WCCftech: Memory allocation problem with GTX 970 [UPDATE] PCPer: NVidia response

[AnandThenMan]

And so on. If someone was on a budget like my buddy was last year and wanted top performance, I'd definitely recommend a 290x for them over a 980 GTX. However, if they were also concerned about power consumption, features and better game support (esp now with GameWorks) I'd point them to a 970 GTX. Despite the recent discoveries about the 970 GTX, I'd pick it everytime over a 290x.

How is GameWorks a plus at all? The GW titles so far have been a mess.

 

[Carfax83]

That's single GPU testing, 30-40 fps. SLI should be able to handle that smoothly, if it had the vram. Note the problem does NOT occur for the 980 which is allowed to freely use its 4gb vram buffer.

Minimum frame rate for AC Unity at 1600p with 4X MSAA on a GTX 980 is 28 according to the review, which is unplayable.

SLI also does not increase bandwidth or VRAM as you know, so why would you think having SLI would handle it smoothly?

If a card is unable to handle settings due to inadequate bandwidth, then SLI won't help.

 

[Carfax83]

The 970 does not have a 256 bit bus.

Which reinforces my point even more. I'm not defending NVidia's false advertisement, and I honestly hope they get sued. I never would have bought the GTX 970s if I knew about this beforehand.

However, the GTX 970 is STILL worth the price even after all of this. It's still an amazing card, with amazing performance and power draw for the price.

If the card had been more expensive, I think the backlash would have been even more severe.. But at 330 dollars or so, it's a steal.

 

[AnandThenMan]

If a card is unable to handle settings due to inadequate bandwidth, then SLI won't help.

What helps is having a proper 256 bit memory interface.

However, the GTX 970 is STILL worth the price even after all of this. It's still an amazing card, with amazing performance and power draw for the price.

I don't agree at all, the card has inconsistent (or worse) performance depending on the memory footprint.

 

[Carfax83]

Even the 970m is advertised as 4K on MSI site, i guess that they didnt decide alone that it was 4K "compatible"...

4K is one thing, 4K plus MSAA is another beast entirely.

High resolution plus MSAA is going to choke any 256 bit or lower card in a graphically intensive game. GM200 parts should have much better performance at high resolutions with MSAA enabled, as they have much more bandwidth to spare.

 

[Silverforce11]

Minimum frame rate for AC Unity at 1600p with 4X MSAA on a GTX 980 is 28 according to the review, which is unplayable.

SLI also does not increase bandwidth or VRAM as you know, so why would you think having SLI would handle it smoothly?

If a card is unable to handle settings due to inadequate bandwidth, then SLI won't help.

We're not talking bandwidth, the 980 handles it fine. NV advertised the 970 as having 256 bit bus, 224gb/s bandwidth...

It's vram capacity.

If the 970 had 4gb fully accessible, SLI 970 would perform just fine (like 980 SLI) with good scaling, 30-40 fps suddenly becomes 50-70. Very playable.

But it doesn't. It lacks that 0.5GB which matters so much for newer games that push vram limits.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Carfax you are missing the point here. It's NOT ONLY about pushing the card to a point where the frame rate is not playable. It's about pushing the card where the last block of memory is forced into use causing stuttering, pauses and the like. Worse in SLI. You are equating the two things as the same but they are not.

Put another way, if the 970 had a 256 bit memory bus like Nvidia claimed we would not be talking about any of this.

 

[Carfax83]

We're not talking bandwidth, the 980 handles it fine. NV advertised the 970 as having 256 bit bus, 224gb/s bandwidth...

It's vram capacity.

But I just told you. The GTX 980 also struggles in these same tests. At 1600p with 4x MSAA it's unplayable. At 1960p in Far Cry 4 with 4x MSAA it's also unplayable.

The only test that really shows the GTX 970 hitting a VRAM wall whereas the 980 doesn't, is the Talos Principle benchmark.

However, that was beyond 4K resolution which is plainly excessive. So to get to that point, the resolution and AA levels had to be pushed to the extreme.

Thats the point I'm getting at. We all know that the GTX 970 has a suboptimal memory system compared to the 980, but how far do you have to go to expose it's weakness?

Pretty damn far according to reviews.

 

[KaRLiToS]

This shows how terrible a lot of the USA review sites are, particularly TR, PCPER & Hardware Canucks, they have shown themselves to be utter NV-shills. When NV told them to jump on the FCAT & smoothness bandwagon to bash AMD, they did so in a hurry. When NV's Maxwell suffer poor smoothness, they stop using FCAT or focus on frame time.

Be careful what you say, you might get accused of trolling. Even though I completely agree with you.

And not just that, I have proofs from this video taken from Nvidia September 2014 Media Event.

This is Linus Tech Tips video:

Look at the gifts Nvidia gives them on arrival.
http://youtu.be/S4jckd7J4ko?t=3m32s

Oh, is that the guy from techreport?
http://youtu.be/S4jckd7J4ko?t=6m57s

LinusTechTips about to have a Limbo competition with Ryan Shrout from PCPer at the Nvidia all paid event
http://youtu.be/S4jckd7J4ko?t=9m57s

And now you see dimitry from HardWare Canucks at the Kayak (of course paid by Nvidia)
http://youtu.be/S4jckd7J4ko?t=15m43s

So Silverforce, we have all the evidences in this video that you are spot on. And you also named them all.

 

[Carfax83]

Carfax you are missing the point here. It's NOT ONLY about pushing the card to a point where the frame rate is not playable. It's about pushing the card where the last block of memory is forced into use causing stuttering, pauses and the like. Worse in SLI. You are equating the two things as the same but they are not.

Yes, and to get to that stage is very difficult apparently. The only game that Computerbase.de tested that did exactly that, was Talos Principle. And they needed 4.4K resolution to get there!

At that resolution, the GTX 970's frame rate just plummeted like a rock, whereas the GTX 980 was still playable.

Put another way, if the 970 had a 256 bit memory bus like Nvidia claimed we would not be talking about any of this.

Perhaps, but the 980 which does have a 256 bit bus also costs 200 dollars more. In the end, it's all about value. While I am definitely displeased about being deceived by NVidia's false advertisement, I can't say that I was ripped off.

My GTX 970s have performed admirably at 1440p, easily allowing me to max out every title that I play (without high levels of AA) whilst maintaining a smooth 60 FPS with V-sync on.

NVidia deserves to be punished for false advertisement, but the 970 is still an excellent video card with fantastic performance for the price.

 

[wanderer27]

So you think just setting it as 3.5gb would alleviate the problem? Why didn't they just launch it fused off or via bios to only have 3.5gb accessible in the first place, it would not be an issue to sell 970s for its price with that vram. This way users know whats on the table and can make a more informed choice.

I mean if NV told you its 3.5gb, you see a clear difference to the 980. So you wouldn't be surprised when you can't handle ultra textures or MSAA as well. That would make some users pay extra for the 980s!

Either they didn't know it would be that big an issue, or it possibly fell into this realm :

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37122306&postcount=746


The way I'm looking at how they'll possibly address this by dedicating the 512MB for low demand stuff . . . well, that pretty much eliminates the problem and puts the Memory Architecture back on par with the 980.


Biggest issue I see is the misrepresenting of the number of ROP's and Memory layout . . . fix it like I'm thinking and users will see a boost in performance on the high end.
This is a pretty big issue, but performance wise I only see Driver tweaks increasing the performance of this card.

980 to me is just not worth the 30% premium in cost as it doesn't have near that in performance over the 970.


FYI, I just received the 970 I ordered Monday, and so far I'm quite pleased with it.

For my usage, I doubt I'll need the 512MB tweak, but if/when it comes that'll just add to the value.


As said in the linked post, if a 2GB card outperforms a 3GB card I'd grab the 2GB card - seriously, some of the users on here are probably going to be on the next Gen as soon as it shows up, maybe 2 Gens.

We're kinda in that territory here from what I'm seeing, though it's 3.5GB vs 4GB (and possibly not even that with tweaks).


I have nothing against AMD/ATI (not long ago moved from FX-55 to 2700K), but until they improve their Power/Heat/Noise/Driver numbers I'm going to be hesitant to go with them on a GPU.




.

 

[bononos]

Your opinion contradicts real world user experience. You cannot say universally that all R9 290/290Xs produce more noise than any GTX970. For example the popular EVGA GTX970 is way louder than the Sapphire Tri-X 290:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37125547&postcount=34

While you can measure the difference in the noise levels with a very accurate scientific tool, can you ear actually perceive the difference in an enclosed case over your PSU, CPU and case fans? Can you hear a difference of 6-7dB in a Fractal Design R5? Don't forget that some heatsink fans make lower noise but it's more uncomfortable due to a certain electrical sounds/frequency of the ball bearings. It's not that simple.

See this video of how quiet after-market R9 290s actually sound under max load:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYxmW4JiJs8
........
........
That's before even talking about even cheaper R9 290s. Unless all you do is play GW titles or run a miniITX, it sounds to me like the "pathetic marketing" being employed here is for the $550-600 GTX980. :thumbsdown: For any brand agnostic gamer, the comparison of a $640 MSI Lightning 290Xs vs. a $610 Gigabyte G1 980 is an eye-opener to how out of line the pricing disparity has gotten between NV and AMD's offering all because of perf/watt, power usage and brand loyalty. It's a really sad time for the GPU industry as there is no way something like this would have ever happened during ATI/NV days if ATI's best card was only 10% slower but cost HALF. :sneaky:

I never got into PC gaming because of power savings. If I did, I would have been on a Wii U or PS4 and never overclocked components. Even high-end gamers eventually realize when the value of the competition is simply awful.
....

Yeah its strange that people aren't gushing over the 290, at least in NA where electricity is cheap.

 

[Silverforce11]

Be careful what you say, you might get accused of trolling. Even though I completely agree with you.

And not just that, I have proofs from this video taken from Nvidia September 2014 Media Event.

This is Linus Tech Tips video:

Look at the gifts Nvidia gives them on arrival.
http://youtu.be/S4jckd7J4ko?t=3m32s

Oh, is that the guy from techreport?
http://youtu.be/S4jckd7J4ko?t=6m57s

LinusTechTips about to have a Limbo competition with Ryan Shrout from PCPer at the Nvidia all paid event
http://youtu.be/S4jckd7J4ko?t=9m57s

And now you see dimitry from HardWare Canucks at the Kayak (of course paid by Nvidia)
http://youtu.be/S4jckd7J4ko?t=15m43s

So Silverforce, we have all the evidences in this video that you are spot on. And you also named them all.

Even Guru3d raised that issue, because NV dedicated time to their staff to explain the 970 situation for some sites but not others. Guru3d seems upset they don't get special treatment from NV.. it just so happens they were one of the major NA review sites to still publish FCAT data.

 

[Silverforce11]

NVidia deserves to be punished for false advertisement, but the 970 is still an excellent video card with fantastic performance for the price.

I'm glad some of you guys understand how its unacceptable for major companies to be so misleading.

I DO STILL AGREE the 970 is a good card at its price. Users just need to be more aware of its limitations and don't expect too much out of it, ie. as if it had full bandwidth 4gb like its bigger brother the 980.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Even Guru3d raised that issue, because NV dedicated time to their staff to explain the 970 situation for some sites but not others. Guru3d seems upset they don't get special treatment from NV.. it just so happens they were one of the major NA review sites to still publish FCAT data.

Grumble grumble...I might have to give money to AMD now...

 

[5150Joker]

Even Guru3d raised that issue, because NV dedicated time to their staff to explain the 970 situation for some sites but not others. Guru3d seems upset they don't get special treatment from NV.. it just so happens they were one of the major NA review sites to still publish FCAT data.

Well it's paid journalism, you'd be hard pressed to find any website that depends on hardware from the OEM/ODM to be completely impartial unless they are flush with $$$ and don't depend on day 1 release reporting. That doesn't really exist in the tech world because everyone wants all the info as soon as an NDA is lifted. Therefore there is no such thing as a tech journalist that isn't beholden to AMD/NVIDIA and whoever else in some way.

In medicine we used to have doctors that got all kinds of goodies from pharmaceutical companies but that practice is now forbidden so about the only thing they can do now is just bring free lunch to the office (which I like). The tech industry needs similar self regulation.

 

[tarasis]

Computerbase analysis
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-01/geforce-gtx-970-vram-speicher-benchmarks/

The complete stall by the 970 in the Talios Principle video is awful

 

[JoeRambo]

The complete stall by the 970 in the Talios Principle video is awful

Even more telling is FC4 video. DISASTROUS performance by 970 due to insane stuttering once mem usage is 3.7-3.9GB. One would expect ~70% of framerate, but instead we get stuttering hell. Kinda sad that users were fed big lie about 4GB of memory and reviewers failed due diligence with FCAT at launch time.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Yeah its strange that people aren't gushing over the 290, at least in NA where electricity is cheap.

Cheap is relative and it depends on your state as well. I don't know which states are lower cost than the others. I know in the summer in FL my bill can be $400 for a month.

 

[BD231]

sure am glad I didnt cheap out and grab 2 970s

 

[Gikaseixas]

Will partners print new boxes to show 3.5GB effective memory?

 

[Rvenger]

Personal attacks and accusations of fanboy remarks will not be tolerated. I saw quite a few here and I will make sure you get a 2 point infraction if it continues.


-Rvenger

 

[Grooveriding]

Will partners print new boxes to show 3.5GB effective memory?

I think they're going to avoid any sort of relabeling or correcting of the memory bandwidth specs on their website. If they are trying to avoid any sort of culpability or wrong-doing in giving out false specs, having partners correct specs on their packaging would be an acknowledgment of wrong doing.

 

[Creig]

Will partners print new boxes to show 3.5GB effective memory?

The 970 still has 4GB of memory. So advertising it as a 4GB card isn't untruthful. It's the ROPs and L2 cache numbers that need to change to match what the card actually has.

 

[guskline]

I suspect Accountants in conjuction with Law firm/firms are working overtime since this revelation to calculate the potential loss and potential legal exposure.