GTX 970 3.5GB Vram Issue (BAD NEWS)

just google GTX 970 and you will see the problem Nvidia has lied/kept secret the truth behind the card, for instance the card can only use 3.5 VRAM the other 500mb is a slower version that when accessed can make frame times go through the roof even leading to crashes in many cases, for all the latest info try these links

https://forums.geforce.com/default/...tx-970-3-5gb-vram-issue/post/4438166/#4438166 Nvidia admins offering to help GTX970 owners get a refund from there retailers

https://www.change.org/p/nvidia-refund-for-gtx-970 pettition with 2.133 supporters

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...cture-and-Limitations-GTX-970?page=1#comments here is the specs (remember this interviewer gets free cards etc from nvidia so hes like a timid dog but still gets some facts from nvidia)

GTX 970 (Original) GTX 970 (Corrected)

CUDA 1664 1664

Texture units 104 104

ROPs 64 56

Core Clock 1050MHz 1050MHz

Boost Clock 1178MHz 1178MHz

Memory Clock 7GHz GDDR5 7GHz GDDR5

Memory Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit

L2 Cache 2MB 1.75MB



So it was sold to you and me using false advertisements mine has stuttered since day one even when not using the bad VRAM and I RMAd it when i first got it complaining of stuttering, pc specialist did a benchmark and most likley left it running came back looked at FPS and said whats the problem ?
Well the problem is you may well get good FPS while recieving frametimes of over 200ms (average ms for online gaming is 20 -60 ms ) I took some pictures to show the problem more clearly

this shows frametimes in comparison to FPS as you can see FPS look good until you see those big frametime spikes

here is the VRAM test showing just how slow that portion is (mines starts to slow anything over 3G)

My question is this will PC Specalists refund my card / store credit / swap for similar or do none of the above? Nvidia are offering to help sort this out so they know they screwed up big time here, others are talking of a lawsuit all i want is a card that runs smooth and does what it says on the tin.

And what are the implacations of this even if your card works for you fine? well card has devalued (and so have Nvidia shares) so resale value has depleated over night, and what about SLi ? this was my idea of some futureproofing but there is no way I will by another one of these so thats out the window also =( And finally 4k gaming is off also as this is the most likley time your card will tap into that slow VRAM and crash or freeze

Now it is clear not everyone has the stutters all the time some only get it when using that extra 500mb vRAM but all cards have been misrepresented and all card suffer in this 500mb zone

Your views and experiences would be greatly apreciated.

P.S like I say my card has not worked correctly since day 1 and if it was working properly I would not want a refund

Can this thread be moved to general discussions please admin, thanks.

Have you try contacting the manufacturer? Since PCS is a reseller not sure if the liability lies on them but instead on nvidia

Under UK Sales of Goods Act, as the seller it is actually/legally PCS's responsibility to provide what the customer ordered ( see http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/sale-of-goods-act ) and any "faults" must be sorted out by them one way or another. PCS then, technically, have to go to their reseller who will then go to the card manufacturer (in PCS's case probably Palit) who will then have a good moan at Nvidia (remember, Nvidia just do the reference designs and don't tend to physically make the cards).

However, it may be the case that Nvidia works with the card manufacturers to sort out a "swap and return" option and PCS may then "recommend" you use that (and it'll probably be quicker, easier and cheaper for you to do it that way) - but, legally, it's their responsibility to sort out. (However, PCS may have a leg to stand on - they advertised a 4Gb GTX 970 which you did technically receive: PCS didn't say all the RAM would be accessible at a set speed or anything like that [I believe] - if you got the speed information from a third party [which would have been incorrect due to Nvidia], then that is your fault as PCS aren't responsible for content of third party sites: however, I do doubt they'll wash their hands of this and I do have full confidence PCS will sort this issue out to their customers satisfication just as soon as they've figure out what they can/can't do about it)

It's still early days with this news, so I would give all parties involved a week or two to figure out what they are going to do about it (from issuing partial refunds, card replacements, full recall+refund etc etc)

I read what you say and take it onboard and thanks for the responces but MY card has had stutters since day 1 a few others have had problems starting at 3GB VRAM usage but most have it over 3.5 which would be ok at HD but 4K cant be done in most instances but my card struggles at HD resolutions, so maybe a swap would be the first port of call to see if it is indeed a bad card but even if this is the case im not happy my card devalued over night also SLi is out the question as im not going to buy another flawed card so im out of pocket and have stutters on a 1000£ + rig I saved for litrally years for this PC and took many many hours going over reviews etc.
I am not blaming PCS at all they did not know any of this but I believe my GPU is faulty regaurdless of Nvidias deception, I will speak with nvidia see what they are offering as a solution (for all I know it could be fixed in a patch)

I doubt it could be fixed in a patch, its the last memory chip that is a different, slower design to what it should be. I don't know why they would cut such a corner when the difference to them would be no more than a few quid per card. There is only one company that should be taking any blame for this and that is Nvidia. They should be punished for lying and should not try and put delivery costs onto companies that just sell them on. They should refund any costs related to the issue. This is really really bad for Nvidia to do something like this.

Wozza365 said:

I doubt it could be fixed in a patch, its the last memory chip that is a different, slower design to what it should be. I don't know why they would cut such a corner when the difference to them would be no more than a few quid per card. There is only one company that should be taking any blame for this and that is Nvidia. They should be punished for lying and should not try and put delivery costs onto companies that just sell them on. They should refund any costs related to the issue. This is really really bad for Nvidia to do something like this.

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Totally agree they should issue supliers with a gaurentee that they too will be refunded, I am speaking with one of the Nvidia admins and trying to get a solution out of this but I am not happy and wont be till i get a different GPU
Current games are running into the 4GB VRAM range so what chance have I got in 2016 with this lame card ?

Personally if It was me id ask for different card and a refund of any additional costs. Pretty sneaky by Nvidia really. Such a big reputable (supposedly) company. I love Nvidia personally but really dislike this kind of scandal.

Regardless of the driver update, PeterS posted that "If you don't want the card anymore you should return it and get a refund or exchange. If you have any problems getting that done, let me know and I'll do my best to help." Keep in mind, though, that the GTX 970 is still an all-around great performer and overclocker. The impressive benchmarks of our original review haven't changed. Currently, few games require the full 4GB VRAM. But the card's limitation may make it less future-proof for games down the road

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Source
Nvidia working on driver update to address gtx 970 issues

This is awful and not something I would expect from nVidia at all. I really hope this gets sorted for any of you with one, they've really shot themselves in the foot with this, seems so unnecessary.

One day i'll understand what VRAM is and I can join in with the pitch-fork waving

DeadEyeDuk said:

One day i'll understand what VRAM is and I can join in with the pitch-fork waving

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I just know high is good, low is bad. Done! Join the discussion

Apparently people are now returning their cards to retailers on the grounds of 'false advertisement'. This is getting worse for Nvidia as I expect there will now be a big blow back from retailers.

Buzz said:

Personally if It was me id ask for different card and a refund of any additional costs. Pretty sneaky by Nvidia really. Such a big reputable (supposedly) company. I love Nvidia personally but really dislike this kind of scandal.



Source
Nvidia working on driver update to address gtx 970 issues

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I'm sorry that what I wrote was poorly worded, I realize I made it sound like there was a special patch or something and that is definitely not the case.

Peter@nVidia

=( no patch this is it they are saying its working as intended

they anounced there is not going to be any kind of patch or firmware update for this
for those who dont understand what this is all about:
the gtx 970 comes with less L2 memory cache than anounced, and to work around this nvidia got the super idea of instead of simply selling you a 3GB gtx 970 to sell you a 4GB gtx 970 that can only function properly up to 3.5GB of VRAM (memory of the GPU) and instead of deactivating the 0.5GB they instead do this:
every L2 cache memory is asigned a certain amount of VRAM(RAM for GPU) but because they cut down one, there is a cache that instead of managing 1 VRAM slots it has to manage 2 VRAM slots, this translates in it working perfectly fine as long as you dont need to use that second VRAM slot from the 1 cache memory with double workload, ergo bottleneck beast appeared

all this means that 1080p is gonna be fine, 3k is MAYBE gonna be fine, and you can forget about doing 4k with this card

and the fun part is all this could be avoided simply selling you cards with only 3.5GB VRAM or 3GB of VRAM, they spending less money and still charging you the same, i dont know who thought of this solution but there is a ton of people waiting slap him

oh this just gets better and better, look at what AMD did for their new advertising AMD/NVidia fight is spicing up again
link here

That AMD ad is pathetic though. Any swipe at your competition always feels cheap, and it isn't even clever. If they'd actually been creative with it it would be ok, but simply stating "4GB means 4GB" is a concept a 12 year old could come up with

DeadEyeDuk said:

That AMD ad is pathetic though. Any swipe at your competition always feels cheap, and it isn't even clever. If they'd actually been creative with it it would be ok, but simply stating "4GB means 4GB" is a concept a 12 year old could come up with

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thats why i find it super funny, it's like watching two 12 years old kids going at each other, their behaviour is so childish it's funny

"mehmehmeh my 4GB are cooler than yours!"

Why not take advantage of your competitors downfalls? They do it in just about every other industry these days.

But that's what I mean Wozz. I agree they should take advantage, but what often happens is the other side just looks petty and doesn't really work. As in this case, it just seems a quickly rushed out idea. They could really hammer nVidia, and are quite right to do so, but I just think a more subtle and intelligent approach would end up benefiting them more

You got to think of something quick while its in everyones mind, not much good releasing a slightly better response in 2 months time when the whole thing has been forgotten.