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

[jpiniero]

The funny thing is that the rumors had pegged the 970 at $399 before the launch and that they had dropped it to $329 at the last second. Now we know why of course.

I'm sure there are plenty of people at nVidia saying "I told you so!" about the fiasco.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Did you ever get a response from Roy Reed?

They offered a 10% off coupon code for an XFX Double Dissipation R9 290x from newegg + an XFX Radeon hat. So it would end up $285 AR. I think if I would have returned the 970 I would have jumped on the $300 AR MSI Lightning R9 290x from newegg though. Still, an R9 290x for $285 is a pretty hot deal and I bet they get a lot of people to return their 970s for it. Seems like the 290x is creeping up on the 290 for the best value for your dollar GPU now.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

The funny thing is that the rumors had pegged the 970 at $399 before the launch and that they had dropped it to $329 at the last second. Now we know why of course.

I'm sure there are plenty of people at nVidia saying "I told you so!" about the fiasco.

I'm surprised they didn't launch at $400 considering that's what the disappointing 770 launched at.

 

[3DVagabond]

Because THAT is what consumer protection laws are all about. If someone breaks the law and aren't willing to fix the problem as outlined by the laws, then they face potential punitive actions if acted upon by the consumer harmed.

I've never seen any law that said they couldn't give you a full refund as compensation for a product. The company might decide to upgrade you, but I don't think that's a legal obligation.

 

[3DVagabond]

Again go ahead and waste your time(not to mention money) over a GPU that if they offer to refund in full, should be plenty of compensation. Sounds to me like you just want a 980 for 970 prices. Good luck on that. I imagine by the time your situation is resolved one way or another you would be able to buy multiple 980s or whatever card you wanted for the cost to the courts and maybe even out of your pocket, and both the 970 and 980 would be sufficiently outclassed as to make the whole thing a total waste.

If you take them to small claims court the expense simply for an nVidia lawyer to show up for the hearing would be prohibitive. Add to that in most instances, whether right or wrong, the judge is going to side with the consumer. They'd simply give him his money back instead of going through all of that.

 

[3DVagabond]

Yep they are just so big they take the small loss (to them) and expect to make 10x as much as the return may cost of not more.

Are you sure? I know for example that large companies often have unlimited returns with some vendors, no questions asked. Other than the expense of processing the return of the product for credit, which is a fixed cost for these companies, it costs them nothing.

 

[3DVagabond]

snip

I don't disagree with your position at all and hope that you get justice. I just thought though that you want to hold nVidia to the letter of the law but you yourself don't pay sales tax. Just find it a bit one sided.

This is just an observation an doesn't reflect at all on you exercising your rights as far as your purchase. I personally think this is completely premeditated by nVidia and they should have to not only make it right with their customers, but should also be hit with fines as well.

 

[3DVagabond]

That sentence makes it sound like NV purposely duped their customers...such a company?, this isn't a conspiracy.

I can't come up with a scenario where nVidia can claim they didn't know what the specs of the GPU or didn't know what was being claimed by them as the specs. They actually design the drivers to work around the limited specs as best they can. This isn't a simple proof reading error. It's making false claims about the specifications of the product.

 

[3DVagabond]

I didn't know NV had HQ in SA Texas?....I dont see any state strong handing nvidia either..just wishful thinking...

They aren't in a country of only 4 million where if the govt. pushes too hard the company just decides it isn't worth selling there anymore. Texas alone has ~6x the population of NZ. States can fine you and if you don't want to follow their laws you can't sell your product there.

 

[myocardia]

I just hope there is enough negative reaction to prevent this type of thing happening next time around. If things continue like this they will start selling 10 TB hard drives and you open the package to find a 2TB HD and a spindle of DVD-RWs.

This. BTW, I hereby nominate this post for post of the year, 2015 edition.

 

[SoulWager]

My opinion is kind of split on this. Yes, Nvidia screwed up the marketing, but it doesn't change the performance from what the reviews/benchmarks showed at release, so it's hard to claim Nvidia was deliberately misrepresenting the product. It would be a completely different story if the video cards sent to reviewers had all the L2/ROPs enabled, and the cards that hit shelves didn't.

What do I think Nvidia should do? They have a few options:

Bin a new part with the originally advertised spec, and offer a 1:1 trade to anyone that bought a 970 before the spec was updated.(may have lead time issues)

Full refund of purchase price.

Discounted upgrade to 980.(if customer wants)

Partial refund and downgrade to 960.(if customer wants)

 

[skipsneeky2]

I'm surprised they didn't launch at $400 considering that's what the disappointing 770 launched at.

I'm glad they didn't. Took a while but i got a card better then 780 with a bit more memory,faster performance with lower power consumption and a cheaper price then what my 770 cost me.

Much more exciting then the 770 costing me what a 670 did that is for sure,7850 i ended up eventually using full time cause of stuttering with 670 in BF3 ended up being the best bang for buck gpu i ever enjoyed since 8800gts 512mb.

 

[railven]

My opinion is kind of split on this. Yes, Nvidia screwed up the marketing, but it doesn't change the performance from what the reviews/benchmarks showed at release, so it's hard to claim Nvidia was deliberately misrepresenting the product. It would be a completely different story if the video cards sent to reviewers had all the L2/ROPs enabled, and the cards that hit shelves didn't.

What do I think Nvidia should do? They have a few options:

Bin a new part with the originally advertised spec, and offer a 1:1 trade to anyone that bought a 970 before the spec was updated.(may have lead time issues)

Full refund of purchase price.

Discounted upgrade to 980.(if customer wants)

Partial refund and downgrade to 960.(if customer wants)

Disagree. Reviewers were under the impression that the hardware was similar to the GTX 980 and in benchmarks used it performed in line with these claims.

Once this new information showed up, review sites put the GTX 980 and GTX 970 to tests that would stress the differences and of course the GTX 970 showed issues were the GTX 980 did not. This fundamentally changes the performance (behavior) of the card.

And before anyone starts to chime in that "that's 4K resolution at <30 FPS, blah blah unplayable" those tests were used specifically to stress the differences of the hardware and prove that there is a performance hit.

Hell, I could probably load up 3.76GBs worth of mods in Skyrim and get hitching that won't exist on a GTX 980.

 

[guskline]

Compensation? At a minimum, the right to a full refund of the GTX 970 cards purchased before Nvidia disclosed last week the info on less ROPs and the manner in which the highest 5.Gb of memory is handled through the memory controller (an asterisk by the 4G Vram on the box with a notation below of "effective memory/performance would have put us on notice". The ROP amount was simply incorrect.

Simple question. Why didn't Nvidia disclose this information in ANY of it's literature at the time of release?

Whether the mistake is honest or intentional (for another day, especially if it can be shown that the engineering documentation showed these differences to the marketing department who writes the ads and the marketing department trumped them for market advantage purposes), it was made by Nvidia. Both are departments of Nvidia.

Pitting the marketing department against the engineering department is understandable of fans of a company. However, I sure hope it isn't the strategy of the company.

 

[MrFox]

Disagree. Reviewers were under the impression that the hardware was similar to the GTX 980 and in benchmarks used it performed in line with these claims.

Once this new information showed up, review sites put the GTX 980 and GTX 970 to tests that would stress the differences and of course the GTX 970 showed issues were the GTX 980 did not. This fundamentally changes the performance (behavior) of the card.

And before anyone starts to chime in that "that's 4K resolution at <30 FPS, blah blah unplayable" those tests were used specifically to stress the differences of the hardware and prove that there is a performance hit.

Hell, I could probably load up 3.76GBs worth of mods in Skyrim and get hitching that won't exist on a GTX 980.

Hmmmmm sort of like this ?


The center area was an interior cell with the wonderful lack of memory bandwidth.

The VRAM is not purging They need to fix the drivers.


Video from below data


http://www.twitch.tv/reynard131/c/6007886

 

[007ELmO]

Fawk I have 2 970s in SLI I didn't install yet from NewEgg, but I bought them last year. I wanted to use 1080p x 3, it sounds like they are not fit for duty? HOW DO WE GET MULA BACK?

 

[superxero044]

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That's all I have for an update.

 

[007ELmO]

I"m talking to NewEgg's chat right now. My purchase was from late October. What's your suggestion on a replacement set of cards? I'm asking for NewEgg Credit for the 2 I bought (since mine are still new in box!).

I wonder if 2x980s would be an OK replacement, I need to power 3 x1080p resolution. I might go back to AMD because of this fiasco.

EDIT: NewEgg is "filing an internal request" for me. Guess I'll get the same response as you, wait 7 days, and if you didn't hear back from us, well you're outta luck.

 

[UaVaj]

And before anyone starts to chime in that "that's 4K resolution at <30 FPS, blah blah unplayable" those tests were used specifically to stress the differences of the hardware and prove that there is a performance hit.

:whiste:

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

I"m talking to NewEgg's chat right now. My purchase was from late October. What's your suggestion on a replacement set of cards? I'm asking for NewEgg Credit for the 2 I bought (since mine are still new in box!).

I wonder if 2x980s would be an OK replacement, I need to power 3 x1080p resolution. I might go back to AMD because of this fiasco.

EDIT: NewEgg is "filing an internal request" for me. Guess I'll get the same response as you, wait 7 days, and if you didn't hear back from us, well you're outta luck.

Just tell um you want full value credit, you didn't use them so it should be cool if it aint then cause a stink see what happens.

 

[Elixer]

I wonder if 2x980s would be an OK replacement, I need to power 3 x1080p resolution. I might go back to AMD because of this fiasco.

Yes, reward Nvidia for lying to everyone by buying their more expensive card. That will show them!

Come on people, think a bit.

Look at your requirements, and look at the games you will be using, and then factor in Nvidia's lies, and then, finally make your decision.

 

[.vodka]

+1 to elixer's comment.

If you're gonna do multi monitor high resolution gaming, 290X's XDMA crossfire is a better solution than 980's improved SLI over Kepler, in frame latency and uniformity, which translates in smoother gameplay regardless of the FPS being pumped out.

Keep that in mind, too.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Yes, reward Nvidia for lying to everyone by buying their more expensive card. That will show them!



Come on people, think a bit.



Look at your requirements, and look at the games you will be using, and then factor in Nvidia's lies, and then, finally make your decision.

How about being objective, not jumping to conclusions, and realizing that the 980 is a good card and in some games may be the better solution?

 

[Erenhardt]

OCuk is giving full refunds for any 970 purchased.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27563991&postcount=5799

Feel for you, seen customers asking for help on their dead forum and FB page, they just seem to be ignoring customers and spouting same old script.

This is how OcUK is different good or bad news we keep our customers informed around the clock and are very pro-active, when I was made aware of this last Tuesday meetings were had with the owners, then our sister company Caseking the following day announced they would take all RMAs back at their own cost. OcUK had to do a lot more work in the background due to volumes sold but that following day we had a meeting with EVGA and other board partners and launched that certain brands we could now take returns on as they had agreed to support OcUK. We then gave the remaining brands a deadline (end of week) as we intended to accept all cards back with or without their help, so potential big financial cost to OcUK but thankfully nearly all brands gave us a positive answer by our deadline, others soon came back to us after we made our public announcement and only Gigabyte was left in the end who promised us an answer by next week, but OcUK will cover all cost should they not support us.

This is how OcUK is different, I fight like crazy to get customers best deals, exclusives, customer support and will happily work around the clock to achieve it.

I hope those guys sort you out I really do and if they do not in say a week or so let us know and we shall see if we can step up and sort what they failed to do.

That is some quality Customer SUPPORT right there!

 

[007ELmO]

Let's see how NewEgg reacts.