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

[cmdrdredd]

- What the heck does being able to see the engine mean? Most people wouldn't know squat about an engine just by looking at it. Now a days they are mostly covered by plastic anyhow and need to dive in and see for yourself or rely on the spec sheet, which in this case would have been false.

You can take the cooler off a gtx 970 and see the core. How does that help you? You rely on the spec sheet to tell you what you are looking at.

Most people would be able to tell by looking at it as compared to a computer part. That's a guarantee.

 

[5150Joker]

5150Joker, What did you vote?

*Puts on john kerry face* Initially I voted no but then I vote yes.

 

[KaRLiToS]

Some people are trying to convince themselves it was fine to be lied to.

This is way beyond loyalty.

 

[WelshBloke]

An honest mistake is not a lie and if it is an honest mistake-no compensation necessary.

If its deliberate or not (and I very much doubt that this is deliberate) is pretty irrelevant. You dont get to go "Whoops! Honest mistake there, no biggie" and expect problems to go away.

All that matters is if the product sold is the same as the one advertised.

 

[5150Joker]

Some people are trying to convince themselves it was fine to be lied to.

This is way beyond loyalty.

Or some people realize at the end of the day this isn't a world changing issue and doesn't change the way they use their card or it's performance. There is certainly a cause for concern but the faux outrage is a bit much.

 

[HurleyBird]

An honest mistake is not a lie and if it is an honest mistake-no compensation necessary.

This is wrong in all ways. First, "honest mistakes" are subject to lawsuits all the time, and secondly while no one doubts that publishing the incorrect specs was an honest mistake there is no excuse for not correcting those specs months down the line and only owning up after customers figure out by themselves that something is wrong.

Lol you guys keep saying you only have 3.5GB, do I need to provice screenshots of 3.7+GB in use again? Sheesh

Did you miss the part where he said effective memory? In that regard he is arguably correct. While the GTX 970 does have 4GB of RAM, it behaves more like it has 3.5GB.

 

[Charlie98]

YOU SHOULD NEVER, never defend a company that lied in your face and doesn't actually give a crap about you but only care about their profit.

Really? NV isn't my friend, I don't invite them over for Thanksgiving dinner. It's a for-profit company that doesn't know I exist that I bought a product from.

Anyone who deals with manufactured products and products with technical specs knows that what shows up on the tech sheet and what shows up in the user's hands may not be exactly, perfectly alike. You can come up with all the analogies you want... car tires, motor size, whatever, and it doesn't make a hill of beans difference. The real question comes down to whether or not they did it with intent, and I find it unlikely NV did it in order to deceive it's customers.

Should NV come up with some swag to compensate it's customers? That's what I would do... but seeing the nonsense going on here, they would be damned if they do (not enough!) and damned if they don't (they don't care!)

My GTX970 gets here tomorrow... I'm not pitching a fit, I'm sticking that fine card in my PC and rocking some Modern Warfare, confident I got what I paid for... 'cause I'm not going to be able to tell the difference in real use vs benchmarks or splitting hairs over a spec sheet.

 

[AnandThenMan]

By minor compensation I'm thinking maybe another choice of free games, or maybe a $15 voucher on Steam or something like that. Doesn't have to be anything great, but enough to say "we actually care and are sorry for the mistake".

This was not a mistake, Nvidia knows their own hardware. On the driver level they are handling the architectural "quirks" for lack of a better word so obviously NV knows the exact hardware. And there is simply no way Nvidia didn't notice the wrong specs all this time, no way.

An honest mistake is not a lie and if it is an honest mistake-no compensation necessary.

Not true, mistake or no if you buy a product with stated specs and those are incorrect the consumer did not get what they paid for.

 

[Abwx]

Is it misleading that it was advertised with 64 ROPs? .

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.??.

 

[AnandThenMan]

...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.??.

Yep

 

[DaveSimmons]

It's sold as a 4 GB card when it's really a 3.5 + 512 card.

If I'd bought one to replace my GTX 680 I'd feel deceived at this point. The benchmarks for games at the time were accurate, but the specs were misleading as to the amount of full-speed RAM available as future-proofing for games released after that.

I'd rather they just offer a game or Steam credit than be hit with a class action lawsuit that takes 5 years and just makes a few lawyers richer.

 

[lavaheadache]

No, I'm saying you can look under the hood and see a V6 so they can't say it's a V8...you'll know. This isn't the same at all, not even remotely in the same category. That analogy only works if they told you that you were getting a GTX 980 on the box and shipped you a 970.



Lol you guys keep saying you only have 3.5GB, do I need to provice screenshots of 3.7+GB in use again? Sheesh

You are making no sense. The analogy is perfectly fine. You are changing actual product one is receiving. I only changed what was under the hood vs. what you thought you were buying. I don't know how you are getting this simple thing mixed up.

For all intentional purposes Nvidia could have listed completely incorrect specs yet 100% accurate benchmarks and still be just as wrong.

Does the number cuda cores actually matter to the consumer? Does the number of transistors actually matter? How about how many canooter valves it has? The numbers only matter if you care about whatever it is but no matter what they should accurate and in this case they were not.

 

[badb0y]

Yea, sorry this is pretty indefensible.

Also the first couple of pages of the other thread are hilarious reading them now.

 

[WelshBloke]

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.??.

Gpuz just looks things up in a database doesn't it?

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I've already done it, I bought a 3rd 970 to use on my son's computer to replace the 280 as he's playing DAI on a regular basis. I've already set up the RMA with bhphotovideo. I already have Tri-x 290x on order. I'm sorry, but this crap really makes me angry as I use my 970SLI setup on 1600p and it will be gimped more so than a 290xCF configuration in the future. I would return my 970 SLI configuration in a heartbeat, but stupid newegg doesn't allow returns on vid cards other than exchange for the same model. Selling my SLI 970 cards isn't too palatable either as I will eat over $150 in lost taxes, shipping, and paypal fees.

I think it's unfair to newegg to have them sell my 970 as an open box because Nvidia lied, and I wouldn't ask them to.

 

[lavaheadache]

*Puts on john kerry face* Initially I voted no but then I vote yes.

Lol, I applaud your honesty. + rep in my book. Many people can't grasp what is going on here and I think it is based on what they are mentally associating with compensation.

Some people hear compensation and think $1000000000000000000000000000 when the appropriate "amount" could be a stick of gum. The simple question is whether or not consumers who bought a GTX 970 based on the specs they read (not on given performance) are deserved of compensation. I'm hard pressed to believe many people can't relate in one way or another to the theory.

 

[Magic Carpet]

It's sold as a 4 GB card when it's really a 3.5 + 512 card.

But let's face it, if NV had it put to the market as 3.5GB + 512MB Cache, it wouldn't had looked nearly as cool :awe:

With mid-range/mislabeled cards going 256-bit then 128-bit... Nothing shocks me anymore. See a trend?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Or some people realize at the end of the day this isn't a world changing issue and doesn't change the way they use their card or it's performance. There is certainly a cause for concern but the faux outrage is a bit much.

This is the reality. Everything else doesn't matter at the end of the day.

 

[Abwx]

Gpuz just looks things up in a database doesn't it?

There must be a device ID in the bios or within the GPU, like the CPU s CPUIDs.

 

[Magic Carpet]

There must be a device ID in the bios or within the GPU, like the CPU s CPUIDs.

Ya.... those values aren't read directly from GPU. W1z can put any number. Can't use that evidence in court, I am afraid.

 

[AnandThenMan]

GPUz reads both info from the video card and from a database, not clear where all the specific bits of info come from. Either way the hardware specs are not made up they originally came from Nvidia.

 

[lehtv]

That's why I made it a personal question. I'm not asking if Nvidia is obligated to do anything, I'm asking if people feel like they are owed.

Ok, I get what you mean. For me, it's a no, I didn't base my purchase decision on the specs, I based it on tested real world performance and features. I couldn't care less if the correct specs had 2 ROPs instead of 64, these are just numbers on a spec sheet. What matters is how the card performs, nothing has changed in that respect so I have no reason to feel like I'm owed anything.

If a large majority of the 970 owners feel like they deserve some compensation then perhaps there is reason for Nvidia to do so.

Perhaps, if they think the cost of that compensation will turn profit later on.

 

[AnandThenMan]

I didn't base my purchase decision on the specs...

If the card was listed as a 2GB model would you have bought it?

 

[lehtv]

I'd imagine, legally, that there'd be a good case for demanding a refund if the product sold isn't as advertised. At least in the EU where consumer protection laws are actually a thing.

Except that the product that was sold was as advertised. NVIDIA advertised it with 64 ROPs, distributors sold it to retail as advertised by NVIDIA, and retail sold it to me as advertised by distributors and NVIDIA. I can't blame the place of purchase for anything, they were passing on information that everyone thought correct.

 

[Silverforce11]

AT's article:
"In the case of memory allocations between 3.5GB and 4GB, what happens is unfortunately less-than-deterministic. The use of heuristics to determine which resources to allocate to which memory segment, though the correct solution in this case, means that the real world performance impact is going to vary on a game-by-game basis. If NVIDIA’s heuristics and driver team do their job correctly, then the performance impact versus a theoretical single-segment 4GB card should only be a few percent."

"The worst case scenario on the other hand would be to have the NVIDIA heuristics fail, or alternatively ending up with a workload where no great solution exists, and over 3.5GB of resources must be repeatedly and heavily accessed**. In this case there is certainly the potential for performance to crumple, especially if accessing resources in the slow segment is a blocking action."

I hope you guys are confident NV's driver team will not leave Maxwell in the dust once Pascal is out, else your SLI setups will be unable to handle games with 4k textures. You'd also hope more games don't fall into that "worse case" scenario in pushing the limits of vram. With more console ports and 4-6gb vram for consoles to abuse.. it will be a damn shame if you can't run 970 SLI at 1080p and enjoy ultra textures or AA.

NV's excuse doesn't fly. No company would not know what product they are developing, selling, especially when its only a few key products. I'm gonna call stupid on whoever decided to try and sell the 970 with full ROPs & 4gb. Stupid as in they think they'll get away with it.

** Ultra texture modded Skyrim, Arma 3 and poor frame time in Shadow of Mordor at 1080p with maxed textures. What else? Don't know cos review sites don't bother to investigate further. That bolded statement is an admission that in some games, your 3.5gb + 0.5gb 970 will tank. Just hope its not the games you play.

Read it again, slowly to comprehend, for those who are still defending NVs actions:
"The worst case scenario on the other hand would be to have the NVIDIA heuristics fail, or alternatively ending up with a workload where no great solution exists, and over 3.5GB of resources must be repeatedly and heavily accessed**. In this case there is certainly the potential for performance to crumple, especially if accessing resources in the slow segment is a blocking action."