Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang Blogs about GTX 970

Since a lot of people bought GTX970...

From Guru3D:

CEO and Founder of NVidia Jen-Hsun Huang back in 1993 has written a post on Nvidia's blog regarding the GeForce GTX 970. It is quite unusual for a CEO to do this, so I'll just leave it for you to read. After the break you can read his post.

Hey everyone,

Some of you are disappointed that we didn’t clearly describe the segmented memory of GeForce GTX 970 when we launched it. I can see why, so let me address it.

We invented a new memory architecture in Maxwell. This new capability was created so that reduced-configurations of Maxwell can have a larger framebuffer – i.e., so that GTX 970 is not limited to 3GB, and can have an additional 1GB.

GTX 970 is a 4GB card. However, the upper 512MB of the additional 1GB is segmented and has reduced bandwidth. This is a good design because we were able to add an additional 1GB for GTX 970 and our software engineers can keep less frequently used data in the 512MB segment.

Unfortunately, we failed to communicate this internally to our marketing team, and externally to reviewers at launch.

Since then, Jonah Alben, our senior vice president of hardware engineering, provided a technical description of the design, which was captured well by several editors.

Instead of being excited that we invented a way to increase memory of the GTX 970 from 3GB to 4GB, some were disappointed that we didn’t better describe the segmented nature of the architecture for that last 1GB of memory.

This is understandable. But, let me be clear: Our only intention was to create the best GPU for you. We wanted GTX 970 to have 4GB of memory, as games are using more memory than ever.

The 4GB of memory on GTX 970 is used and useful to achieve the performance you are enjoying. And as ever, our engineers will continue to enhance game performance that you can regularly download using GeForce Experience.

This new feature of Maxwell should have been clearly detailed from the beginning.

We won’t let this happen again. We’ll do a better job next time.

Jen-Hsun

The only way Nvidia is going to get out of this in some way is to give some kind of reparation. This wouldn't have been as big a deal if this were caught the first week to maybe a month.. But the card was over 4 months into its release when this suddenly occurred, and it only happened when a third party discovered it... The excuse of miscommunication would have sounded more genuine, but it reeks of bullshit now after so long after release.. You can't tell me that Nvidia's engineering department didn't read or look at the numerous reviews or glanced over the BOXS by numerous companies with 4gb and stats that long of time period.. I mean this was one of their two gigantic flagship card releases.. The 970 GTX is still most definitely a good card with bang for the buck, but that doesn't excuse Nvidia's actions.. Especially with this bullshit excuse.. This isn't 90's.. This is 2014 and now 2015 where you can make damn sure developers are watching the reviews of their said products by top reviewers, you can't tell me that they didn't look at them.

Such BS. This Jen-Hsun Huang guy should be a politician.

The CEO is actually a pretty cool guy. He is not just some dumb suit. He actually knows what he is talking about and understands gamers. I think they definitely messed up with their marketing and he is admitting that. I still love my 970s and have not run into any issues.

I too own a 970 and am satisfied with it's performance.. But this reeks of bullshit all over the place.. And Nvidia has done some incredibly shady shit through the years for me to ever take the Nvidia CEO's word seriously on this specific event.. Like I said if this were a few weeks to a month after release.. But the product was out for 4 months.. And it only came out when a third party discovered it..

I think part of the reason for not being clear about the new architecture from the beginning is that it is more complex and harder to describe and market to the average consumer. They should have spent some time and figured out an easy way to market it and been more honest about the split VRAM.

@BassMan: So you haven't ran into any problems with your 970? No stutter or anything. Ever get it passed 3.5gb vram? Just wondering. What exact gtx 970 do you have and is it over clocked? Sorry for all the questions lol

I've never gotten mine to go passed 3,607MB. But even so, even at that, I've never noticed any slow downs or anything.

I have the EVGA 970 SC ACX in SLI. I overclock them to 1450 Mhz and they are stable without issues or crashes. Very few games have ever used more than 3.5 GB of VRAM and they have not stuttered when they do. Now they may just be caching things while exceeding 3.5 GB and not actively using that amount. As I have mentioned in the past, I ran a test with crazy AA and resolution scaling in BF4 to try and cripple the cards and I did have stuttering while it was using more than 3.5 GB. Again, I have not had issues under normal gaming conditions. However, I do not usually use AA at 1440p, but I always max all other settings.

I'm sick of people saying "it's still a great card."

They are missing the point...I bought these 2 cards thinking they have 4gb of usable ram, and that's not the case. Regardless of their performance, maybe I'd have got 1 980 or 2 290x's if the 970's were marketed correctly. Now I'm past the point I can return the cards.

I'm totally going to get on the sue train and join whatever I can. I'd rather Nvidia let me trade these in for 980's for a nominal fee.

Its funny how people get so out for blood over these types of things, yet things that actually deserve the notion, are often not even thought twice about. (and sometimes are out-right praised and enforced) Kinda getting sick of it.

I love my GTX 970, "its still a great card."

Yes they should have been more clear on their marketing. But transparency is not something corporations/governments/religions actually want. Which is why marketing has all but replaced advertising.

I still would have bought them even if they were advertised as a 3.5 + .5 card. The price difference between the 970 and 980 is just too great with minimal performance increase.

Are you having VRAM issues with your 970s? If not, what is the big deal? It is all mental. Knowing the true VRAM configuration does not bother me because I do not have issues with the 970s. If later on they start to run into VRAM bottlenecks, I will just sell them, no biggie. In the meantime, I will enjoy the performance.

Maybe you would. Maybe others wouldn't. That's not the issue.

The issue is they sold a product described as xyz...and what consumers got was xyy. That's the issue. Price is irrelevent, as is value or how you feel about your purchase.

You're fine right now but what about all these new upcoming games that are using more and more VRAM. What happens when soon games start using 3.5GB+ of VRAM. That's when you realize Nvidia screwed you.

I'm not fanboying, I've had far more Nvidia cards.

I think we should get him to play Watchdogs and see what happens when you go over 3.5GB of vRAM.

The game stutters like mad and I can't get it to go to 3.6GB.

Once it reaches around 3550-3584MB of vRAM the game will completely freeze briefly then go back down to 3.3GB and quickly climb back up to 3.5GB then freeze and repeat the cycle.

Just running Watchdogs at 1440p at 4xmsaa or with SMAA while using some of the E3 mods will cause the stuttering.

How can he advertise the card as a 4GB card when Watchdogs fails to use more than 3.5GB and will stutter a lot when reaching that threshold.

Watchdogs has stuttering regardless of VRAM (due to poor data streaming), so not a good example. Ubisoft titles are notorious for stuttering.

You are wrong.

Watchdogs has zero stuttering for me when I keep the vRAM below 3.5GB.

And I drive really fast around the denser city areas.

The problem is that Watchdogs will not even try to access 3.6GB+ of vRAM and will hit a wall at around 3584mb.

@RyviusARC:

How am I wrong? It is widely known that the game has stuttering with Ultra textures. Even 6 GB Titans experience this.

Weird I've seen 980s run it fine with ultra textures at 1440p.

And my 2 970s will run it with no stuttering as long as it doesn't reach past the upper 3.5GB

I've actually got it to finally hit 3.6GB but it was freezing completely at that point.

I got a $80 dollar refund and got to keep my 970. I'm content

I wish i knew about this right when i got my 970. Its been many months and I doubt the store would refund any money for me.

Nvidia should be offering some kind of refund or at least a 100 dollar rebate on any future card people buy. They wont probably until theres some kind of class action lawsuit against them.

"GTX 970 is a 4GB card. However, the upper 512MB of the additional 1GB is segmented and has reduced bandwidth. This is a good design..."

Lol.

I got a full refund with paid return shipping from my online retailer that I purchased my two 970s from.

I just told them that if they did not give me a full refund with paid return shipping that I would go to my bank and do a chargeback to forcefully get the money back.

They quickly gave me the return shipping labels along with a 20USD gift card.

And I was one of the people who purchased two GTX 970s at the release date so it's been around 5 months since I've had them.

@RyviusARC: Although I agree with what you did (companies shouldn't lie or misinform about their products) and Nvidia got what they deserve for this confusion.

But I second to that any single game isn't enough to judge a GPU. Especially when this game is called Watchdogs.

If we judge by a single game, people that played Dragon Age: Inquisition, should return their Titans.

When they cross the 3,5GB VRAM "limit" the performance drops by 40%!!!!

But this is just for the 1 game comparison, in the end I agree with what you did.

People that go for dual GPU configs, they want more memory.

So its not the best thing to tell them that they have 4GB but its up to drivers/OS/game to make good use of this 4GB or else it might perform like a 3,5GB GPU.

Especially when you spend $700 for GPUs...

So what's the chance Nvidia noticed this issue in October/November, but decided to not say anything because the holiday buying season was about to happen? Can you imagine how this would have impacted sales if this 3.5 GB outrage had happened in October or if Nvidia had announced something like this right before black friday?

Of course that is tin foil hat speculation, but it doesn't sound too far out there.

Either way, I was very closely looking at a 970, but after these issues I'm likely going to ignore it unless there's a huge price drop. It's no longer the price/performance king that it was when it was released thanks to price cuts.

This letter is just outrageous though, I read it as "We're sorry we innovated and ended up with more VRAM." He's backhanding us across the face for getting angry that they "gave" us more performance.

@Coseniath said:

@RyviusARC: Although I agree with what you did (companies shouldn't lie or misinform about their products) and Nvidia got what they deserve for this confusion.

But I second to that any single game isn't enough to judge a GPU. Especially when this game is called Watchdogs.

If we judge by a single game, people that played Dragon Age: Inquisition, should return their Titans.

When they cross the 3,5GB VRAM "limit" the performance drops by 40%!!!!

But this is just for the 1 game comparison, in the end I agree with what you did.

People that go for dual GPU configs, they want more memory.

So its not the best thing to tell them that they have 4GB but its up to drivers/OS/game to make good use of this 4GB or else it might perform like a 3,5GB GPU.

Especially when you spend $700 for GPUs...

My problem with WatchDogs is that it runs smooth when not trying to go over 3.5GB but once it tries to access more it will freeze for a brief moment then clear out some vRAM making it go back down to 3.2-3.3GB.

The most I ever got it to use was 3602MB of vRAM and by then it was freezing very badly. The game just doesn't want to use more vRAM.

But when I checked out the 770 4GB versions or a 980 4GB then I saw people using over 3.5GB and not having the same hiccups I did.

I am going to wait and see if the 8GB version for the 970 ever releases since Samsung is just starting to begin mass production of 8GB GDDR5 memory.

If there is going to be an 8GB (7GB) version of the 970 then it will be released in the next few months.

............. Which games are those? Because the games out there that are Vram hogs is due to shitty programming and optimization rather than the actual need for them.. Furthermore the large amount of graphically demanding games have been multi-platforms in which they have to deal with the lower hardware of the consoles.. If your reaching the point where it is already pushing 3.5gb on every game.. 4gb's isn't going to save you, and the card is going to struggle regardless of the memory needed for it../

Do I look like, I can predict the future..? Which games use over 3.5GB and which don't. There will certainly be those games and that's when you'll feel disappointed by Nvidia.
It doesn't effect me when a game (example) uses 3.8GB. But when you try playing it with 970, you'll see nothing but stuttering. In the end is does save me.

Ok lets not get ahead of our selves.. A freaking 780 TI only has 3gb of memory to begin with.. That up until very recent was the top flagship card that still runs games flawlessly.. Furthermore SLI with DX12 is promising doubling vram, basically making the whole 970 gtx memory concern a non issue when your going to have 7gb of video memory.. Which really was the biggest legitimate complaint with people SLI'ing this set up at 1440p.. the last 500mb isn't going to save you with performance.. It is either going to surpass 4gb of gddr.. or not.. And within that window nothing is stopping you from lowering a setting or two to avoid this point..

As a Nvidia fan who did sell his SLI 970GTX just to buy 2 GTX 980's, this is complete BS that has been created after they were caught. You can even tell on how they word this statement with "we're kind of sorry we lied to you".

I highly doubt there was communication between the designers and the marketing sections. Unless some really stupid intern was trusted to publish the specs. It's not just the memory, its also the fact that the ROP's and LV2 cache are not what they said.

I'm in the bank that had they released these actual numbers I would have just went with the 980 instead.

I hope they get what they deserve and end up losing money on the GTX 970, but even with this it's still a better deal than AMD cards. This is what makes this hard for actual performance numbers. They lied about specs and yet it's still a better deal. Those of us who NEED all 4GB of ram if not even more are those who got shorted, but those of us who need that much RAM, 3-D applications don't work as well with AMD cards. So basically I have to support Nvidia, but after owning 2x 5870's in the past, I will NEVER buy a AMD card again. Basically the GTX 980 or a Titan were my only options. I did here newegg is giving store credit to some who complain enough, I will try so I maybe recoup some of the losses I had to take on my upgrade.

Again, I don't want Nvidia to go out of business as every other GPU they make is fine, I just want them to suffer enough with the GTX 970 so they learn to never do it again.

Which online retailer was that, that did the full refund?

^ i was wondering that also... whoever it is sounds like a nice place to buy from.

It was from TigerDirect.com.

Only reason I buy from them is that they don't charge me sales tax because their company does not operate in my state.

They originally were not going to give me a full refund but they did once I threatened to do a chargeback at my bank (which I would have done).

They even paid for my return shipping along with a 20 dollar gift card thrown in so I am not too upset over it.

@RyviusARC: I used to order from Tigerdirect.ca often but their prices havent been so great plus they don't offer free shipping anymore so i don't anymore. In the early to mid 2000's they had free shipping on orders over 100 dollars so it was a nice place to shop at.

I've had a few problems with Tigerdirect over the years. once i got nailed for duty on an item and had to pay it and they never refunded it, but one other time they did. It wasn't supposed to have duty on it since i bought it from the canadian site... but since then im cautious about them because i don't trust them completely to refund my money in future errors.

I guess threatening a charge back from your bank scared them since they wouldn't want any problems to further ruin them... they should have refunded your money no questions asked to begin with though.

Well each 970 I purchased was 369USD but they had a special for 15USD off orders that were more than 200USD so I used the 15USD off on each one.

The reason I chose Tigerdirect was that they don't charge me sales tax which would have been around 30USD for each card.

Shipping was only 8USD so it ended up being around 80USD cheaper to go with Tigerdirect.

I was also able to get my computer case (Corsair Air 540) for only 79USD on Tigerdirect while other places sold it for 130USD or more.

My case also came with the 3 normal fans plus another 3 120mm cougars which were bundled in the 79USD deal.

Tigerdirect can have great prices if you wait on deals but they suck for normal prices.

I was set on getting the 970 for a little while but luckily I read a review on Newegg that clued me in to this issue last minute. I did some more research and found that some games even when running at just 1920 x 1080 were eclipsing the 3.5 GB threshold and stuttering as they tried to use that last .5 GB of memory. Ultimately I sprang for the 980. It significantly increased the price of my build but it'll be worth it for my gaming peace of mind.

I too was browsing on newegg for GTX 970. Then I came across all the issues with the 3.5 GB and the subsequent one out 5 stars on newegg that kept popping up. Thankfully I didn't pull the trigger. And you are right about stuttering even at 1080P as recent games like Total War Atilla showed below:

and with the R9 290X with now stutter at 1080P:

One can see why some 970 owners are upset that they are seeing stuttering on newer games, imagine what's going to happen in future games that utilize 4GB RAM.

Thanks for the response, I will definitely keep an eye out for tigerdirect for my next shopping instead of the usual newegg.

@Xtasy26 said:

@shadowsong1213 said:

I was set on getting the 970 for a little while but luckily I read a review on Newegg that clued me in to this issue last minute. I did some more research and found that some games even when running at just 1920 x 1080 were eclipsing the 3.5 GB threshold and stuttering as they tried to use that last .5 GB of memory. Ultimately I sprang for the 980. It significantly increased the price of my build but it'll be worth it for my gaming peace of mind.

I too was browsing on newegg for GTX 970. Then I came across all the issues with the 3.5 GB and the subsequent one out 5 stars on newegg that kept popping up. Thankfully I didn't pull the trigger. And you are right about stuttering even at 1080P as recent games like Total War Atilla showed below:

and with the R9 290X with now stutter at 1080P:

One can see why some 970 owners are upset that they are seeing stuttering on newer games, imagine what's going to happen in future games that utilize 4GB RAM.

Thanks for the response, I will definitely keep an eye out for tigerdirect for my next shopping instead of the usual newegg.

Total War: Attila only uses 3GB of vRAM no matter what since it's a 32bit application.

So the stuttering is definitely not a vRAM issue.

Well people forget that games have also issues and VRAM is not always the limit...

Just think of Dying Light. Last benchmarks from Tom's Hardware shows that the game runs awfully at AMD hardware.

So imagine that instead of accusing for console porting and optimisation, to say that AMD's GPUs have flawed memory or something more convincing that frame pacing issues are back .

This is not going anywhere....

My point was that the stuttering the 970 had in Total War was not because of vRAM but something else since the game can't utilize over 3GB of vRAM.

Yeah I know, I agree with you that's why I said that games have problems too, not only the hardware...

Anyone confused about the CEO's statement should this article http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-Discloses-Full-Memory-Structure-and-Limitations-GTX-970

What Hsun is saying is that without this weird memory config the 970 would have ended up with less memory...I'm perfectly fine with 3.5 +0.5 vs just 3GB alone, less frequently used data can be placed in the 0.5GB segment. Fact is, the memory system is still 4GB. @ryangcnx-2 While yes there is an error in the reported ROPS, it makes almost no difference having 56 ROPS vs 64 ROPS in the 970's case as the SMMs are the bottleneck not the ROPs.

This was a big mistake on NVIDIA's part, but should consumers really be this up in arms? (1) The 4GB thing is not a lie at all, the memory system is 4GB*. (2) The listed ROP units were false, but 56 vs 64 makes no difference in the context of the 970. So while that's an outright lie, the ROPs missing make little difference to performance.

*In the lab where I work, we're designing a new cache system for x86 CPUs...the L3 cache is split into two technologies STT-RAM (magnetic memory) and eDRAM (embedded dram), the eDRAM is slower. If we have 32KB STT-RAM and 32KB eDRAM then our L3 cache is still 64KB...NVIDIA is doing absolutely nothing strange in calling the 970 a 4GB card.

I could have shrank that whole pile of bullshit to 3 words.

"We fucked up."

This sums it up nicely... lol

But I'm doing more than you are, as a student of 3ds Max, I need all the Vram I can get. Also running a 1440p and running DA:I and SoM at max settings, I noticed the stuttering but originally just thought it must be drivers. I ended up selling them and bought 2 reference 980's at my last month at BB, since I actually got a decent discount on them. I haven't noticed any stuttering in those games and 3DS max now views my cards with a full 4gb of Vram. With the 970, 3ds Max only saw 3.5. When rending scenes if it goes over the amount of ram then it gives you an error code. While I would love to buy the Titan X with its 12gb of Vram, I predict that card will also cost 2000+ bucks like past titan cards, so I'm stuck with using Geforce cards as they are actually affordable.