The honest to God truth about the 970 fiasco.

[guitarheroknight]

"An nvidia engineer was interviewed about the memory problems the GTX 970 users are facing, this is what he had to say!"

 

[Foxi4]

EoF? EoF.

 

[guitarheroknight]

Huh?

 

[RevPokemon]

This was never the way I planned, not my intention.
I got so brave, drink in hand, lost my discretion
It's not what I'm used to, just wanna try you on.
I'm curious for you, caught my attention.

 

[Vipera]

"Ezzu" = "three point five gigabyte"?

What a majestic language.

 

[guitarheroknight]

"Ezzu" = "three point five gigabyte"?

What a majestic language.

Amen!

 

[migles]

i need a defenition for the word gimp, (am not talking about your mom's gimp btw) anyone?

 

[raulpica]

Why are people so stuck on this thing? It's 3.5GB vs 4GB, who cares.

 

[ComeTurismO]

Why are people so stuck on this thing? It's 3.5GB vs 4GB, who cares.

hey

 

[ComeTurismO]

Why are people so stuck on this thing? It's 3.5GB vs 4GB, who cares.

hey

 

[ComeTurismO]

Why are people so stuck on this thing? It's 3.5GB vs 4GB, who cares.

hey

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Why are people so stuck on this thing? It's 3.5GB vs 4GB, who cares.

OMG OF COURSE YOU WOULDN'T CARE FUCKING CONSOLE PEASANT IT'S ABOUT .5GB OF FUCKING VRAM IT'S SUPER IMPORTANT GAMES NEED LIKE 8GB OF VRAM NOW FOR MY 8K GAMING FUCKING CONSOLE PEASANT YOU WOULDN'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO LIVE IN THE 1080P 60FPS MASTER RACE FUCKING CONSOLE PEASANT

 

[guitarheroknight]

Why are people so stuck on this thing? It's 3.5GB vs 4GB, who cares.

Well you may or may not know this but when the usage goes above 3.5 gb the FPS tends to drop quite drastically. If you buy a car with 200 bhp you expect it to have that much because you paid for it, nothing less and nothing more!

 

[Foxi4]

Well you may or may not know this but when the usage goes above 3.5 gb the FPS tends to drop quite drastically. If you buy a car with 200 bhp you expect it to have that much because you paid for it, nothing less and nothing more!

There's always some residual space that's never accessible for whatever reason (often times it's occupied by system critical files). When you buy a 500GB hard drive, you don't actually have 500GB of space to use - some of it is used as backup sectors in the event of sector failure, some is occupied by the filesystem etc. - the drive itself has a total of 500GB, it's just that not all of it is usable. Same applies to RAM and, in this case, VRAM. That said, the missing 500MB is a sign of really poor optimization or a software bug, it is a bit much. As for the framerate, VRAM capacity has nothing to do with it - throughput might, but that's relatively fast. I'm betting on shoddy drivers here, as it is often the case these days.

 

[guitarheroknight]

There's always some residual space that's never accessible for whatever reason (often times it's occupied by system critical files). When you buy a 500GB hard drive, you don't actually have 500GB of space to use - some of it is used as backup sectors in the event of sector failure, some is occupied by the filesystem etc. - the drive itself has a total of 500GB, it's just that not all of it is usable. Same applies to RAM and, in this case, VRAM. That said, the missing 500MB is a sign of really poor optimization or a software bug, it is a bit much. As for the framerate, VRAM capacity has nothing to do with it - throughput might, but that's relatively fast. I'm betting on shoddy drivers here, as it is often the case these days.

I get that but VRAM is not the same as a HDD. When you go and buy a 4 gb RAM for your PC you get 4 gb - nothing less and nothing more. And believe me when I say that the FPS indeed drops if the VRAM goes above 3.5 gb since the other 0.5 gb is a slower variation of it. I myself own a R9 290 with 4gb of VRAM and Im able to use all of it without any issues compared to the 970 where anything above 3.5 gb is just not playable. The fact is Nvidia lied when they advertised that they have 4 gb of usable VRAM when in fact they have 3.5. The card is awesome dont get me wrong, but the false advertisement is just wrong and thats why their stock is dropping. The EU is very strict regarding this kind of things and this kind of thing will not stand. If youre by any chance from the EU you can ask for a refund due to false advertising.

Heres some sauce in case youre thinking Im making things up.

 

[Foxi4]

I get that but VRAM is not the same as a HDD. When you go and buy a 4 gb RAM for your PC you get 4 gb - nothing less and nothing more. And believe me when I say that the FPS indeed drops if the VRAM goes above 3.5 gb since the other 0.5 gb is a slower variation of it. I myself own a R9 290 with 4gb of VRAM and Im able to use all of it without any issues compared to the 970 where anything above 3.5 gb is just not playable. The fact is Nvidia lied when they advertised that they have 4 gb of usable VRAM when in fact they have 3.5. The card is awesome dont get me wrong, but the false advertisement is just wrong and thats why their stock is dropping. The EU is very strict regarding this kind of things and this kind of thing will not stand. If youre by any chance from the EU you can ask for a refund due to false advertising.

Heres some sauce in case youre thinking Im making things up.

You don't get the exact amount of RAM/VRAM that's on the box because that's impossible to accurately achieve, you get an estimated value. If the last 500MB's are a slower variant of memory then that's a problem, but it's still a 4GB card. Once again, it barely affects framerate unless you're streaming from VRAM for whatever reason. You don't have 3.5GB VRAM, you have 4GB, they're just not of the same type according to what you're saying.

 

[FAST6191]

So I just read up on this (I was completely oblivious to it all). Now I am going to have to see if I can trick someone doing the storm in a teacup thing into selling me one cheap, much like the time various kids declared flashed 360s worthless when they had been banned from Xbox Live.

 

[guitarheroknight]

Actually you do get it and you are able to use all of it with no problems. HDDs, USBs, SSDs are a whole different story. You dont have to take my word for it just google "970 fps drop" and youll get more than enough to convince you. The card is "4 gb" but it can effectively only use 3.5 gb and when it goes above that, the other 0.5 gb is used which is slower hence dropping the FPS drastically.

Here ypu go, I cant really explain this better than this.

So I just read up on this (I was completely oblivious to it all). Now I am going to have to see if I can trick someone doing the storm in a teacup thing into selling me one cheap, much like the time various kids declared flashed 360s worthless when they had been banned from Xbox Live.

You know that might just work, better keep an eye out on Craigslist or whatnot, you never know what you might find.

 

[Foxi4]

Actually you do get it and you are able to use all of it with no problems. HDDs, USBs, SSDs are a whole different story. You dont have to take my word for it just google "970 fps drop" and youll get more than enough to convince you. The card is "4 gb" but it can effectively only use 3.5 gb and when it goes above that, the other 0.5 gb is used which is slower hence dropping the FPS drastically.

"It's there but it's slow so it's not there" - okay. I can also give you evidence that you don't have an exact amount of RAM - boot your PC, note down the memory test result and calculate how much it should actually be. If you have good sticks, it should be slightly more than the declared capacity, it could also be less, but I bet it's not EXACTLY the right amount because again, that's impossible. I'm not saying what NVidia's doing is right, I'm saying that you're demonstratively wrong.

 

[guitarheroknight]

"It's there but it's slow so it's not there" - okay. I can also give you evidence that you don't have an exact amount of RAM - boot your PC, note down the memory test result and calculate how much it should actually be. If you have good sticks, it should be slightly more than the declared capacity, it could also be less, but I bet it's not EXACTLY the right amount because again, that's impossible. I'm not saying what NVidia's doing is right, I'm saying that you're demonstratively wrong.

You're correct, but a 512 mb difference is over the top for any kind of RAM especially for a "4 gb" high end graphics card.

 

[Foxi4]

You're correct, but a 512 mb difference is over the top for any kind of RAM especially for a "4 gb" high end graphics card.

I think we've already established that there is no 512MB difference, the last bit is just slower. Here's a thought - don't buy Nvidia cards from NVidia - leave the chip design to them and actual card manufacturing to the seasoned professionals that were in this business since the dawn of time and you'll have less problems like this.

 

[guitarheroknight]

I think we've already established that there is no 512MB difference, the last bit is just slower. Here's a thought - don't buy Nvidia cards from NVidia - leave the chip design to them and actual card manufacturing to the seasoned professionals that were in this business since the dawn of time and you'll have less problems like this.

But you do realize the problem is the actual chip right? It was designed that way. All the 970s regardless the model are plagued by this issue, thats why people are pissed.