AMD to offer deal for those who are returning their GTX 970

"Anyone returning their GTX970 and wanting a great deal on a Radeon with a full 4GB please let us know."

https://twitter.com/amd_roy/status/560462075193880576

E-mail: roy.taylor@amd.com

For those who don't know nVidia lied with respect to their "memory allocation" on their GTX 970 which has led to performance issues in memory intensive games and playing games at high resolutions and nvidia straight out lied about the ROPs that their GTX 970 has. AMD R9 290X/290 with a "full 4GB" along with some other "deal" doesn't sound like a bad idea.

And oh yeah straight from AMD rep: :P

https://twitter.com/Thracks/status/560511204951855104

i have that bad boy and it runs great on all games. If anyone is interested, go for it.

Gross AMD.

lol amd lol

Lol why? IMO GTX 970 was the price/performance GPU until I found out about the 3.5GB issue. What's going to happen down the road when more and more games take advantage of more memory even at 1080P? Couldn't max out GTA IV on my HD 4870 because 1GB wasn't enough until I got my BIOS flashed HD 6970 which had 2GB memory. What happens when GTA V comes out for the PC? Wouldn't be surprised if it is memory intensive given how large the game is and given the track record of the last game.

I just RMA'd my Gigabyte 970, it broke 6 days after Newegg's replacement timeframe and was never even given the option to refund by newegg just their standard VGA replacement policy. If i could have returned it i would have if only to not have to deal with Gigabyte RMA which is awful and painfully slow, oh, and to have a potentially functional card. I won't lie though, when it was working it was fantastic. I imagine an r9 290x performs almost in the same ballpark and is cheaper (ignoring power consumption) by a decent margin.

Regretfully their R290 is still weaker than even GTX970.

Fortunately the local retailer I bought my cards from has extremely good customer service, so I might as well take this opportunity to replace the cards with a pair of GTX980s.

By the way Nvidia says they're Cong out with an update to fix the problem

i just want the amd 300 series to come out already. wanna grab a 970 twin frozr V but with its current wtf price tag of ~$450 (in canada) i can't.

Go AMD go!

Misleading thread...How do I get the discount?

Maybe a R9 290. But the R9 290X is as fast if not faster than GTX 970. If you can afford a GTX 980 then go for it. I thought about getting a GTX 970, as it was the best price/performance GPU for 2014 as noted by some tech sites/blogs. But what happens when going forward? If it's stuttering in some games at 1440P, what happens when you are down the road, we may see this issue even at 1080P, as I am a person who don't upgrade as frequently, I try to hold onto my GPU as much as possible until I can't max out many, many games. I ride it as, the saying goes, till the "wheels fall off".

Besides if you are spending $330, you should be getting 4GB by default. Not sure, why nVidia took the route they did with respect to their memory allocation. I read it maybe to save on costs, not sure though.

AMD is getting desperate.

You have to e-mail:

roy.taylor@amd.com

Look at his twitter feed and the twitter link that I posted. Someone at nVidia forums e-mailed him. He said supposedly there will be more info tomorrow.

My apologies..I was having trouble finding the information.

They weren't the ones falsely advertising specs.

Wait. My gtx 970 isnt 4gb?

There isn't any sort of driver update that will magically fix what is a hardware problem... The 970 will never be able to utilize 4GB of VRAM like an actual 4GB card. And I've owned a 970 since November, though personally I haven't noticed any problems because I game at 1920x1200 but this sort of kills any future plans for SLI and 1440p. Not sure if I should try getting a refund while I can.

This whole thing is disgusting really, nvidia straight up lied about the specs of one of their latest cards yet the nvidia shills on this forum and elsewhere are gonna keep defending the company. Whether or not this cut costs for the 970 down or not, nvidia falsely advertised their card's capability.

There is nothing to fix. This is intentional.

It's more like... 3.5 plus 0.5, if that makes sense.

Nope. http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-Responds-GTX-970-35GB-Memory-Issue

@hernandezzzz: No not really. If the extra .5gb isnt allocatable then whats the point?

Im really confused about this. Seems nvidia is working on some kind of fix, but I doubt Ill ever get the full performance i was promised.

I hear a class action lawsuit.

You won't get the full performance promised. The best case scenario is nvidia offers some promotion where you can return your 970 and get a discounted 980. And you're absolutely right, nvidia should be sued over this. But they won't be.

I don't understand the mentality of some people.

Up until yesterday you probably loved your 970 and thought it was the greatest thing ever. Now some hardware details come out that you don't understand, Nvidia says they are going to fix it, and yet now you "doubt you'll get the full performance you were promised."

they're working to change how memory is allocated to improve performance

Wrong, GTX 970 does make use of the 4gb buffer, and many review sites and people testing it show that the card does make use of all the vram it also depends on how the game's allocate memory as well. Now most of the people complaining about performance issues is not from the vram, people really need to read the results from respectable sources prove this is the case. People are over estimating these cards abilities with 4k, ultra settings with or without massive amounts of AA. People are just plain over doing it ie excessive GPU load, not about VRAM segmentation.

The fact is that the 970 is a 4gb card its not a 3.5 gb card... even with the segmented 0.5gb memory the performance is less then 5% vs 980's full bandwidth.... overreacting and not looking into the matter and learning the what and why is what is causing this to be inflamed .

The fact that Nvidia is releasing a drivers that can help allocate non bandwidth sensitive data to the .5gb before using the main pool is a step in the right direction of making amends also helping to get refunds if need be. Fact is that the vast majority are pleased with the gpu.

@mikhail: Its a straight up lie. I do like the card, BUT its not what I was sold.

I dont plan on returning it or anything like that. I just read some benchmarks for when the card goes over 3.5gb side by side with the 980 and the performance loss difference is marginal. That still doesnt change that this isnt what I paid $350 for and its suddenly less future proof than I was led to believe.

Oh, you'll get the performance. The problem is that people are reporting microstuttering when the "extra" .5GB start being used...

It still is the greatest thing ever if I want to stay at 1080p or 60hz for 2-3 more years. But I bought the card on the presumption that it was viable for 1440p or 4k setups with SLI. Now it turns out that isn't the case.

Nvidia's "driver solution" won't magically make the 970 a 4GB card.

@princeofshapeir said:

@lostrib said:

By the way Nvidia says they're Cong out with an update to fix the problem

There isn't any sort of driver update that will magically fix what is a hardware problem... The 970 will never be able to utilize 4GB of VRAM like an actual 4GB card. And I've owned a 970 since November, though personally I haven't noticed any problems because I game at 1920x1200 but this sort of kills any future plans for SLI and 1440p. Not sure if I should try getting a refund while I can.

This whole thing is disgusting really, nvidia straight up lied about the specs of one of their latest cards yet the nvidia shills on this forum and elsewhere are gonna keep defending the company. Whether or not this cut costs for the 970 down or not, nvidia falsely advertised their card's capability.

dude, that gif is fuckin hilarious!

vast majority of that is because of excessive gpu loads, and nothing to do with the memory segmentation. people are expecting the 970 or for that matter the 980 to be able to run 4k, ultra settings with AA without issue and is just simply not the case.

Seen that the other day I laughed too. The fact is people are just plain overreacting.

Here are a few tests done looking to see if its a real issue.

I would also like to add two things:

1. Benchmarks that show averages instead of frametimes are useless, since they don't illustrate stuttering.
2. This isn't the first time Nvidia has done this.

"4Gb means 4Gb". Lol. 970 is still a great card for such price.

Funny thing is I was just looking on newegg for GTX 970 about a day or two ago before I heard about this. Originally I was thinking about get a R9 290X with it launched in October 2013 but wasn't fan of the reference cooler, thought I would wait for custom cooled R9 290X from AMD's partners like XFX, Sapphire, Asus, but by that time the Litecoin/Bitcoin mining took off and the prices went through the roof. Waited for the price to come down, by then nvidia had launched the GTX 970/980 and was ready to jump back to nVdia after 6 years. GTX 970 looked attractive to me as it had great price/performance ratio. But then I see today the RAMgate fiasco and there's no way I am getting lower allocated memory (or however you want to put it) Graphics Card. I want something that's future proof as I don't upgrade my graphics card as often. I might have issues at 1080P going forward in the next couple of years if games do take advantage of more memory. I remember I couldn't max GTA IV on my HD 4870 because I didn't have enough memory. It wasn't until I got my HD 6950 BIOS flashed to HD 6970 with 2GB that I could max out GTA IV.

Looks like I am back to the R9 290X or until the R9 380X/390/390X comes out.

3rd party reviewers/sites would note any stuttering, in their benchmarks

"The explanations make sense and the (in our testing at least) minimal impact on a game’s framerates is something that should be celebrated rather than ridiculed. However, the problem rests with the timing rather than the end result since it supposedly took months for anyone to realize a lot of essential information didn’t make its way to the press.

NVIDIA says their omission of these elements boils down to a miscommunication rather than any intent to mislead. We’re inclined to believe them since absolutely nothing has been gained by keeping it from us; the GTX 970’s performance hasn’t changed and neither has its overall value to gamers.

On the other hand, the fact it took a mob of pitchfork-wielding gamers and press for them to “come clean” about this points towards a very worrying reactionary approach. Should we the writers have asked just the right questions for this information to come forward beforehand? That certainly shouldn’t be the case"

lol dont be short sighted and misinformed 970 is a 4gb card and still is a better value then 290x even with the segmented memory pool it matches and or outperforms it in most cases. Dont let bias and a past problem that happened many years ago with a nvidia laptop gpu design flaw influence misinformed choices. And again dont forget the AMD mobile gpu failures that happened macbook pro users back in 2011/2012. AMD is not infallible neither.

Might as well wait and see what 300 series holds, and chances are the top end models will have a premium price tag to them.

dont buy the r9 200 series gpu when the r9 300 series will be out in like 2 months

The thing is even with its 3.5 GB GTX970 is lights ahead of r290 4gb performance-wise

lol Ngreedia

Remember the 680/770 with just 2GB?

How about the 780/780Ti with just 3GB?

And now the 970 with just 3.5GB

B-b-b-b-b-but bettah drivors!!!111

#AMDMasterRace

@princeofshapeir said:

@lostrib said:

By the way Nvidia says they're Cong out with an update to fix the problem

There isn't any sort of driver update that will magically fix what is a hardware problem... The 970 will never be able to utilize 4GB of VRAM like an actual 4GB card. And I've owned a 970 since November, though personally I haven't noticed any problems because I game at 1920x1200 but this sort of kills any future plans for SLI and 1440p. Not sure if I should try getting a refund while I can.

This whole thing is disgusting really, nvidia straight up lied about the specs of one of their latest cards yet the nvidia shills on this forum and elsewhere are gonna keep defending the company. Whether or not this cut costs for the 970 down or not, nvidia falsely advertised their card's capability.

If you brought it from newegg. They should be able to allow you to return in. Someone was apparently able to even though they were way past the return date. From the GeForce forums:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/806879/geforce-900-series/is-nvidia-compensating-970-customers-/4/

"Called Newegg. They gave me RMA for each GTX 970 with no restocking fee and will issue me Newegg in store credit. I bought both these over 2 months ago so it was past the return policy."

I would if I were you as this pretty much kills any plans like you said for a future upgrade for a SLI setup. You could use that to get a R9 290X or GTX 980. Although AMD from what I hear will be releasing R9 380X, so keep that in mind.

Hilarious GIF by the way. :P

Son of a, I was going to upgrade, and I need it badly, I need a single card better than 4GB 670s SLI...gonna wait this one out, who knows, I may join AMD again, haven't so since early 2011.

I'll wait for the 8GB version of GTX970.......now i kinda doubt that'll ever happen...they couldn't pull off 4GB ...

It'll be 7.5 GB instead.

Actually, it may be 7GB, since there will just be double the 3.5GB fast memory and double the 0.5GB useless slow memory.

Still, I don't really see any point in 8GB graphics cards for now. Gaming at 4K, while maxed out and staying at or above 60fps, simply seems hopeless with existing hardware.

LMAO !

Yeah ....but higher the better....it depends on the price tho, priority is with the price for me...

A little bit desperate, a little bit lol. But hey, why not, AMD need this, they should capitalise on it. ;-P

@mitu123:

I would wait to... My OC'ed and OC'ed more, GTX 980 is a little better then my GTX 690 I sold. Can't max games out and get constant 60 FPS @ 1080 res... Freaken sad sauce.

Going to be 2016 when we will finally get a single GPU solution that can do good AA with maxed setting @ 1080 60 FPS with newer games. That's why I wanted a 8 TFlop GPU... All I got now is 6 TFlop one which is because of my OC.

Exactly. Shady of Nvid to muddle the truth though.

If I were to swap my 970 for an r290 I'd need a new PSU and better cooling because those cards are very hot and power hungry, not to mention much louder. This whole story is annoying but I'm still sticking with my 970 because it's an excellent single card option, particularly for a great 1080 gaming experience. If I'd bought two for SLI and a 2-4k gaming setup I'd be fuming about it and demanding a refund.