Return my gtx 970?

H

Huskernation

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 11, 2011
Messages
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I have a gtx 970 unopened that I can return. Considering the news about the memory issue would you suggest I return it and maybe get a 290x? I am gaming at 1440p. Not sure what to do.
 
I woudn't necessarily go on and return the card quite yet. Perhaps Nvidia will issue a bios fix maybe?

There are some very cheap R9 290s out there at the moment though ;)
 
Yes return it and get the 290x. At that resolution, you will see some problems.

I was just about to order the 970 tomorrow. And I plan on getting a 32" Samsung with 2640x1440 res. So now I'm getting the MSI 290x Lightning for $349.
 
if you hadn't heard about it, would you even be asking this? use your own experience with the card to decide.
 
By the end of the week, numerous sites will have benchmark analysis regarding this controversy and that might help your decision on way or the other.
 
Odellus said:
if you hadn't heard about it, would you even be asking this? use your own experience with the card to decide.
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He has an UNOPEND box, so how is he supposed to know? He has a valid concern, and only has a short time to return the 970.
 
atp1916 said:
I woudn't necessarily go on and return the card quite yet. Perhaps Nvidia will issue a bios fix ;)
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It is a hardware, physical tracing change done at the die manufacturing plant, it is impossible to be modified or fixed by a simple read only memory chip
 
atp1916 said:
I woudn't necessarily go on and return the card quite yet. Perhaps Nvidia will issue a bios fix maybe?

There are some very cheap R9 290s out there at the moment though ;)
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Can't be resolved with a BIOS update.
 
Id wait two days or so. Im sure well have much better benchmarks at that time.

While Nvidia outright lying to our faces pisses me off, If they provide the better product id still stick with it.
 
I would return it just on principle alone. When you bought it from Newegg, did the specs say 4GB of video ram? If you bought it based on this, then return it.
 
OP send me the unopened card, I will test it for you for a couple years making sure the memory on the card is up to snuff.
 
If it were me I would return the f-ing thing. Not because the card performs poorly but because of the shady tactics going on here. 4 months have passed when they could have on their own fessed up to the boo boo's on the spec sheets. Seriously Nvidia, you didn't realize that the GTX 970's were being marketed and sold as 64 rop cards?
 
Does it meet your needs/budget? If yes, keep it. If no, return it. Don't get caught up in all this controversy. Im happy with my 970. Does that excuse nVidia? Not at all. I don't particularly care about all the bullshit though. The 970 is basically the best reasonably priced card out there.
 
AMD cards tend to last longer due to nvidia abandoning optimizations on older cards. Next year, I'll bet you 290 will beat the GTX 970 easily. Probably the 980 as well.

I sold my 2 970s btw. Coil whine is enough to ignore the 900 series altogether.
 
Huskernation said:
I have a gtx 970 unopened that I can return. Considering the news about the memory issue would you suggest I return it and maybe get a 290x? I am gaming at 1440p. Not sure what to do.
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Well, it depends on your point of view.

Do you feel that Nvidia falsely advertised the specifications of the card? IF this kind of thing annoys you and you don't want it to happen again, vote with your wallet and return the card.

On the other side of things, if you were happy purchasing the card based on reviews then keep the card. The performance of card will be fine. You might have some stutter in some games at high vram use, but, you might not have any at all.
 
Why are people flipping out about this? It has no affect on performance in actual games. You have to run synthetic benchmarks to even SEE the issue, and those are not relative to games.

This is all a ridiculous reaction to a non-issue.
 
Sprayingmango said:
Why are people flipping out about this? It has no affect on performance in actual games. You have to run synthetic benchmarks to even SEE the issue, and those are not relative to games.

This is all a ridiculous reaction to a non-issue.
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Time will tell.

If NVidia's driver team is up to the task of "coming out with better heuristics" to properly optimize ram usage, then it may likely be a non-issue in the long run. Currently, however, this is a not-so-small issue. People are already reporting slow-downs in games and there's quite a few videos on youtube to show it.
 
If you had a chance, and you feel that pissed off about it you could.

The 970 is still great performance, but it really is a 3.5gb and not worth the $329 ($359 in my case) IMO.

And just letting you know, Nvidia's drivers have been suckin alot lately too. So you are fucked with either AMD or Nvidia.
 
nVidia drivers have been fine, wtf?!

The card still has access to all 4GB of memory too. People need to stop spreading misinformation. Go watch PCPer's explanation of it for the facts.
 
FWIW, VRAM isn't a bottleneck in my system with dual GTX 970s at 1440p and never was. Even with VRAM usage in the 3800-3900 MB range while playing Shadow of Mordor I never experienced any performance hiccups. The real issue here is that NVIDIA lied in the advertising of the card. Real-world gaming performance doesn't seem to suffer even as VRAM usage approaches the full 4GB.
 
Armenius said:
FWIW, VRAM isn't a bottleneck in my system with dual GTX 970s at 1440p and never was. Even with VRAM usage in the 3800-3900 MB range while playing Shadow of Mordor I never experienced any performance hiccups. The real issue here is that NVIDIA lied in the advertising of the card. Real-world gaming performance doesn't seem to suffer even as VRAM usage approaches the full 4GB.
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That's because in SLI you are most likely seeing the "total" vram usage(of both cards), not individual cards. (unless you changed the settings to show individual card usage)

Honestly, I'm not sure if I would keep or return it.

On 1 hand, you have a good performing GPU 95% of the time, that uses less power than the competition.

On the other hand, considering consoles now have 8GB of ram, we'll probably start to see games use more VRAM on desktops as well, meaning you might be running into the problem more so as new games come out.

Tough call.
 
I'm in the same boat as OP. Ordered my 970 FTW edition almost 2 weeks ago, its still unopened in the box (waiting on mobo/processor/ram to finish my new build) and now all of this is coming out. I do have a 30-day return policy with 2 weeks left on it if I refrain from opening it. Whenever I buy comp parts, I'm looking to future-proof myself as best I can, and it does not seem that this card will do that for me anymore, seeing as VRAM usage in games is only going to go up, and I do plan on moving to 4k eventually (maybe next year, maybe earlier if the price/deals are right) and it sounds like 4k gaming is where the issues start to occur for some.

Overall I'm very disappointed/pissed at Nvidia, this shady marketing "mishap" should not go unpunished. Considering the 290x for the time being and maybe getting a 980/newer card later when the price drops, I really don't know how I'm going to move forward with this. I'm hoping for a quick resolution and some more info ASAP on how they will handle this.

All I want is the specs I paid for. Not to much to ask when shelling out $360+ bucks for "top of the line" hardware.
 
970 isn't going to be future proof for 4k anyway. Best performing card in my budget always gets my money. I don't care about anything else.
 
big_aug said:
970 isn't going to be future proof for 4k anyway. Best performing card in my budget always gets my money. I don't care about anything else.
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the future-proofing statement was more geared towards the rest of my build, but I do expect to get at least a couple years of almost maxed settings on a almost $400 card before it's time to upgrade. This no longer seems to be the case.
 
My stance on this is: the revelation of 970 having 'only' 3.5GB VRAM isn't simply going to cause 970 suddenly stop doing what it was originally designed to do.

If you are worried about the performance of 970 itself, don't, there are already many owners of 970 that can attest to its performance (especially considering that this bug was discovered so late into the release of 970). However if it is the company's ethics or error that worries you or rubs you the wrong way, then return it. I am not particularly happy about it either (the company, not the cards).
 
Huskernation said:
I have a gtx 970 unopened that I can return. Considering the news about the memory issue would you suggest I return it and maybe get a 290x? I am gaming at 1440p. Not sure what to do.
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I would return it. You paid for a full 4 Gb card, not a 3 and a half Gb card that's crippled and you don't know about it.

Its like if you bought 4 slices of pizza but only got 3, wouldn't you raise a ruckus?
 
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The way i see it the resale value of your card has taken a big hit. A lot of the 2nd hand market is made up of people wanting to SLI.

SLI is the usage scenario worst hit by this mess.

Return the card.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
That's because in SLI you are most likely seeing the "total" vram usage(of both cards), not individual cards. (unless you changed the settings to show individual card usage)

Honestly, I'm not sure if I would keep or return it.

On 1 hand, you have a good performing GPU 95% of the time, that uses less power than the competition.

On the other hand, considering consoles now have 8GB of ram, we'll probably start to see games use more VRAM on desktops as well, meaning you might be running into the problem more so as new games come out.

Tough call.
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Yeah, because he's only using 2GB of VRAM at 1440p in Shadow of Mordor... :rolleyes:
 
mw8t said:
The way i see it the resale value of your card has taken a big hit. A lot of the 2nd hand market is made up of people wanting to SLI.

SLI is the usage scenario worst hit by this mess.

Return the card.
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This is very true.

You want multi-card to have eye candy, higher resolutions, more fps. With the limited vram the higher resolution is a no-go. That eye candy uses up vram very quickly so you'll probably run out of vram before gpu power. This leaves increasing fps with less eye candy as the only potential benefit.
 
seanclayton said:
AMD cards tend to last longer due to nvidia abandoning optimizations on older cards. Next year, I'll bet you 290 will beat the GTX 970 easily. Probably the 980 as well.

I sold my 2 970s btw. Coil whine is enough to ignore the 900 series altogether.
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