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

[Pneumothorax]

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.

For sure, if Nvidia's reps weren't helpful I would've ruled them out for a long time.

 

[ViRGE]

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

GPU-Z is not hard coded. It reads from the registers. Which means it's only as accurate as W1zzard's knowledge of the register layout.

Some things that can't be read are hardcoded (transistors, die size, gpu name, directx support), everything that can be read is read

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/nvidia-maxwell-speculation-thread.50568/page-142#post-1821218

The reason GPU-Z gets it wrong is because GPU-Z finds that all 4 ROP partitions are active, and doesn't currently know about the ability to partially disable a ROP (or doesn't know how to read that specific scenario). As a result GPU-Z believes all 64 ROPs are active.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/nvidia-maxwell-speculation-thread.50568/page-142#post-1821198

 

[Magic Carpet]

Nice find, Virge :thumbsup:

 

[notty22]

The launch gpu-z showed 32 rops for my 970. I made a post for it, (red)

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36754925&postcount=242

 

[ViRGE]

The launch gpu-z showed 32 rops for my 970. I made a post for it, (red)

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36754925&postcount=242

That would be because it didn't know about Maxwell 2 having 16 ROPs per partition, hence it assumed it was still 8. Half of the science is just reading registers, the other half is correctly interpreting it. W1zzard fixed his internal build for his review, but the public build wasn't fixed until 0.8.0.

 

[BFG10K]

On the one hand, the performance hasn't changed, and there's still technically 4GB VRAM.

On the other hand, 64 ROPS was false advertising, but nVidia said nobody noticed it in the reviews. So I wonder if reviews under-stated the ROPs (e.g. listing 16), would they have gone equally unnoticed by nVidia?

 

[Abwx]

On the one hand, the performance hasn't changed, and there's still technically 4GB VRAM.

On the other hand, 64 ROPS was false advertising, but nVidia said nobody noticed it in the reviews. So I wonder if reviews under-stated the ROPs (e.g. listing 16), would they have gone equally unnoticed by nVidia?

Legaly only the 64 ROP issue could be used in courts, the 4GB claim cant be negated despite 1/12 RAM being very slow, ironicaly the missings ROPs is not an issue perf wise but the weird RAM partition is....

 

[EliteRetard]

Actually the RAM is a legal issue as well, they claimed 224gb/s and since it can't use both sets of RAM at once the best it can do is ~192gb/s. The 512 does ~28gb/s, looks like they added the two numbers.

Since we love car analogies, that's like adding the speed of your riding lawnmower to the speed of your sports car and claiming a higher top speed.

 

[ViRGE]

On the one hand, the performance hasn't changed, and there's still technically 4GB VRAM.

On the other hand, 64 ROPS was false advertising, but nVidia said nobody noticed it in the reviews. So I wonder if reviews under-stated the ROPs (e.g. listing 16), would they have gone equally unnoticed by nVidia?

Technical marketing would have picked up on it right away. They are the group specifically tasked to read reviews, and they thought it had 64 ROPs.

 

[Abwx]

Actually the RAM is a legal issue as well, they claimed 224gb/s and since it can't use both sets of RAM at once the best it can do is ~192gb/s. The 512 does ~28gb/s, looks like they added the two numbers.



Since we love car analogies, that's like adding the speed of your riding lawnmower to the speed of your sports car and claiming a higher top speed.

Ryan Smith pointed that in some instance it can reach 224GB/s even if it s a marginal case, when there s read on the 3.5GB partition while write occur on the 0.5GB partition, even if it last 0.000001s it is enough despite the transfered data being only 224KB, the flow will still be 224GB/s...

 

[Magic Carpet]

Technical marketing would have picked up on it right away. They are the group specifically tasked to read reviews, and they thought it had 64 ROPs.

3 months and no nvidia tech pointed out to their mistake? Don't believe that.

They would have corrected themselves, for better image. And they didn't.

Which leads to this: they didn't care about the customer.

Only when they got caught, they started to make comments about how this irrelevant, et cetera. And well, you can get a refund for this amazing card.

But hey, they have sold a bunch of cards, made lots of money. Isn't it what the most important for the business?

The most people wouldn't bother replacing/refunding the cards since, well the said specs don't affect the performance much, right?

Sure as hell, had the people known this before pulling the trigger, they may not have made as many sales. And in this business, numbers matter the most. One has to be naive, not to understand that.

 

[Rhezuss]

I don't know how I feel about this. I'm not always checking hardware news but for me it's the first time I see something like this happening. In the past 8 years I mostly bought AMD cards because they gave me what I was looking for and for the price I was willing to pay. I switched to Nvidia for the 970 because I heard and saw so much good things about this card.

My opinion is two fold:

1) The performances of the cards in the benches we see and what theyr are now are still great for it's price point, nothing to complain about. It's a great piece of hardware that delivers.

2) If Nvidia had been honest from the start would they have sold that much cards in the first few weeks? Is that a stunt on their part to up the sales around the launch date? I'm not sure I feel comfortable if that's the case.

So with what we know, how could they've messed the specs like that in the first place? The paranoid mind could think it was intended but the naive one would say it was an honest mistake.

I'm gonna keep the card anyways since I sold my 7950 last month, so my 970 wasn't that expensive. But I still paid for the original specs and the longevity of this card for the price. I would ask for a significant "refund" from Nvidia in the form of game codes or MIR/checks actually worth something.

It's a pretty f'ed up situation and I don't like that.

 

[skipsneeky2]

When you buy a 4gb card and get a actual 3.5gb card,you better call Saul!.

In all seriousness if i had bought a 970 prior to this issue arising for sli/1440p or the likes i would be clicking that yes in that vote poll and rallying with you guys.

 

[Rhezuss]

I must add though that this "970" purchase was not the best experience for me lol

First I bought the EVGA SSC ACX 2.0 version thinking it was the actual "ACX 2.0" cooler. This might be part my fault for not checking more into this but the real ACX 2.0 cooler is only on the FTW edition of the 970, not the lower editions.

Second, I got a banshee card that cries when I game. The coil whine is there, pretty present but i'm used to it now...

Third, the revised specs...

Not the smoothest of upgrades I must say...

 

[B-Riz]

Nothing will come of true rectification with everyone just voting in a thread on an internet forum.

nVidia still lists the 970 as a 256-bit card with 4GB; this is technically false, as the full 4GB cannot be accessed in one pool.

Since they are a California company, I suggest filling out a complaint with the CA attorney generals office.

http://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company

 

[ShintaiDK]

Nothing will come of true rectification with everyone just voting in a thread on an internet forum.

nVidia still lists the 970 as a 256-bit card with 4GB; this is technically false, as the full 4GB cannot be accessed in one pool.

Since they are a California company, I suggest filling out a complaint with the CA attorney generals office.

http://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company

I assume you gonna start cases against all laptop manufactors that sells IGP only laptops where you cant access the entire pool of memory supplied as one.

And its not technically false.

 

[EightySix Four]

I assume you gonna start cases against all laptop manufactors that sells IGP only laptops where you cant access the entire pool of memory supplied as one.

And its not technically false.

I know you said it sarcastically, but that particular marketing has always deeply bothered me.

 

[imaheadcase]

Not even remotely the same, that was due to people not understanding how the capacity was represented.

Exactly the same.

 

[Pantalaimon]

I assume you gonna start cases against all laptop manufactors that sells IGP only laptops where you cant access the entire pool of memory supplied as one.

You mean where the IGP shares the with the system memory? I don't about how it is in the US, but where I live, I've seen the specs specifying it, if that is the case with the laptop.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Do not own 970 so I did not vote in the poll, but I'm of the opinion that those affected should be compensated for lower performance when going over 3.5GB.

The argument that this is the same card with the same performance as it was a month ago is bogus. People make decisions based on theoretical specs and benchmarks, and at the time of 970 release those benchmarks never tested the performance penalty from having lesser specs after going over the 3.5GB because every reviewer assumed that there would be no penalty. Nvidia didn't tell anybody about lesser specs that would affect performance after going over 3.5GB, so reviewers had no reason to test the performance penalty, and the end customers bought the card believing there would be no performanec degradation when using full 4GB. Nvidia is 100% responsible for this snaffu. The bottom line is that the card does not perform as it was advertised at the time of release.

This is exactly how this whole issue came about - people started noticing performance degradation after going over 3.5GB, something that Nvidia has failed to mention. IMHO people should be compensated. Ideally Nvidia should work with retailers to give them full refund or give them $50 off/game voucher of their choice.

 

[B-Riz]

Intel HD graphics are not the topic.

And Intel has a nice reference about their technology. http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-029090.htm

nVidia came out 5 months after the fact through a third party website about the "oops" and still list the 970 specs with out the real story behind how the memory access is "working".

 

[TeknoBug]

1080p image quality doesn't benefit noticeably from textures of over 2K resolution. Which game with 2K textures requires 3.5GB of VRAM (not just allocates it, but actually uses it)?

1440p or higher will have more use for bigger texture resolutions. However, which game remains smoothly playable at 1440p with just a single GTX 970 while using over 3.5GB of VRAM?



Such as?

From what I've read, Shadow of Mordor, Dying Light and SKyrim mods are choking the 970.

I assume you gonna start cases against all laptop manufactors that sells IGP only laptops where you cant access the entire pool of memory supplied as one.

And its not technically false.

Look up about Apple getting slammed for selling 16GB iPhones with only ~8-9GB available, of course the OS is taking up a large chunk of it and the user needs to understand that, also it occured in the past with that iPod Nano. But IGP's uses onboard system RAM, should be common knowledge about that.

However anything is possible.

 

[TeknoBug]

2x post sry

 

[HumblePie]

Well I was wondering why furmark would stutter somewhat when running at high AA level on my screen with my 970 sli cards. Now I know. Ugh just ugh. I would really hope for a recall on Nvidia's part to fix the issue. Like others I've been buying ATI cards for awhile now as they have had the best bang for the buck cards until the 970 initial release came out. This was one of the few Nvidia cards I bought in years. With this fiasco it might be my last if they don't rectify the situation with their customers.

 

[Elixer]

Well I was wondering why furmark would stutter somewhat when running at high AA level on my screen with my 970 sli cards. Now I know. Ugh just ugh. I would really hope for a recall on Nvidia's part to fix the issue. Like others I've been buying ATI cards for awhile now as they have had the best bang for the buck cards until the 970 initial release came out. This was one of the few Nvidia cards I bought in years. With this fiasco it might be my last if they don't rectify the situation with their customers.

There is no issue with the card, that is how it was made by design.

The issue is that nvidia knowingly lied about the specs, hoping nobody would notice.
The "reviewers" bought everything nvidia's PR team gave them, hook, line, and sinker, without questioning anything.

It took the community to break this wide open, not the "reviewers".
Funny thing though is that the "reviewers" are now doing spin control for nvidia saying there is, most likely, nothing to worry about.
We all know why they are doing that, all because they don't want nvidia to stop giving them free stuff, so they can do "reviews".
(You know that if they actually bought the card in question, and then the real facts came out about the lower specs, they would also be PO'ed)

Trust has been lost here on both nvidia, and the "reviewers".