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

[R0H1T]

I just cannot understand why people are defending nVidia on this. Why would an individual defend a company that was caught lying?

Some saying "its a tiny change with no impact". But if this was true, NOBODY would have noticed it. Instead end users found the problem, and complained. Only then did nVidia come forward and fess up to giving out wrong numbers.

I'd say a pathological need to justify a(ny) purchase would be one of the reasons & something about being loyal to the given brand I guess 😀

 

[Pneumothorax]

I just cannot understand why people are defending nVidia on this. Why would an individual defend a company that was caught lying?

Some saying "its a tiny change with no impact". But if this was true, NOBODY would have noticed it. Instead end users found the problem, and complained. Only then did nVidia come forward and fess up to giving out wrong numbers.

Most people defending this (that are 970 owners) are running their 970's in single configuration and running at 1080P. Also, you want to defend your purchase.
I have a BMW 335d that I used to defend on the BMW forums. After I started having the same maladies that the other 'complainers' were getting such as multiple emission system failures, carbon buildup, I no longer defend my choice of vehicle or BMW.

Prior to this, I was gung-ho on the 970 and recommended to many friends/co-workers. Now, no way-no how.

 

[Leyawiin]

As others have said the expectation and implied performance from the memory was full 4GB capacity and speed. They didn't delivery and told no one. A class action should be initiated against NV. Has nothing to do with the performance of the card (which is good). Has everything to do with being forthcoming. This is kind of like the Kingston V300 SSD NAND debacle.

 

[CRA5HMAN]

I purchased a MSI GTX 970 Golden and sold my reference 780ti. I realize they are on par performance wise and it was truly a side grade. However, I recently switched cases (full tower to mid tower) and the 780ti was getting loud and into the high 70s temperature wise. I chose the 970 for the silence and lower temperature, but also for the slight increase in vram. I actually did see an increase in performance in BF4 (which was a bonus) and the card is absolutely silent and has never gone past 66 degrees. I was so happy with the performance that I got a 1440p monitor and it rocks BF4 and DOS is absolutely gorgeous and smooth. I am torn, I love the card, but I feel ripped off that the vram is "hobbled" and can't seem to think that I have lost a year or so of future use with this card, though it is hard to quantify. :|

 

[tential]

Most people defending this (that are 970 owners) are running their 970's in single configuration and running at 1080P. Also, you want to defend your purchase.
I have a BMW 335d that I used to defend on the BMW forums. After I started having the same maladies that the other 'complainers' were getting such as multiple emission system failures, carbon buildup, I no longer defend my choice of vehicle or BMW.

Prior to this, I was gung-ho on the 970 and recommended to many friends/co-workers. Now, no way-no how.

I guess I'm not an "average" consumer. I don't defend my 4770k purchase. I WANTED it so I got it. Does the 4670k offer a far better price/performance ratio? Yes it does. I didn't care, I just wanted a 4770k.

When I wanted an HD7970 over the HD7950 I didn't care what the better price/performance ratio was. I just wanted the flagship card. Then I decided to back off and get the HD7950.

That's something I just never understood about consumers. Do people really not understand why they want something?
Not every purchase I make is based on price/performance or is even the "best option". Some purchases I make because I just want something, or I prefer a certain brand. I like Ralph Lauren, I purchase their polos/shirts over every other brand. I don't care if someone makes the same thing from someone else for cheaper. If it doesn't have Ralph Lauren on it, I don't want it. But I'm honest with that and I don't try and justify some performance/price ratio or some crazy thing.

 

[DeathReborn]

I have bought 5 970's, they all have 4GB of VRAM onboard and are used at no higher than 1440P (most are 1080P). Even if compensation was offered to me I would turn it down as I am happy with my purchases. If other people want compensation and get it well good for them, I won't be joining them.

 

[exar333]

Anecdotally they are doing exactly that. A few posters in the thread about the 970 issue on nvidia's forum said EVGA offered them stepups to 980s and they were already out of the window.

Not exactly the perfect solution, spend more money to get a card that is obviously better, but it is one way to dump the 970 if you want to go that route.

I'm not surprised to hear newegg already has a specific page up to thwart attempts at returns/exchanges/refunds for this issue. As such a large vendor of PC parts, nvidia would of contacted them and given them that information to use as a reply. A situation like this nvidia is going to hunker down and wait it out. The reality will be that shareholders>customers in this situation. Compensation or offering refunds would cost a large chunk of change and would be the resolution they would least want to go with, better to offer nothing and PR the situation to death.

Yeah...going to have to mull this over. Not sure if it's worth the hassle or not. Really want to upgrade again with GM200 or 390X, so this is a tough call on if I want to take the time to swap this out them do it again later this year. That said, I wonder if the price of these 970s will fall due to this, if people start dumping them. Might be worth-it just to snag another one for a cheap SLI option.

Decisions...

 

[tviceman]

Specs are just a pointless, bragging-rights, bulletin point. I don't care if the next card I get is listed as having a 64-bit memory bus and 4 ROP's, so long as it's faster than my current card.

People need to realize that the gtx970 card did not change. It performs the same today as it did last week and the week before and the week before.....

 

[SlowSpyder]

Specs are just a pointless, bragging-rights, bulletin point. I don't care if the next card I get is listed as having a 64-bit memory bus and 4 ROP's, so long as it's faster than my current card.

People need to realize that the gtx970 card did not change. It performs the same today as it did last week and the week before and the week before.....

Sure, but it was misrepresented as far as what you were buying. I want to see how it performs when games need to use more than 3.5GB of vram. How it performs tomorrow may not be the same as what was expected at launch, depending on what settings you use.

 

[Eymar]

As others have said the expectation and implied performance from the memory was full 4GB capacity and speed. They didn't delivery and told no one. A class action should be initiated against NV. Has nothing to do with the performance of the card (which is good). Has everything to do with being forthcoming. This is kind of like the Kingston V300 SSD NAND debacle.

I'm in total agreement with this stance as it's pretty clear to me that this is deceptive advertising and class action is warranted. It may not be a big deal to some or many, but deceptive advertising should always be dealt with.

 

[Enigmoid]

Sure, but it was misrepresented as far as what you were buying. I want to see how it performs when games need to use more than 3.5GB and less than 4GB of vram. How it performs tomorrow may not be the same as what was expected at launch, depending on what settings you use.

Lets make a clarification here. The only window the 970 is affected in is between 3.5 GB and 4 GB. More than 4 GB and the 980 suffers the same fate, the 970 even with 4 GB would have the same problems. Less than 3.5 GB and the speed is identical. You need settings for vram usage to be between 3.5 and 4 GB for this vram debacle to truly be a problem.

 

[Ichigo]

Wow GSkill should take a page out of Nvidia's playbook and release 2400Mhz 16GB RAM kits with the last 2GBs gimped at 800Mhz to save cost. I mean the performance will basically be the same except in niche scenarios.

And Corsair should release a 500GB SSD with 50GB that's actually just an hard drive platter. More than 500GB's and no other real SSD can store all that data and less than 450GB it's the same speed. And it'll be the same performance when I bought it as it is now.

Wow my idea is gonna save companies millions.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Lets make a clarification here. The only window the 970 is affected in is between 3.5 GB and 4 GB. More than 4 GB and the 980 suffers the same fate, the 970 even with 4 GB would have the same problems. Less than 3.5 GB and the speed is identical. You need settings for vram usage to be between 3.5 and 4 GB for this vram debacle to truly be a problem.

Yup, the problem window is fairly small. Above 4GB of vram use the GTX980, R9 290 / 290X will all suffer the same problems as they run out of vram. But, all of those are listed as 4GB cards, not 4.5GB cards so no one has any beef with that.

Also, those cards have the memory bandwidth they advertise, the GTX970 effectively does not.

To me none of this would be an issue at all if Nvidia had said that the GTX970 had this configuration early on. The problem for me is that I know there is absolutely no way that people in the know at Nvidia hadn't seen how the card has been advertised and reviewed since it's launch several months ago, but no one said anything. That is misleading and deceptive in my opinion.

 

[garagisti]

...
I'll bet over at NV... the Engineers are pointing fingers at Marketing, Marketing is pointing fingers at Engineering, Management is pointing fingers at everyone including the cleaning crew... and it will all wind up in Marketing's lap with a dictate to 'get us out of this mess!'

I bet they're all having a laugh at the expense of buyers.
__________________________

To those saying performance hasn't changed, remember that most buyers will use the card for 2 or more years on average. Purchases like these, are always made by most buyers keeping an eye on future and usability over a period of time. Given that and newer titles which could very well be more demanding, it is not fair to buyers who were planning to keep their cards for longer periods.
__________________________

I think given customers were misled (to be polite), there are imo two ways that a company making products for computer gaming should resolve this matter:
- Offer a full refund to those who want one, or allow cheaper upgrade to 980.
- To those who don't want to spend more on Nvidia hardware at the moment, offer 3 or more games. (hey it is about $70-$80 (and upwards) more than an 290 now)

 

[WelshBloke]

Specs are just a pointless, bragging-rights, bulletin point. I don't care if the next card I get is listed as having a 64-bit memory bus and 4 ROP's, so long as it's faster than my current card.

People need to realize that the gtx970 card did not change. It performs the same today as it did last week and the week before and the week before.....

Specifications are a hard point that defines what you're buying.

Performance is soft and dependant on lots of factors not just the video card specifications.

The 970 didn't change. What we understood the 970 to be has changed.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Specs are just a pointless, bragging-rights, bulletin point. I don't care if the next card I get is listed as having a 64-bit memory bus and 4 ROP's, so long as it's faster than my current card.

People need to realize that the gtx970 card did not change. It performs the same today as it did last week and the week before and the week before.....

. . . as long as your VRAM usage stays under 3.5 GB. Then in some cases performance falls off a cliff.

Say you are playing The Witcher 3 and it works great as shipped. Then a new ulta-texture pack is released. It works great on the 980 or any other "real" 4 GB card but cripples your 970. Are you still going to be happy?

If the card was as advertised (4 GB) it would have worked. It isn't so it won't.

My last 2 gaming cards were the 560ti and GTX 680, which is my current card, so I am not one of the "team red" zealots. But I do think nvidia should face consequences for lying to us.

 

[Paul98]

What ever happens it should cost NVidia enough that they don't do something like this again. Next time they think about doing this they should know the cost in the end is going to be more than if they are upfront about their product.

 

[tviceman]

I want to see how it performs when games need to use more than 3.5GB of vram.

I also want to see how it performs in more games where vram usage is between 3.5 and 4gb.

. . . as long as your VRAM usage stays under 3.5 GB. Then in some cases performance falls off a cliff.

What games have been confirmed to show performance "dropping off a cliff" in your described scenario that is out of the norm for other cards of the 970's caliber (i.e. R290, GTX980, R290x, GTX780TI, 780)?

 

[Ichigo]

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/2tu86z/discussion_i_benchmarked_gtx_970s_in_sli_at_1440p/

Cliff = dropped off

 

[tviceman]

Interesting results. 2/4 of those I wouldn't have called it playable to begin with, but I guess that differs from person to person (I personally do not like games dipping below 60 fps). What is interesting is that the person is claiming reported frame rates to be inaccurate as to what they "feel" the game is running like when using more than 3.5gb of vram. I think I'd like a more professional analysis, with a graph akin to what hardocp does that shows FPS at any given moment in the benchmark.

 

[tential]

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/2tu86z/discussion_i_benchmarked_gtx_970s_in_sli_at_1440p/

Cliff = dropped off

You can bet a large sum of money a lot of people here will be suspect of those results.

 

[Eymar]

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/2tu86z/discussion_i_benchmarked_gtx_970s_in_sli_at_1440p/

Cliff = dropped off

I believe it and so glad I returned the 3x 970s at launch due to performance problems (Newegg is very strict on vc returns, but thankfully didn't charge restock fee). I saw the same thing as it would probably affect me more using 1440p surround. Gaming in BF4 would be super smooth (>80fps) then suddenly become a stutter fest even though FPS was still good (50-70FPS). I just thought it was a driver or tri-sli issue(and still could of been), but didn't want to waste days troubleshooting it. I've been very happy with tri 980s performance since then.

 

[Paul98]

It will depend on how the vram is used, some don't really "need" the amount of vram they allocate be do it because they can.

What I would like to see is a test finding where the 980 and 970 start stuttering, see how much of a difference it is between the two cards. Or have a vram testing game just to test things like this.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Interesting results. 2/4 of those I wouldn't have called it playable to begin with, but I guess that differs from person to person (I personally do not like games dipping below 60 fps). What is interesting is that the person is claiming reported frame rates to be inaccurate as to what they "feel" the game is running like when using more than 3.5gb of vram. I think I'd like a more professional analysis, with a graph akin to what hardocp does that shows FPS at any given moment in the benchmark.

Post 636 from the other thread on the subject.

Don't look at absolute performance so much as what is being isolated. Notice the difference in BF4 going from 160% to 165% resolution scaling? The minimums shouldn't drop like that in my opinion, if the card had a true 4GB of usable memory, not from such a small bump.

But at any rate, I'd really like to see a good tech site dig into this issue and do some similar testing.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I'm not surprised to hear newegg already has a specific page up to thwart attempts at returns/exchanges/refunds for this issue.

Do you have a link to that? Not that I would ever ask newegg to eat the $50 or so they'd lose selling my 970 as an open box, as newegg has been really good to me since 2001. Just interested to see. I can't imagine how many return requests they had.