the 970...so anything other than keeping the card is just going to be punishing myself more than it punishes Nvidia

290X definitely beats it in price/performance. Although there is always something new around the corner, the 300 series is really close, so I would return the 970 and wait till then to make the decision.
 
Amazon sent me a return label for my 970 but I have until March 2nd to ship it to them...I'm going to wait a few weeks and see if Nvidia offers up any deals for current 970 owners...with all this bad press I'm sure they're going to offer some compensation either in the form of free games or discounts on higher end cards...if not I'm probably going to end up keeping the card...making an irrational decision to return it would not benefit me...the card runs flawlessly and even 3.5GB VRAM will be fine at 1920 x 1200 for 2+ years
 
the issue for me is that there's nothing currently out that matches the price/performance of the 970...so anything other than keeping the card is just going to be punishing myself more than it punishes Nvidia

That's just it. The benchmarks from the last 4 months haven't changed. The reason people got the 970 over the 290 hasn't changed. It still performs great with low heat/noise/power draw and great drivers.

Most people are still happy with their 970, while some have just gone ahead and upgraded to a 980. I think a lot of the overreaction to the issue has started to die down. Especially with the major tech sites saying it's not a big deal and having trouble finding a problem under standard gaming situations.
 
I think it's a much bigger deal for SLI users. But people have managed to hit the issue with a single card at 1920x1080 depending on the game, from what I have heard/read. Plus, games are likely only going to use more and more VRAM, so it's very likely we will see this issue crop up again and again in the near future.
 
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.

Well I just kinda skimmed over his post. I'm not necessarily agreeing with "perfect for 4K" as being the benchmark anyhow (that everyone should care about). I think vram requirements are climbing too steeply in general, regardless of resolution (to a point). Part of this is lazy game design...

That's just it. The benchmarks from the last 4 months haven't changed. The reason people got the 970 over the 290 hasn't changed. It still performs great with low heat/noise/power draw and great drivers.

Most people are still happy with their 970, while some have just gone ahead and upgraded to a 980. I think a lot of the overreaction to the issue has started to die down. Especially with the major tech sites saying it's not a big deal and having trouble finding a problem under standard gaming situations.

First of all, no, I think some people got it over the 290/X because it had all of those benefits AND THE SAME AMOUNT OF VRAM (at least I know that is what would tip me over if it came down to either one). 500MB less changes things. A decrease of >10% is a significant change statistically.

Second of all, it's not overreaction. The company deliberately misrepresented and lied about their product, and now they're trying to go back on it. Like, objectively speaking: they lied. That shouldn't be allowed. That simple thing is a big point. Forget whether it matters in benchmarks or not. Everything should go up front.
 
I think it's a much bigger deal for SLI users. But people have managed to hit the issue with a single card at 1920x1080 depending on the game, from what I have heard/read. Plus, games are likely only going to use more and more VRAM, so it's very likely we will see this issue crop up again and again in the near future.

if Witcher 3's Recommended specs only call for a GTX 770 I don't see too many other games on the horizon going crazy with VRAM ('The Division' being the only possible exception)
 
I'm happy I have till the 16th of the month to decide what I want to do. Then it's either swap for a 290x or buy up for a 980 At microcenter. Been out of pc gaming since selling my rig in my signature like A year or 2 ago.

Started out with a 280x as I didn't know better making a quick buy at microcenter rushed by the Wife. Salesman said this is what I want as all I wanted was the cheapest card I could get that would run bf4 at 60 fps.

Originally I planed on building a budget gamer rig as cheap as possable. Exchanged that as soon as I did some reading for a 290.

That ran smooth but extremely hot at around 77c. Was not used to seeing numbers like thst as before I always ran water on my cards in the past at 45c.

So read up some more and seen that the 970 was the card that ran cooler.

Sucks that it's perfect for me.. Cheap and runs anything at1080 rez. Stays cool even Overclocked at around 55c.

I don't want high rez at the moment as I know it will take multiple cards for it and I don't want 3 screens as I hated it in the past with my quad 7970s. Ugly stretched screen and u only look straight ahead anyways so a waste.

Seeing how the future will want more ram there's not much reason to pay up for a 980.. when that time comes I'll be moving on to another card anyways.

Only reason to return the 970 for me is just all about resale value. That will tank.

I guess when the 16th comes, if I have 200+ laying around I may just grab a 980.
 
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Surprised at the reaction. All the people who would return their 970's because of the issue likely would have upgraded from their 970 by the time that .5Gb RAM actually makes a noticeable difference.
 
Surprised at the reaction. All the people who would return their 970's because of the issue likely would have upgraded from their 970 by the time that .5Gb RAM actually makes a noticeable difference.

It's all about resale value.
 
Surprised at the reaction. All the people who would return their 970's because of the issue likely would have upgraded from their 970 by the time that .5Gb RAM actually makes a noticeable difference.


It is already causing issues in some games. Watch in 60fps compatible browser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKaQ5kUfaLE

Despite higher FPS it stutters like crazy, almost looks like 30fps at the times. Thanks to the way current gen consoles work today games are going to be VRAM hogs and 3.5gb is easily reached, especially when you go over 1080p. You could of course turn down the settings to reduce VRAM usage but whats the point of brand new high end card if you cant push it, especially considering last gen card runs the same game almost flawlessly maxed out.
 
That's true. very true. Some people deserve to be fired at nvidia over it And how there handling it as well.

Seems like there just playing the waiting game to see how the reaction will be and if there forced to do something about it. Cheapest I'm sure is how they want to handle it. May just deal with the few thst bark the most insted of a mass solution which will cost them alot.

People need to stay active on this so they see the prob isn't going away.
 
Yeah the lying thing just really rubbed me the wrong way. Then the "we'll help you out returning it if that's what you want" to "there's no problem" just pretty much made me really dislike Nvidia. It's funny I would have had more respect if they just announced some kind of a step up program for those unhappy about the "mistaken" specs. Most people like myself would probably have just calmed down and took a breath and looked at the data to see if the 970 vs the 980 was worth the price of the step up. And now I am leaning towards no it isn't worth it because EVGA is allowing me to do it and I got to calmly look at the deal. But Nvidia themselves really let me down enough to make me consider going to AMD for the next card. That's kind of really bad for Nvidia because I haven't had an ATI card since AGP Slot was the connection type. And I moved over to Nvidia because of issues with drivers that I never really forgave ATI for. Now Nvidia is in my sights as doing something just as bad so they don't have as much of an advantage for brand loyalty as they did before.
 
It is already causing issues in some games. Watch in 60fps compatible browser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKaQ5kUfaLE

Despite higher FPS it stutters like crazy, almost looks like 30fps at the times. Thanks to the way current gen consoles work today games are going to be VRAM hogs and 3.5gb is easily reached, especially when you go over 1080p. You could of course turn down the settings to reduce VRAM usage but whats the point of brand new high end card if you cant push it, especially considering last gen card runs the same game almost flawlessly maxed out.

Crap.. thought we were safe in 1080. Man.
 
Yeah the lying thing just really rubbed me the wrong way. Then the "we'll help you out returning it if that's what you want" to "there's no problem" just pretty much made me really dislike Nvidia. It's funny I would have had more respect if they just announced some kind of a step up program for those unhappy about the "mistaken" specs. Most people like myself would probably have just calmed down and took a breath and looked at the data to see if the 970 vs the 980 was worth the price of the step up. And now I am leaning towards no it isn't worth it because EVGA is allowing me to do it and I got to calmly look at the deal. But Nvidia themselves really let me down enough to make me consider going to AMD for the next card. That's kind of really bad for Nvidia because I haven't had an ATI card since AGP Slot was the connection type. And I moved over to Nvidia because of issues with drivers that I never really forgave ATI for. Now Nvidia is in my sights as doing something just as bad so they don't have as much of an advantage for brand loyalty as they did before.

yup, same here...last ATI card for me was a X1900XT...thinking about going back once the 380x is released...sounds like a game changer type of card (like the 9800 Pro)
 
Wow just checked ebay and the 970 isn't hurting too bad currently.. selling close to retail for used cards. Shocking.
 
so I'm guessing sticking with 290-x was a good idea, sad to see Nvidia pull this shit - it's not the first time and won't be the last. Maybe with this backlash they might see a dent in there profits enough to change their attitude. If i had a 970 and was running 1080p i don't think there is too much concern but maybe go team Red on your next purchase.
 
It is already causing issues in some games. Watch in 60fps compatible browser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKaQ5kUfaLE

Despite higher FPS it stutters like crazy, almost looks like 30fps at the times. Thanks to the way current gen consoles work today games are going to be VRAM hogs and 3.5gb is easily reached, especially when you go over 1080p. You could of course turn down the settings to reduce VRAM usage but whats the point of brand new high end card if you cant push it, especially considering last gen card runs the same game almost flawlessly maxed out.

Bet it coil whines as well.
 
What I notice more in the Dying Light video is that the 780 has a smaller FOV...as if it is zoomed in and is missing out on the action at the edges of the screen. The edges of the screen where the effects of stuttering are most apparent as the new peripheral objects are rendered within the FOV. I'm surprised nobody picked up on that but they see that tiny bit of stutter and go OMGWTFBBQSAUCE all over the place. I bet nobody else noticed the 970 is using an extra 500MB of VRAM in allegedly the same test compared to the 780. Maybe the 780 is capped and that extra 500MB accounts for the minutely better image quality on the 970 side of the video.
 
I bet nobody else noticed the 970 is using an extra 500MB of VRAM in allegedly the same test compared to the 780. Maybe the 780 is capped and that extra 500MB accounts for the minutely better image quality on the 970 side of the video.

And if the 970 was actually a 4 GB card it could/would be using 4 GB instead of 3.5 GB...
 
Surprised at the reaction. All the people who would return their 970's because of the issue likely would have upgraded from their 970 by the time that .5Gb RAM actually makes a noticeable difference.

If the card reported it only had 3.5GB ram, you would be correct.
But it doesnt, it reports it has 4GB Ram so games try to use the last 0.5GB which runs at 1/3 the speed.
This causes stuttering / longer and uneven frame times.
 
What I notice more in the Dying Light video is that the 780 has a smaller FOV...as if it is zoomed in and is missing out on the action at the edges of the screen. The edges of the screen where the effects of stuttering are most apparent as the new peripheral objects are rendered within the FOV. I'm surprised nobody picked up on that but they see that tiny bit of stutter and go OMGWTFBBQSAUCE all over the place. I bet nobody else noticed the 970 is using an extra 500MB of VRAM in allegedly the same test compared to the 780. Maybe the 780 is capped and that extra 500MB accounts for the minutely better image quality on the 970 side of the video.


Yes yes FOV is different in both samples and people on youtube comments have mentioned it too, but no way in hell would it affect the amount of stutter when both of them were running clearly above 60fps. Unless of course rendering a bigger view is what finally broke the camels back and pushed the GTX970 to stutter territory. But again whats the point of high end card if you cant push it to its limits, especially something so small thing like FOV adjustment which most of us PC gamers turn up if we can anyway no matter what GPU we have.


That 780GTX only has 3gb ram so of course it cant use more. Its being capped by lack of hardware. And despite being maxed out to its limit it still runs buttery smooth. Unlike GTX970 which is obviously crapping out when same is done to that.
 
That's just it. The benchmarks from the last 4 months haven't changed. The reason people got the 970 over the 290 hasn't changed. It still performs great with low heat/noise/power draw and great drivers.

Most people are still happy with their 970, while some have just gone ahead and upgraded to a 980. I think a lot of the overreaction to the issue has started to die down. Especially with the major tech sites saying it's not a big deal and having trouble finding a problem under standard gaming situations.

That is not true as testing from major sites that shows there is a real issue has been linked in all three threads on this subject.
 
And if the 970 was actually a 4 GB card it could/would be using 4 GB instead of 3.5 GB...

And if the game was properly (read: efficiently and not lazily) coded it wouldn't just scale to use the maximum memory available if it did not need to. Even rendering 3440x1440 on Very High system spec and settings with 4x MSAA Crysis 3 barely uses 3GB of VRAM despite my 980 having a real 4GB available. And that game looks a hell of a lot better than Dying Light, so what gives? Shitty (read: lazy) coding and programming that isn't actually optimized for anything and exists because it "gets the job done well enough."

Unless you're talking about obscenely low amounts of VRAM for obscenely high resolutions and settings VRAM should never have to be the system's bottleneck in a well coded game.
 
The VRAM issue with 970 is only an issue if the owners of the said 970 are running into them, it's all well and good saying that 3.5GB VRAM is smaller than 4GB VRAM (it is), but it is only an issue for the people that are actually running games that uses the 3.5GB VRAM, as 970 still works as well as intended when VRAM are below that.

So maybe for those people the issue with the VRAM isn't an issue for them.

However, I personally do find that people's decision or suggestion move to the 290x or 980 over a 970 for the VRAM a bit strange, since if 3.5GB VRAM is already going to cause issues, 4GB cannot be that far behind, and more games will use more VRAM. Sure, 980/290x might eliminate the issues at 3.5gb ~ 4gb, but since most benches done in the past few weeks has been done only to prove 970 has a slowdown at 3.5GB~4GB usage when 980 doesn't, the bigger issue of 'is 4GB enough?' question has been lost midst the PR crapstorm over a specification error.

Had VRAM usage been tamer, how long would people not noticed this specification error?

If one must replace their 970's, I would at very least choose to do Titan, 780 6GB or 290x 8GB versions, going for another 4GB card is, IMHO, foolhardy at this point, as one is already told (in your face kind of way) that 3.5GB isn't enough.
 
The VRAM issue with 970 is only an issue if the owners of the said 970 are running into them, it's all well and good saying that 3.5GB VRAM is smaller than 4GB VRAM (it is), but it is only an issue for the people that are actually running games that uses the 3.5GB VRAM, as 970 still works as well as intended when VRAM are below that.

So maybe for those people the issue with the VRAM isn't an issue for them.

However, I personally do find that people's decision or suggestion move to the 290x or 980 over a 970 for the VRAM a bit strange, since if 3.5GB VRAM is already going to cause issues, 4GB cannot be that far behind, and more games will use more VRAM. Sure, 980/290x might eliminate the issues at 3.5gb ~ 4gb, but since most benches done in the past few weeks has been done only to prove 970 has a slowdown at 3.5GB~4GB usage when 980 doesn't, the bigger issue of 'is 4GB enough?' question has been lost midst the PR crapstorm over a specification error.

Had VRAM usage been tamer, how long would people not noticed this specification error?

If one must replace their 970's, I would at very least choose to do Titan, 780 6GB or 290x 8GB versions, going for another 4GB card is, IMHO, foolhardy at this point, as one is already told (in your face kind of way) that 3.5GB isn't enough.
That's reasonable.

But a lot of the more vocally pissed people are also using more than one 970, where they could make use of that extra little bit. Sure, in those scenarios they'll also be struggling with only another 500MB, but to have spent that kind of coin to realize you've been gypped, even a little, on all the cards?

This really was a bad faith move on their part.
 
Ugh, this has been covered multiple time. It is not so much a problem of how much RAM games need, but how much of the available one they use. A 3 GB 780 will run smoothly with the same settings where 3.5/4 GB 970 will stutter. People are going to 290X and 980 not because they have 4 GB, but because they won't stutter when it is used. If 970 was a 3.5 GB card, very few people would need a 980/290X.
 
Had VRAM usage been tamer, how long would people not noticed this specification error?

That's just it, they wouldn't have. If we weren't in an era of shitastic console --> PC ports (ports that are done shitastically may I add) where lazy coding, lack of desire to actually optimize the game, and seemingly widespread acceptance of the practice, nobody would've known for at least another year or two. As mentioned a few posts ago, Crysis 3 - which is widely accepted to be an aesthetically beautiful and graphically demanding game - with the settings maxed at 4x MSAA and at a 3440x1440 resolution uses a mere 3.1GB of VRAM. And the only reason stopping me from playing at those settings or higher is that my 980 doesn't have the GPU horsepower to keep up the framerate. And speaking truthfully, CryEngine isn't even the best bang for your buck as far as well optimized engines go.

It's like the Cold War space race, as brilliant and as badass as we like to think America was, fact is the Soviets got up there with a hell of a lot less technology than the States did because they were efficient with what they had. America had double the technology and coasted along on that fact relying more on the computational power and hardware rather than the engineering and brilliance of man.
 
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And if the game was properly (read: efficiently and not lazily) coded it wouldn't just scale to use the maximum memory available if it did not need to. Even rendering 3440x1440 on Very High system spec and settings with 4x MSAA Crysis 3 barely uses 3GB of VRAM despite my 980 having a real 4GB available. And that game looks a hell of a lot better than Dying Light, so what gives? Shitty (read: lazy) coding and programming that isn't actually optimized for anything and exists because it "gets the job done well enough."

Unless you're talking about obscenely low amounts of VRAM for obscenely high resolutions and settings VRAM should never have to be the system's bottleneck in a well coded game.

I disagree. A properly coded game should use all of the VRAM available to it, just like system RAM should always be used completely at all times. What it shouldn't do is require more than it has to. It is not the game's fault the card provides it with "faulty" RAM and the game tries to use it.


That's just it, they wouldn't have. If we weren't in an era of shitastic console --> PC ports (ports that are done shitastically may I add) where lazy coding, lack of desire to actually optimize the game, and seemingly widespread acceptance of the practice, nobody would've known for at least another year or two. As mentioned a few posts ago, Crysis 3 - which is widely accepted to be an aesthetically beautiful and graphically demanding game - with the settings maxed at 4x MSAA and at a 3440x1440 resolution uses a mere 3.1GB of VRAM. And the only reason stopping me from playing at those settings or higher is that my 980 doesn't have the GPU horsepower to keep up the framerate. And speaking truthfully, CryEngine isn't even the best bang for your buck as far as well optimized engines go.

Again, you can fault a lousy console port for requiring way too much RAM than it realistically needs to, but you can't fault it for using what is made available, which is the issue we have here.
 
The game choosing to use what's available is directly related to the quality of programming that went into developing the graphical engine. So yes, I can blame the game for using what's available despite not needing to. I don't see half of my Steam library of 180 some odd games maxing out my VRAM just for shits and giggles - the other half I don't see I haven't launched since I bought them so I can't confirm or deny.

It's still pretty shit what nVidia did/is doing - but that only accentuates and perpetuated a problem which has been going on for years now - the PC gaming/enthusiast community is getting the 10 foot pole shoved up its ass all from all different angles.
 
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It is already causing issues in some games. Watch in 60fps compatible browser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKaQ5kUfaLE

Despite higher FPS it stutters like crazy, almost looks like 30fps at the times. Thanks to the way current gen consoles work today games are going to be VRAM hogs and 3.5gb is easily reached, especially when you go over 1080p. You could of course turn down the settings to reduce VRAM usage but whats the point of brand new high end card if you cant push it, especially considering last gen card runs the same game almost flawlessly maxed out.

Those cards aren't using anything close to the same FOV.
 
Heh, don't usually read pcper, but clicked that link for fun and surprised pcper would even show these craptastic frametime graphs, but true to form they to put on a brave face for nvidia and try to somehow put a positive spin on this.

But wow those look really b-b-b-bad, even for COD.
 
BF4_3840x2160_PLOT_0.png


Well, isn't that a nice graph. And no, it doesn't matter those were unrealistically high settings for BF4. The article is proof enough that there will be huge issues when 970's RAM is filled and that is something to be more and more expected as newer games come out. There are already games out there that show the very same thing at 1080p.
 
if nvidia doesn't release a driver/firmware update to make the 970 a 3.5 gb card, is there any chance a third party could?
 
People need to stay active on this so they see the prob isn't going away.

I agree with this statement, everyone needs to call Newegg, Amazon, etc. whichever retailer they purchased their 970 from if they are looking for a refund. The problem here is that if Nvidia gets away with this, we will get more of this kind of misrepresentation of specs in the future.

Over at OCN some people are really starting to become babies over this whole situation and its a shame that the discussion has really gone south. I'm getting tired of seeing people keep defending that the 970 is ok with 3.5GB's while we were promised 4GB, then add the slow as hell 512GB that's making it even worse.

With the market right now, its a no win situation considering that June we could see the 390/390X and if Nvidia decides to answer back with a 980 ti w/ 6GB ram. Buying a 780 w/ 6GB ram right now is tough if you can find one at a decent price. Then as some have said before, resale value in a few months of the 970 could be bad and the 290X will be worse with the new cards on the way.
 
I stay away from ocn for a reason. That place can really be fanboy central. They really need to be more liberal in banning some of the trolls.
 
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