• GTX 970 Controversy questions.
    94 replies, posted
[QUOTE=redBadger;47051481]Yeah it still doesn't tell me if this really is going to affect my gaming in a serious way or not. Unless I didn't look hard enough, it's basically explaining what happened and why.[/QUOTE] No, it isn't. That being said, if you're really concerned about it, AMD has been slashing prices on the 290 and 290X.
[QUOTE=Kaabii;47051487]No, it isn't. That being said, if you're really concerned about it, AMD has been slashing prices on the 290X.[/QUOTE] I still don't think this is as big of a deal as people are making it to be.
[QUOTE=redBadger;47051492]I still don't think this is as big of a deal as people are making it to be.[/QUOTE] Correct. Honestly the fact of the matter is that to achieve levels of memory usage to even start accessing that 512MB segment you're talking about 4K resolution and super sampling at the highest settings. You're gated by the performance of the GTX 970 in general at that point.
[QUOTE=Kaabii;47051497]Correct. Honestly the fact of the matter is that to achieve levels of memory usage to even start accessing that 512MB segment you're talking about 4K resolution and super sampling at the highest settings. You're gated by the performance of the GTX 970 in general at that point.[/QUOTE] And I feel like anyone wanting to achieve 4k would want 2 of those things anyway, or a 980.
[QUOTE=redBadger;47051481]Yeah it still doesn't tell me if this really is going to affect my gaming in a serious way or not. Unless I didn't look hard enough, it's basically explaining what happened and why.[/QUOTE] According to Nvidia by up to 3% [img]http://i.imgur.com/x47Ya3E.png[/img] There might be other usecases too, theoretical max is 10% performance decrease, its practically probably max 5% or so tho. If you don't use super high resolutions, it should be pretty hard to get to more then 3.5gb of ram anyway.
[QUOTE=redBadger;47051501]And I feel like anyone wanting to achieve 4k would want 2 of those things anyway, or a 980.[/QUOTE] Yeah. SLI doesn't increase your available VRAM though so anyone who wants to buy two 970s to run at 4K and crazy settings may want to exercise some caution.
[QUOTE=KinderBueno;47047132]I am only getting 25 fps in Dying Light with all settings set to low (I mean all) @ 1080. Is that normal or what?[/QUOTE] Have you lowered the view distance? The game caps the CPU on draw-calls super easily.
[QUOTE=Kaabii;47051519]Yeah. SLI doesn't increase your available VRAM though so anyone who wants to buy two 970s to run at 4K and crazy settings may want to exercise some caution.[/QUOTE] This, I'm still shying away because in the future it can be a real issue at 1440p @ 96fps with full AA. Was going to get a pair of those, but I'm probably going to get a pair of 290x's now. At 1080p the card is still a fantastic card with extremely low power consumption.
[QUOTE=Levelog;47051561]This, I'm still shying away because in the future it can be a real issue at 1440p @ 96fps with full AA. Was going to get a pair of those, but I'm probably going to get a pair of 290x's now. At 1080p the card is still a fantastic card with extremely low power consumption.[/QUOTE] My 970 is hitting 96fps @ 1440p in most games. More demanding games such as Far Cry 4 and Shadow of Mordor can drop it down to 60fps though.
[QUOTE=K1ngo64;47052007]My 970 is hitting 96fps @ 1440p in most games. More demanding games such as Far Cry 4 and Shadow of Mordor can drop it down to 60fps though.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Levelog;47051561]This, I'm still shying away because in the future it can be a real issue at 1440p @ 96fps with full AA. Was going to get a pair of those, but I'm probably going to get a pair of 290x's now. At 1080p the card is still a fantastic card with extremely low power consumption.[/QUOTE] Sorry to go off topic but are those Qnix/Catleaps?
[QUOTE=Cold;47051516]According to Nvidia by up to 3% [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/x47Ya3E.png[/IMG] There might be other usecases too, theoretical max is 10% performance decrease, its practically probably max 5% or so tho. If you don't use super high resolutions, it should be pretty hard to get to more then 3.5gb of ram anyway.[/QUOTE] But will future games likely demand it? I'm building a computer with one and I want to avoid upgrading as long as possible, since I don't have that much money. It would suck to drop a grand on a PC just to have to upgrade it sooner that I should have to due to low VRAM.
[QUOTE=thrawn2787;47051138]iirc due to the 970 issue it will only ever show 3.5 gb being used max even if the other 500 is being used unless you're using something like MSI afterburner or whatever sounds like it could be more an issue with dying light than anything else. try running some other games and push your card over 3.5 gb and see what happens. use the nvidia upscaling thinger to run at 4k to help use more memory.[/QUOTE] I am actually using MSI afterburner :v: I'll try messing around with DSR to see if the stutter is as bad in other games as in Dying Light [editline]1st February 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=ClaBrendon;47050088]idk, it may be your system RAM causing the stuttering, only way to know is get more RAM or different gpu. RAM would be a cheaper, hmm. hard to say,.[/QUOTE] Just put in two extra sticks of RAM I had lying around (for a total of 12GB, though 1333MHz), let's see if that changes anything [editline]1st February 2015[/editline] Holy shit it made a difference alright, I can now bolt around the city and spin my camera like crazy without a single stutter, this feels great Memory usage still tops out at 3.5GB but with the stutter now gone I can't really complain Thanks to both of you guys, I don't feel shitty about my purchase anymore
[QUOTE=Kaabii;47052052]Sorry to go off topic but are those Qnix/Catleaps?[/QUOTE] Yeah man, brilliant value monitors however buying them is a gamble due to them being A- panels with an existing defect. Mine is a QNIX 2710 with a faint 2x1cm lightbleeding streak on the bottom left and no dead pixels so I'd consider myself very lucky. 1440p 96Hz is pretty fucking demanding though and the ROG Swift would be even more-so.
[QUOTE=K1ngo64;47052290]Yeah man, brilliant value monitors however buying them is a gamble due to them being A- panels with an existing defect.[/QUOTE] I don't have a Qnix or Catleap but the A- panels seem to be a great deal even taking a bit of a risk. I got a Yamakasi and the only issue with it is 3 dead pixels that I almost never even notice and very occasionally the backlight kind of flickers though that only ever seems to happen on the desktop. (Actually haven't even noticed that in several months anyways.) It's only 60hz though in my case.
[QUOTE=Cold;47051516]According to Nvidia by up to 3% [img]http://i.imgur.com/x47Ya3E.png[/img] There might be other usecases too, theoretical max is 10% performance decrease, its practically probably max 5% or so tho. If you don't use super high resolutions, it should be pretty hard to get to more then 3.5gb of ram anyway.[/QUOTE] The only thing I'm still confused about (and this chart shows exactly why) is if the GTX 980 or 960 have this same problem. My understanding of this fiasco is that [i]only[/i] the GTX 970 has VRAM issues. If that is indeed the case, how come the 980 is getting almost the exact same performance drops as the 970 when the VRAM usage goes above 3.5GB?
[QUOTE=Lordgeorge16;47052857]The only thing I'm still confused about (and this chart shows exactly why) is if the GTX 980 or 960 have this same problem. My understanding of this fiasco is that [i]only[/i] the GTX 970 has VRAM issues. If that is indeed the case, how come the 980 is getting almost the exact same performance drops as the 970 when the VRAM usage goes above 3.5GB?[/QUOTE] When the table says >3.5GB, they're including stuff that goes beyond even 4GB. Beyond 4GB, the card has to access main system memory, which is why you see a huge performance drop on both cards. That is my understanding anyway
[QUOTE=Lordgeorge16;47052857]If that is indeed the case, how come the 980 is getting almost the exact same performance drops as the 970 when the VRAM usage goes above 3.5GB?[/QUOTE] This is because the vast majority of the performance drops still come from the graphics card simply not being able to keep up with the increased workload. The vram issue is actually a very minor effect in the end, losing only a couple fps. The weird part about that chart, unless I'm managing to misread it, is that the 980 looks to have a larger overall decrease above 3.5gb settings than the 970. Going with Shadow of Mordor there, the 970 loses 15fps while the 980 loses 17. (Though I suppose the percentage drop is still lower in the end.)
[QUOTE=Lordgeorge16;47052857]The only thing I'm still confused about (and this chart shows exactly why) is if the GTX 980 or 960 have this same problem. My understanding of this fiasco is that [i]only[/i] the GTX 970 has VRAM issues. If that is indeed the case, how come the 980 is getting almost the exact same performance drops as the 970 when the VRAM usage goes above 3.5GB?[/QUOTE] The 980 doesn't have this problem. If you bump the graphics up your framerate is going to drop no matter what, question is what %. The 980 doesn't drop as much.
[QUOTE=Lordgeorge16;47052857]The only thing I'm still confused about (and this chart shows exactly why) is if the GTX 980 or 960 have this same problem. My understanding of this fiasco is that [i]only[/i] the GTX 970 has VRAM issues. If that is indeed the case, how come the 980 is getting almost the exact same performance drops as the 970 when the VRAM usage goes above 3.5GB?[/QUOTE] Because they increase memory usage, by increasing resolution, or turning Supersampling on. Which has a performance impact regardless of the memory bug. The table/statement shows the difference in performance decrease between the 980 that doesn't have this limitation on the last 0.5gb of VRAM, and the 970 that does. And it shows the 970 drops up to 3% more then the 980. [editline]1st February 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=GamerKiwi;47052129]But will future games likely demand it? I'm building a computer with one and I want to avoid upgrading as long as possible, since I don't have that much money. It would suck to drop a grand on a PC just to have to upgrade it sooner that I should have to due to low VRAM.[/QUOTE] I doubt the performance on the last 0.5gb is gonna make the difference between upgrading or not. As in the Nvidia statement, the performance on that last 0.5GB may only have a 3% impact. I am sure games will demand more VRam at some point, but so far its pretty much never happened that cards started being capped on VRam before they where on processing power.
[QUOTE=Cold;47054370]memory bug.[/QUOTE] It's not even a bug. It's working exactly as intended, people just don't seem to completely understand why it works that way and see it as nVidia being full of shit instead. Especially with the actual error in the advertised specs due to miscommunication between their marketing department and the other departments.
[QUOTE=Kaabii;47052052]Sorry to go off topic but are those Qnix/Catleaps?[/QUOTE] Yeah, it's solid. Picked it up for $300.
[QUOTE=Alice3173;47054436]It's not even a bug. It's working exactly as intended, people just don't seem to completely understand why it works that way and see it as nVidia being full of shit instead. Especially with the actual error in the advertised specs due to miscommunication between their marketing department and the other departments.[/QUOTE] I just kinda lack better words to describe it.
So since many are saying it's a "feature" of 970 to have split 3.5 and 512 ram, is there any benefit from such architecture/structure of card?
[QUOTE=KinderBueno;47055536]So since many are saying it's a "feature" of 970 to have split 3.5 and 512 ram, is there any benefit from such architecture/structure of card?[/QUOTE] It's better than just having 3.5GB because the last memory segment is still faster than going out over PCI-E.
Amazon told me I can send my 970 back for 100% refund + all shipping costs covered both - when they sent it to me and if I send it to them. I wonder is it worth it, is there any better card I can buy for 450 Euro?
[QUOTE=KinderBueno;47059882]Amazon told me I can send my 970 back for 100% refund + all shipping costs covered both - when they sent it to me and if I send it to them. I wonder is it worth it, is there any better card I can buy for 450 Euro?[/QUOTE] I would think if there was that you would have bought it instead. This "issue" doesn't fundamentally change the performance of the card at all.
returning your card because of an issue more related to mis-representation rather than actual real life performance is ridiculous. Still can't get a better card for less
People in these situations fail to realize that the card was initially reviewed very well, performed strongly, and was a great purchase for the price. The memory controversy does not change that. You may perceive it differently but a 970 is still a very strong performing card for its price. I upgraded to my 970 from a HD 6850, and I even got my 970 for $260 the day they came out and it was "open box" for being "too loud", so it was well worth it to me.
To me it's like buying a sports car because it goes 0-60mph in 4 seconds. Then when you get it and take it to the track, yes, it does in fact go that fast. But the brochure said it had a 400hp engine and a couple of weeks later the company admits that it actually puts out 380hp at the rear wheels. Do you get mad? No, the damn thing still goes 0-60 in 4 seconds which is why you bought it. The horsepower numbers are just that, numbers on a paper.
I am not gonna exchange it now, this morning I thought I lack performance because of 970, but turned out my CPU is damaged, so I am sending it for replacement. That solves all my problems and doubts now.
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