Should you be compensated for the GTX 970 issues and spec changes?

[Subyman]

Haven't had any issues with my 970 setup. Kind of weird to know the specs were not as advertised. I made my decision based on performance, but its still a bummer to be misled by the specs. I'd think a free steam game or something would be enough to calm the concerns. I may be more inclined to wait out future launches instead of buying day one.

 

[3DVagabond]

Here you go!

That's really bad. Using avg fps when they are the champions of frame times.

 

[3DVagabond]

Sometimes I wonder if companies (even AMD) make their card specifically run very well on current popular benchmarks just to sell their cards, instead of making cards that actually stick to their claim of "running all of the today's and tomorrow's (NOT) games at blazing speed".

Considering opinions are formed on cards from games etc. currently used to bench test and nothing else, they'd be foolish not to do every bit of optimizing they can for those games and not others as it wouldn't help sales.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I don't own one of these so I didn't vote, but I think that as a show of good faith to GTX 970 buyers NVIDIA should do something to compensate for providing inaccurate specifications.

The choice between a game code, a credit towards a GTX 980 upgrade along the lines of EVGA's step-up, or a credit/voucher towards another NVIDIA product seems appropriate IMO.

I agree. I dont own the card, but my two cents anyway. I think owners should be compensated. Granted the performance is still the same as the benchmarks showed. But you also buy a card in anticipation of performance in other games. The card was advertised as 4gb vram. If I understand the AT article correctly, if a game uses between 3.5 and 4.0 gb, the performance will be lower than a buyer would expect based on the 4gb that was advertised. So I think some sort of compensation is warranted. The best solution would be to simply take back any card that was bought before the true memory design was made public. Barring that, some sort of steam credit or credit toward a future nvidia purchase would be fair.

 

[EatGamer]

Hey. Sup. How are we holding up?

So some of the modders might know me from ocn, twitter, reddit or even in person but besides being a lurker on the forums, I'm actually the NVIDIA GeForce social media guy. I work for NVIDIA out here in Santa Clara, CA.

I know there's a lot of back and forth talking about is or isn't the 970 a problem, what's the impact, what's next? Let me jump in here and give my 2 cents. While the 970 is just as amazing today as it was a month ago our communication as a company has clearly been problematic.

I get it. I understand why GTX 970 owners are upset.

We posted stats. We didn't properly explain the memory architecture. We never intended to deceive anyone but despite our best intentions many of you got information that you thought you could trust and made decisions based on it.

We let you down.

We screwed up.

So here's where it gets dicey for me: I really think the 970 is an awesome card. I STILL think it's an awesome card and as a gamer and as an NVIDIA employee I can't help but think it wouldn't get the praise it has if it weren't every bit as incredible as I like to think it is.

But, with that said, others might feel different. They might feel deceived and maybe you even feel like you don't have any options. You do.

So, if any of you don't want the card now, knowing what you know, you should send it back. Get a refund or an exchange. Do what will give you the best gaming experience possible and if you need help to get that done let me know.

I can help.

 

[ocre]

PM sent

 

[Black Octagon]

Hey. Sup. How are we holding up?

So some of the modders might know me from ocn, twitter, reddit or even in person but besides being a lurker on the forums, I'm actually the NVIDIA GeForce social media guy. I work for NVIDIA out here in Santa Clara, CA.

I know there's a lot of back and forth talking about is or isn't the 970 a problem, what's the impact, what's next? Let me jump in here and give my 2 cents. While the 970 is just as amazing today as it was a month ago our communication as a company has clearly been problematic.

I get it. I understand why GTX 970 owners are upset.

We posted stats. We didn't properly explain the memory architecture. We never intended to deceive anyone but despite our best intentions many of you got information that you thought you could trust and made decisions based on it.

We let you down.

We screwed up.

So here's where it gets dicey for me: I really think the 970 is an awesome card. I STILL think it's an awesome card and as a gamer and as an NVIDIA employee I can't help but think it wouldn't get the praise it has if it weren't every bit as incredible as I like to think it is.

But, with that said, others might feel different. They might feel deceived and maybe you even feel like you don't have any options. You do.

So, if any of you don't want the card now, knowing what you know, you should send it back. Get a refund or an exchange. Do what will give you the best gaming experience possible and if you need help to get that done let me know.

I can help.

Thank you. Can you tell us when an official communication on NVIDIA.com or GEFORCE.com is expected?

 

[guskline]

EatGamer, I just sent you a PM.

 

[jackstar7]

So, if any of you don't want the card now, knowing what you know, you should send it back. Get a refund or an exchange. Do what will give you the best gaming experience possible and if you need help to get that done let me know.

I can help.

Not an owner, but have seen some say that their retailer of choice (newegg specifically as I recall) would not accept a return.

Is nVidia going to do anything to help these folks out?

 

[Face2Face]

First, I would confirm EatGamer actually works for NVIDIA and is not some scammer. So no one send any of your cards to some random address and hope for a refund...

Im sorry, but this sounds very unprofessional coming from an NVIDIA employee-

Hey. Sup. How are we holding up?

 

[Genx87]

Probably should be some compensation. Whether or not one can sue and actually collect that would require the plantiffs prove damages. In this case I think it would would be pretty difficult to prove damages due to the benchmarks are a known quantity. So how were the plantiffs damaged by having a slower segment of memory that is used in edge cases they didnt know about when purchasing the card?? And would that be an expected performance drop regardless of the underlying technical reasons? And then if there are damages what are they? I saw somebody claim 50 bucks. Doubtful. 15 might be closer but maybe even that would be high.

 

[jackstar7]

First, I would confirm EatGamer actually works for NVIDIA and is not some scammer. So no one send any of your cards to some random address and hope for a refund...

Im sorry, but this sounds very unprofessional coming from an NVIDIA employee-

Same person(?)/username did jump on [H] as well. Probably elsewhere.

While I agree he's playing it casual, I am hopeful people do have a recourse.

 

[WelshBloke]

Im sorry, but this sounds very unprofessional coming from an NVIDIA employee-

I'm actually the NVIDIA GeForce social media guy.

Sounds fairly standard for a social media bod to be honest.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'll probably never buy a 970 now, but if I did own one:

It would be great to have the option in drivers to show the available VRAM as just the full-speed 3.5 GB., and/or a way to disable all use of the 512.

That way any games that allocate based on card RAM won't try to use the 512 bad RAM, killing performance.

It would take away any uncertainty about the driver code that tries to use the 512 safely not working for future games after nvidia stops putting in the extra work for per-game support.

 

[ocre]

Think nvidia is gonna cram windows, app, and driver junk into that 500mb. That could make a difference for sure.

Anyway, sent this guy a pm, eatgamer and no response. Maybe I am impatient but I have had a support ticket go to a level 2 agent and he hasn't responded now going on 2 days.

My card is nvidia branded and they are they ones who built it. Seems they are willing to put pressure on their partners and etailers but........


I am not sure nvidia knows what they are doing right now. Pretty sure some rogue employees were trying to help but the company is scrambling now and praying this is all a bad dream.

It's not nvidia. Has anyone heard back from this nvidia agent or was it just for show?

 

[Sohaltang]

Anyone checked into the 980M or the 970M. The 980m has the same 256 bit bus with 64 ROPS, the 970M has 192 bit bus and 48 ROPS

 

[NomanA]

Think nvidia is gonna cram windows, app, and driver junk into that 500mb. That could make a difference for sure.

Keep in mind, that in full-screen exclusive mode, an application can have access to pretty much the whole VRAM uncontested. VRAM tied to Windows processes (explorer, DWM) can be entirely swapped out to RAM (if the full screen application is hogging VRAM) and is only brought back in, when you alt-tab out, or close the full screen application.

When running a windowed game however, there are lot of low hanging fruits, when it comes to figuring out the best way to fill the 0.5GB portion.

 

[n0x1ous]

Anyone checked into the 980M or the 970M. The 980m has the same 256 bit bus with 64 ROPS, the 970M has 192 bit bus and 48 ROPS

Yeah the 970m has that whole block disabled therefore sidestepping the desktop 970 memory issue.

970M is what I would presume would be a desktop 960ti should they release one.

 

[NickelPlate]

First, I would confirm EatGamer actually works for NVIDIA and is not some scammer. So no one send any of your cards to some random address and hope for a refund...

Im sorry, but this sounds very unprofessional coming from an NVIDIA employee-

Those were my thoughts as well.

 

[Elixer]

We let you down.

We screwed up.
...

So, if any of you don't want the card now, knowing what you know, you should send it back. Get a refund or an exchange. Do what will give you the best gaming experience possible and if you need help to get that done let me know.

I can help.

That should have been the response from Nvidia on day 1.

Maybe Nvidia is finally getting the message, it is better to disclose full details, than not to.

Nice job.

 

[Pneumothorax]

I should've mentioned that a Nvidia rep PeterS on their GeForce.com forums is helping people out. His offer sounds almost the same as eat gamer here. I PM'd him yesterday and today viola newegg changed their mind and allowed a return today for store credit. This situation should've never happened, but I have to begrudgingly give Nvidia some props for at least trying to help us make returns/exchanges instead of putting a team of lawyers in and doing what lawyers do best: deny, deny, deny

 

[SlowSpyder]

I should've mentioned that a Nvidia rep PeterS on their GeForce.com forums is helping people out. I PM'd him yesterday and today viola newegg changed their mind and allowed a return today for store credit. This situation should've never happened, but I have to begrudgingly give Nvidia some props for at least trying to help us make returns/exchanges instead of putting a team of lawyers in and doing what lawyers do best: deny, deny, deny

Yea, I think that is the right way to handle it for those who really aren't happy with their purchase in light of this new information. Good for them to make it right, even if it means a sale is lost. :thumbsup:

 

[xthetenth]

Yea, I think that is the right way to handle it for those who really aren't happy with their purchase in light of this new information. Good for them to make it right, even if it means a sale is lost. :thumbsup:

In my case if I can get a return it'll cost them one sale instead of the next few, so it's likely a win in the end.

 

[dualsmp]

Certainly and Nvidia lied when they said that it was a communication issue between their marketing and tech dpts, thing is that tools like GPUZ were reporting 64 ROPs, this mean that even the bios was filled with fraudulous infos to abuse the consumer, are bioses designed by marketing people at Nvidia.??.

Let's not start with the trolling. Images such as this is not permitted here and this is not 4chan either.

-Rvenger

 

[ShintaiDK]

GPU-Z is hardcoded. It doesnt read it from the card.