First, the issue you are talking is..........

What would a 970 specifically have to do with you wanting to go to SLI 980 setup?

Your question is way too vague for any answer.

that is an NVidia thing, not an EVGA thing.  I am sure EVGA will take care of their customers IF NVidia decides to back them, but if the card is functioning as designed, IE: you didn't know there was an issue for 4 months until someone else pointed it out, then there still isn't an issue.  They will not refund the card 4 months later, since it is functioning as the parent company designed, according to NVidia.
 
Do I think it is correct for them to do that, NO. It still isn't EVGA that caused the problem.  
 
There are 3 threads going on this currently, and plenty of people have asked the question.  Think of it like this, if you decide to get a lawyer and file suit against EVGA you are going to tank.  If you file suit against NVidia, you have a leg to stand on. I think you are looking in the wrong area unfortunately.
 
oh yeah... Because obviously, there was an "issue" with original 970 FTW model, or there wouldn't have been updated versions released, so think before you assume.  Posting what you are talking about avoids someone assuming you are talking about something else.  Don't forget the obvious coil whine issues across the 970 as well. 

It is shown that it is 3.5gb of vram, so this may be a misreading. Have you monitored your gpu usage in gpuz while running very intense rendering benches, like Firestrike ultra? It destroys my 780tis due to the 3gb of vram.

There is a video, and forgive me for not having it right now but another forum user just posted it. It shows the 970 utilize all 4 GB of vram in a spike but quickly settles for 3.5 steady. The user even shows that they should have stated it was 3.5gb with a .5gb buffer area.

I really hope nvidia does something, even giving free games that are brand new, to compensate, but I don't see individual retailers taking a huge hit where they couldn't have known right away that nvidia did that.

Of course, the engineers should have noticed, but I don't think they could have foreseen the issues that are suddenly being brought to light almost 6 months later.

I figure the answer is yes, but are you past your 90 step up window?

It is 90 days from the day you purchased the card. I think all of September is out of the window by now, sadly.

If people want to inform about problem with 970 VRAM I think should request fix from NVIDIA, topic is and on their forum, 100 pages.
It's not only EVGA problem. All manufacturers are in problems and lose money and not because their fault.
If something can be done EVGA customers will not pass worse than other brands, only better if chance for step-up persist.

Vlada011
If people want to inform about problem with 970 VRAM I think should request fix from NVIDIA, topic is and on their forum, 100 pages.
It's not only EVGA problem. All manufacturers are in problems and lose money and not because their fault.
If something can be done EVGA customers will not pass worse than other brands, only better if chance for step-up persist.

If EVGA let me step up to a 980 I would send my 970 back in a heartbeat and I would also buy a second 980 this week when I purchase the last of my parts for my X99 build. If this issue was known before the deadline for my step up I would have sent it back already. 

Almost sounds like back in the day when Windows XP *32Bit/x86 OS a computer with 4GB of memory the OS could only use 3.5GB of memory of it.

Mikael_Wartooth

Scarlet-Tech
that is an NVidia thing, not an EVGA thing.  I am sure EVGA will take care of their customers IF NVidia decides to back them, but if the card is functioning as designed, IE: you didn't know there was an issue for 4 months until someone else pointed it out, then there still isn't an issue.  They will not refund the card 4 months later, since it is functioning as the parent company designed, according to NVidia.
 
Do I think it is correct for them to do that, NO. It still isn't EVGA that caused the problem.  
 
There are 3 threads going on this currently, and plenty of people have asked the question.  Think of it like this, if you decide to get a lawyer and file suit against EVGA you are going to tank.  If you file suit against NVidia, you have a leg to stand on. I think you are looking in the wrong area unfortunately.
 
oh yeah... Because obviously, there was an "issue" with original 970 FTW model, or there wouldn't have been updated versions released, so think before you assume.  Posting what you are talking about avoids someone assuming you are talking about something else.  Don't forget the obvious coil whine issues across the 970 as well. 

I have ZERO issues with EVGA and I know it is not their problem, but I only buy EVGA products when it comes to graphics cards and since I am building a X99 system that means I will be stepping up to higher resolution monitors as well and if the 970 can't utilize the full 4GB of VRAM like it was advertised then NVIDA needs to do something. EVGA has always been good to me and I have had three of their cards already. Advertising a 4GB card that only has 3.1GB of Dedicated Vram is misleading and I'm sure people would have went with another card if they were given the correct info to make an informed decision. 
 
Here is a test I ran tonight:

Some of the games on canyourunit give some interesting things back. Take Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six for instance. It DOES say its 4GB VRam and for my i5 4690K came up with You Have: 3.5 GHz Performance Rated at: 8.05 GHz

Scarlet-Tech
IE: you didn't know there was an issue for 4 months until someone else pointed it out, then there still isn't an issue.

I'm going to disagree with this statement to an extent and I know you didn't come out and say "No one noticed the issue until the benchmark", but many people have been taking an attitude of "Nothing was wrong until the benchmark came out". Sure though there are plenty of people who have 0 issue with performance just jumping on the bandwagon because they are a 970 owner. There also have been a number of threads on the geforce forums discussing the stutter/fps drops with 970s all the way back around Halloween when I first started reading about the 970s with intent to purchase. Since there was the voltage drop issue some speculated that could be a culprit in SLI setups. Also the issue doesn't really show up in 1080(possibly 1440 as well) so you have smaller number of people reporting the problem. So the issue existed but it's only now that we know what is causing it.
 
As an example, I get it in Unity, FC4 and Dragon Age at 4k. The stutter is more noticeable in DA:I but it only occurs during cutscenes. It's subtle and fluctuates it's frequency greatly in FC4 and Unity. There are plenty of other games that run fine in 4k and with Ubisoft taking a lot of flack for terrible PC ports and with PC DA:I having so many graphical issues at launch it was easy to dismiss the stutter as a developer issue and not a hardware issue. Then after this benchmark came out it made me take a second look at what was going on during the fps drops and sure enough once any of those 3 games start using around 3.4GB VRAM the issue starts. As a comparison running those same games in 1080 they never go much above 2GB and run flawlessly. So like I said the problem existed but I needed someone else to point out the cause for me to reexamine what I originally dismissed as bad game coding.

rafter1974
Personally, I think anyone who bought an EVGA 970 should be allowed to Step Up to a 980, regardless of how long they've had their card, which at the longest is only like 4 months anyway. The card that was sold and the card that we purchased aren't the same things and even if it's Nvidia's fault I didn't buy my card from Nvidia. It's not a handout, we'd still have to pay the difference for the better card, and it's certainly better than people getting refunds for being flat out lied to about the specs of the card.

Yep. I'm already working with EVGA on the issue. Been exchanging Emails back and fourth all day. They are very aware of the issue and are willing to work with people it seems. 

The answer as to what they will do about this is probably going to be "nothing"
 
The cards work the way they were designed, a synthetic benchmark showing "poor bandwidth" does not equal poor gaming performance. There is a reason it took 6 months to find this issue, it's not very noticable. If anyone wants to understand WHY it's not a huge deal here is a great write up about what everything actually means at a technical level. I actually find it fascinating that they are able to do stuff like this where you have a full 4GB available to the card instead of it having to be cut down to a 3.5GB or 3GB card. Personally, I'm planning on following through with my step-ups from a pair of 970 SC to 970 FTW+ 

http://www.pcper.com/revi...nd-Limitations-GTX-970

TChittenden II
The answer as to what they will do about this is probably going to be "nothing"
 
The cards work the way they were designed, a synthetic benchmark showing "poor bandwidth" does not equal poor gaming performance. There is a reason it took 6 months to find this issue, it's not very noticable. If anyone wants to understand WHY it's not a huge deal here is a great write up about what everything actually means at a technical level. I actually find it fascinating that they are able to do stuff like this where you have a full 4GB available to the card instead of it having to be cut down to a 3.5GB or 3GB card. Personally, I'm planning on following through with my step-ups from a pair of 970 SC to 970 FTW+ 

http://www.pcper.com/revi...nd-Limitations-GTX-970

EVGA is allowing me to Step Up outside of my promotional period. There is a reason I only buy EVGA. Customer service is top notch. 

Mikael_Wartooth
EVGA is allowing me to Step Up outside of my promotional period. There is a reason I only buy EVGA. Customer service is top notch. 

That is awesome news! I fear they are getting ready to get flooded with phone calls from every single user that has a 970 now.

the_real_maverick
To the original post, EVGA "will" and "is justified" in doing nothing unless Nvidia takes responsibility for the lack of documentation and transparency.  Regardless, I am interested to see what happens.....will be a good case study for school

One post above yours.. Read that.. :-) EVGA... FTW?

A video explaining it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b74MYv8ldXc

Mikael_WartoothEVGA is allowing me to Step Up outside of my promotional period. There is a reason I only buy EVGA. Customer service is top notch. 

By paying the difference or how? 
 
It's a hard topic, nobody knows who is responsible for this, respectively, who has to take responsibility. NV, EVGA or the reseller? And then we have all the different laws in all the countries, so it will be very interesting how the story will end.