Whine all you want, it won't make you bigger. If you wanted a 980, you should have paid the price for one. As I noted in the other thread: 980 uses 4GB's, costs $550, so $137.5/GB. The measly 970 uses 3.5GB, costs $340, so $97.15/GB. Do the math. I knew I wasn't getting a 980 for $340 when I bought this card and I don't care that I may not always use the whole 4GB. When was the last time you had a card with 3.5GB of memory for $340?. I paid ~$600/each for 8800GTXs and they were less than half as fast and had less than 1GB of slower ram than the 970. WWAAAAAHHHH!!!

afish
Whine all you want, it won't make you bigger. If you wanted a 980, you should have paid the price for one. As I noted in the other thread: 980 uses 4GB's, costs $550, so $137.5/GB. The measly 970 uses 3.5GB, costs $340, so $97.15/GB. Do the math. I knew I wasn't getting a 980 for $340 when I bought this card and I don't care that I may not always use the whole 4GB. When was the last time you had a card with 3.5GB of memory for $340?. I paid ~$600/each for 8800GTXs and they were less than half as fast and had less than 1GB of slower ram than the 970. WWAAAAAHHHH!!!

Go put $40 in your gas tank, smile and say thanks when you get $30 worth.

"The GeForce GTX 970 is equipped with 4GB of dedicated graphics memory.  However the 970 has a different configuration of SMs than the 980, and fewer crossbar resources to the memory system. To optimally manage memory traffic in this configuration, we segment graphics memory into a 3.5GB section and a 0.5GB section.  The GPU has higher priority access to the 3.5GB section.  When a game needs less than 3.5GB of video memory per draw command then it will only access the first partition, and 3rd party applications that measure memory usage will report 3.5GB of memory in use on GTX 970, but may report more for GTX 980 if there is more memory used by other commands.  When a game requires more than 3.5GB of memory then we use both segments."
 
"Nvidia’s statement explains our own findings earlier. In our analysis we discovered that the GTX 970 can actually make use of all the available 4GB of VRAM and not just 3.5GB. However the performance penalty for using that last 0.5GB of VRAM is still interesting. As Nvidia explains it and as we had suspected earlier, the issue is essentially due to the fact that the GTX 970 is based on a cut-down GM204-200 GPU die instead of the full GM204 chip like its bigger brother the GTX 980."

Read more: http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-memory-issue-fully-explained/#ixzz3PqsIcAPL


You paid for a 970, not a 980. Sacrifices have to be made. The card can still address all 4 GB of VRAM. While the performance hit is unfortunate, that's pretty much how it has to be. I guess you can call it a "design flaw"

afish
Whine all you want, it won't make you bigger. If you wanted a 980, you should have paid the price for one. As I noted in the other thread: 980 uses 4GB's, costs $550, so $137.5/GB. The measly 970 uses 3.5GB, costs $340, so $97.15/GB. Do the math. I knew I wasn't getting a 980 for $340 when I bought this card and I don't care that I may not always use the whole 4GB. When was the last time you had a card with 3.5GB of memory for $340?. I paid ~$600/each for 8800GTXs and they were less than half as fast and had less than 1GB of slower ram than the 970. WWAAAAAHHHH!!!

I don't think it really has anything to do with wanting a 980. What people are disappointed with is not getting the full product as advertised. Jeez

the_real_maverick
My card starts to have lower performance at 3gb.  So, many 970 cards are effective only till 3gb, not even 3.5  ......so 1/4 of my memory is defective imo.  Still, I rarely go over 3gb but its the simple matter of no documentation for customers.  Do I feel screwed on this purchase?  Not really, but I probably would have gone with a 780ti with 3gb instead of the 970 with 3gb.

Which model do you have?

One other thing, I researched before I bought. Yes I thought wow look at the specs, the 970 is almost the 980, but so much cheaper. I wasn't born yesterday so I knew there had to be some difference.
I also checked reviews and found the 970 did not perform as well as the 980; duh, maybe that is why the 970 is nearly half the cost of the 980. I bought the 970 and am glad I did because it won't be long before another generation of computing products appear and they'll likely make the the 980 look tame.
I'd suggest get over running tests to prove you got snookered and play some games. The 970 works great for that.

the_real_maverick
I have the new SSC 04G-P4-3975-KR.

Can you open a GPU-z window in sensor, and run Firestrike ultra, them take a screen shot and paste it here?

If there is something else happening with your card, you should get it fixed quick.

the_real_maverick
There are a few others users on here that reported theirs to have lower performance starting at 3gb.  These numbers come strictly from the program that everyone is using to evaluate the performance, and I'm not sure its a good indicator of real world performance.  Still, it seems some 970s get worse at about 3gbs, which actually can affect my needs.
 
 
http://imageshack.com/a/img910/2803/1XOUA1.jpg

Again, can you try Firestrike ultra with GPU-z in the sensor tab? Set the memory usage and amount tab to Max.

Dang, OK. Hopefully you can get it later and test it. It makes my GPUs out (only 3gb cards) so it may show a lot more memory usage for you. Not entirely sure, but I am definitely curious about it.

chrisdglong
Nvidia has been headed in the crapper for years. Bumpgate, shield tablet cracking, drivers getting worse and worse, overpricing... The list is never ending. They never take responsibility for anything either. The whole bumpgate fiasco was a class-action lawsuit that they never admitted any wrong doing. The settlement even stated that they were NOT admitting the products were faulty... Nvidia has become a horrible company without solid competition from anyone else in graphics cards. In tablets, Nvidia is pure crap. In mobile, Nvidia is crap. I will not buy anything from Nvidia again, except their high-end video cards, and even that is wavering. 

Dang man, probably time to take your ball and go home.

chrisdglong

Fennicillin

chrisdglong
Nvidia has been headed in the crapper for years. Bumpgate, shield tablet cracking, drivers getting worse and worse, overpricing... The list is never ending. They never take responsibility for anything either. The whole bumpgate fiasco was a class-action lawsuit that they never admitted any wrong doing. The settlement even stated that they were NOT admitting the products were faulty... Nvidia has become a horrible company without solid competition from anyone else in graphics cards. In tablets, Nvidia is pure crap. In mobile, Nvidia is crap. I will not buy anything from Nvidia again, except their high-end video cards, and even that is wavering. 

Dang man, probably time to take your ball and go home.

Well, if there was competition in the high-end graphics card market, I would have went to the competition's side already... However, AMD has not really been competing in the high-end market. 

From personal experience with the GTX 970 and the R9 290X, AMD's offerings are fantastic, they just dropped the prices on the Sapphire Tri-X and MSI Lightening R9 290X's to $349... Even more so with the R9 295X2 sitting at $689.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_980_g1_gaming_review,17.html
 
My aftermarket Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X actually stays slightly cooler than my GTX 970 SSC and performs better. Sure... power consumption is nice, but I want performance for my games.

I was able to get a 970 GTX FTW for $334.99

Cant diss that price at all.

chrisdglong
I'm using a 980 sc acx2 from EVGA... Sorry, but I just looked at the reviews and AMD does NOT look competitive for what I want. The 980 is getting higher performance, lower temps and less power consumption. 

Really depends on the game, resolution you are playing at and which model of R9 290X you are comparing to.
 
If you look at 4K games, they trade blows and when you look at SLI vs CFX performance it goes back and forth.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_980_sli_review,22.html
 
They are extremely competitive.

http://www.anandtech.com/...geforce-gtx-980-review

chrisdglong
http://www.anandtech.com/...geforce-gtx-980-review

For a $350 card, the R9 290X is holding up damn well to $550 cards @4K. I'm actually more interested in CFX though, since I want to get around 60 FPS @ 4K.