QuoteNvidia and their hardware partners have remained mum about the furor buzzing around the GeForce GTX 970, but it looks like at least some disgruntled customers are receiving refunds for their graphics cards, courtesy of point-of-sale e-tailers like Amazon and Newegg.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Nvidia was also slapped with a class action lawsuit alleging false advertising of the GTX 970's capabilities late last week.
A quick catch-up: Nvidia's GTX 970 launched to universal acclaim for its stunning blend of power efficiency, pure performance, and a (comparatively cheap) $330 starting price point. In fact, the GTX 970 was so competitive that AMD was immediately forced to shave hundreds of dollars off its flagship Radeon graphics cards.
But gamers soon started noticing something amiss. Whenever the 4GB GTX 970 inched past 3.5GB of memory use, games began stuttering in certain scenarios. Nvidia was eventually forced to admit that the card actually uses a—let's say unconventional—memory design that splits the memory into two pools: A full-speed 3.5GB segment and a far slower 512MB segment. More concerning, Nvidia also revealed that the GTX 970 technical specifications sent to reviewers were incorrect and exaggerated due to an internal communications error. These facts came to light four month's after the card's launch.
source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2887142/amazon-newegg-apparently-offering-refunds-due-to-nvidia-gtx-970-memory-issue.html
Wow. Did they really expect to get away with that? Most people buying that card are going to be the kind who will benchmark the shit out of them.
I'll stick with the GTX 750 Ti :)
SHOCKING interview with Nvidia engineer about the 970 fiasco Hitler Reacts To The GTX 970 Being 3.5GB + .5GB http://youtu.be/tNGi06cq_pQ
Language warning!
Sad thing is, its still a great card. Stupid to have let something like this happen.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on February 22, 2015, 03:50:04 PM
Sad thing is, its still a great card. Stupid to have let something like this happen.
Agreed.
Spending the extra time to hobble one of your product's performance, to make your higher-priced models continue to sell, is pretty shady stuff.
I'm glad some of the owners called them on this. Hopefully it will make them think twice about doing it in the future.
Nvidia tried to disable overclocking of laptop GPU's but there was a backlash...
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/nvidia-enables-laptop-overclocking-again-after-critique.html
Overclocking a laptop GPU - this is risky. I understand on a desktop type rig or box , but a laptop? Small tight area, not very good cooling - how much performance increase can a user get and at what cost?
It sounds like Nvidia at least listens to their customer base's responses and criticisms and allowed the feature again.
Quote from: Toonces on February 22, 2015, 04:11:51 PM
Quote from: endfire79 on February 22, 2015, 03:31:24 PM
I'll stick with the GTX 750 Ti :)
GTX 560Ti FTW!
{checking The Presence} {over a year since I bought it so I've forgotten what's under the hood}
GTX 690 SLI. Whew? :-\
Quote from: endfire79 on February 22, 2015, 07:37:58 PM
Overclocking a laptop GPU - this is risky. I understand on a desktop type rig or box , but a laptop? Small tight area, not very good cooling - how much performance increase can a user get and at what cost?
Exactly. Risk frying your $2K gaming laptop for the benefit of an extra 3-4FPS. Unwise.
The whole gtx970 thing seems like such a tempest in a teapot to me.
EDIT -- Jason you have 690 sli?? Isn't the 690 already a dual-gpu card? Are you powering a NORAD array of 4K monitors with that? :o
Quote from: sandman2575 on February 23, 2015, 10:01:46 AM
The whole gtx970 thing seems like such a tempest in a teapot to me.
I agree. It seems like a great card for the price. I'm still thinking about buying one.
I keep thinking I want to upgrade my GTX 660, but nothing really runs slow. :\
I remember when in the 90's when a few months could make your computer worthless...now I'm a couple years into a build and everything is fine.
Quote from: sandman2575 on February 23, 2015, 10:01:46 AM
Exactly. Risk frying your $2K gaming laptop for the benefit of an extra 3-4FPS. Unwise.
It is about choice.
Quote from: sandman2575 on February 23, 2015, 10:01:46 AM
The whole gtx970 thing seems like such a tempest in a teapot to me.
It is about being misled
Regards
Not saying Nvidia didn't screw up, they clearly did. But the reaction from gamers seems a tad out of proportion to the crime.
But I admit I'm an inveterate "Team Green"-er, so I have a little bias...
Quote from: sandman2575 on February 23, 2015, 10:01:46 AM
The whole gtx970 thing seems like such a tempest in a teapot to me.
+1
I still think the 970 is a great card.
Quote from: Asid on February 24, 2015, 10:02:38 AM
I still think the 970 is a great card.
I'm sure it is. The Nvidia xx70 cards have usually been in the sweet spot for price-to-performance for upper mid-range cards.
Quote from: Yskonyn on February 24, 2015, 09:22:20 AM
Quote from: sandman2575 on February 23, 2015, 10:01:46 AM
The whole gtx970 thing seems like such a tempest in a teapot to me.
+1
How much does it cost, however? It may not be the priciest offering in the series, but they still aren't cheap. If I spent such a chunk of cash on a piece of hardware, I'd like to know whether part of it was intentionally hamstrung beforehand.
I think the consumers had every right to complain. At least Nvidia admitted to it , after being called out, and offered refunds.
If it were some $10 piece of disposable knick-knack, I doubt there would be much "tempest in a teapot". One area of computer gaming hardware that has been steadily increasing in recent years is the amount of Video RAM required for gaming. While CPU speeds have become static, there are still other areas advancing and VRAM is one. Many people will use their new video card for years so it's quite possible that this manufactured limitation will eventually make itself felt for them. I suppose it probably won't matter for those who upgrade their video card or build a new gaming rig regularly.
If it were a natural limitation, then so be it, but the company intentionally lowered part of the RAM's performance. Which just tells me that they're intentionally price gouging the higher priced models it threatened in performance. This is probably what got people up in arms the most. Especially after past price gouging & fixing issues with them, the biggest settled out of court with cash payouts. Gotta keep your thumb on them, huh?
Quote from: sandman2575 on February 23, 2015, 10:01:46 AM
EDIT -- Jason you have 690 sli?? Isn't the 690 already a dual-gpu card? Are you powering a NORAD array of 4K monitors with that? :o
Yeah, I just designated "SLI" for the benefit of people who (like myself) might not recognize which cards are dual-gpu.
(I did think about quadding up, but checking with the Falcon techs they advised there would be no performance boost; only good for a second monitor, like you said.)
I do wish the card had an HDMI signal-in, so I could pipe audio-video in from my PS3. I have an old Happauge that was already out of date when I bought it (because at the time I only had XPSP2) and it never ran correctly even then; with NVIDIA's shadowplay I could record footage from my console. I'll probably end up buying a current model Haup someday (or an equivalent competitor).
Quote from: Nefaro on February 24, 2015, 11:46:42 AM
If it were a natural limitation, then so be it, but the company intentionally lowered part of the RAM's performance. Which just tells me that they're intentionally price gouging the higher priced models it threatened in performance. This is probably what got people up in arms the most. Especially after past price gouging & fixing issues with them, the biggest settled out of court with cash payouts. Gotta keep your thumb on them, huh?
I thought this was kind of par for the course? Doesn't Nvidia regularly 'gimp' its architectures (Kepler, Maxwell, etc.) in order to make a range of cards? My understanding (possibly misunderstanding) was that the x80 line represented the 'fully unlocked' architecture, and then x70, x60 etc. were deliberate downgrades.