Thursday, January 29th 2015
Perfectly Functional GTX 970 Cards Being Returned Over Memory Controversy
In what is a major fallout of the GeForce GTX 970 memory allocation controversy, leading retailers in the EU are reporting returns of perfectly functional GTX 970 cards citing "false advertising." Heise.de reports that NVIDIA is facing a fierce blowback from retailers and customers over incorrect specs. Heise comments that the specifications "cheating could mean the greatest damage to the reputation of the company's history."
Major German PC hardware retailer Caseking.de says that retailers don't have any explanation from NVIDIA to give to their customers. A similar sentiment is being expressed by the NVIDIA add-in card partners (AICs) we spoke to. Retailers and AIC partners are on their own, for now. One AIC partner rep told us that NVIDIA has no worldwide action plan, as of now, to deal with a potential flood of returns.
In absence of every other recourse, laws in most EU member states dictate that the retailers accept returns for a full refund, if they are not able to "repair" the defect, or exchange with another unit that works as advertised (which a retailer obviously can't, in this case). Retailers' options in the matter boil down to: 1. Taking back cards from whoever isn't happy with their GTX 970 and giving them a refund; 2. compensating with something of value (eg: game-coupons, in-game currency, etc.,) and 3. Springing up a surprise, such as exchanging GTX 970 cards purchased before a set date, with a GTX 980 (if that's your idea of a "repair."). This will come at the expense of a cascading lawsuit-chain (customers suing retailers, who in-turn sue AICs, and who in-turn sue NVIDIA).
NVIDIA, on the other hand, plans to issue a driver update that will "improve" the way the chip allocates resources, but there's no word on whether it re-enables disabled components that NVIDIA wasn't honest about, the first time around. They're counting on the issue to simply blow over, because at $329, there really isn't much you can complain about the GTX 970, given how it's positioned in comparison to the GTX 980.
Major German PC hardware retailer Caseking.de says that retailers don't have any explanation from NVIDIA to give to their customers. A similar sentiment is being expressed by the NVIDIA add-in card partners (AICs) we spoke to. Retailers and AIC partners are on their own, for now. One AIC partner rep told us that NVIDIA has no worldwide action plan, as of now, to deal with a potential flood of returns.
NVIDIA, on the other hand, plans to issue a driver update that will "improve" the way the chip allocates resources, but there's no word on whether it re-enables disabled components that NVIDIA wasn't honest about, the first time around. They're counting on the issue to simply blow over, because at $329, there really isn't much you can complain about the GTX 970, given how it's positioned in comparison to the GTX 980.
172 Comments on Perfectly Functional GTX 970 Cards Being Returned Over Memory Controversy
So it is when you stand constructional problems in software drivers and this then it bites you in the ass nVidia. However, please note that this lesson will not sobered them up. I want to see fall to the bottom and then they will begin again to respected customers . We live in an age of information and misinformation, and it seems that nVidia is more on the misinformation .Many blindly buy and do not know how many tricks is here ..
this is how i feel about this
puu.sh/f69Ef/bed6f1d282.gif
$230 for a GTX 970 isn't going to happen but I do expect if this dings Nvidia's sales of chips too much that there will be a price decrease soon.
Also, I do not understand why you are so angry, if you actually are angry. You did not buy or own the card and does not have to return any card for false advertising. What is with the frustration?
things like that are a choice to be used by programmers so it was nothing missed.
in short.. it happens and will continue too for the sake of progression.
if we reach for nothing then nothing will be gained.
Let me tell you whats gonna happen. NV will release a better spec 970 to cash in more, and of course fuck all over the early adopters.
For those who says that people that returns teh card are BS or whatever, well they are not.. nVidia sells a product with false marketing. Event if the card is good or not, it is a false marketing... It is not difficult to understand..
If you are buying a car, that the company says: it does 4L/100, and all the car does 7L/100, sorry but if you keep it like this by doing nothing, you are just stupid. That's what happened to hyundai and Kia, they gave People cash onto a prepaid credit card because of the fuel consumption.. It's better than nothing..
If nVidia would be smart, they would apologize and say that are trying to do a fix (like I don't know, the .5gb could be desktop usage only and full 3.5gb for games) and give the user a game, or something...
As many of you have heard the GTX 970 has gotten a lot of heat because of the memory allocation. It uses 3.5GB and the other 500MB only when it's necessary. This has gotten a lot of buzz and is justified.
look at the benchmarks of the 780ti and the 970... they just are not that far apart in performance... if they just make the 500mb segment unusable it will fix the performance especially for sli.
Nvidia knows this. There will have to be some kind of compensation for it. Even despite the fact that the cards perform exactly the same now as they did at launch. Consumer panic + EU false advertising laws will come back to bite nvidia.
the 970 is certainly not mid-range though.. the 780(ti)-970-980-290(x) are all in the same high end performance class that do perfect 1080p gaming. people with 4k rigs hardly understand where graphics technology is at and pay a shit load for something they will soon need to upgrade.
in reality just going by performance and nothing else it would be crazy to buy a 980 and a 290 gives you the best bang for your buck so it was kinda garbage people saying the 970 has the best price to performance ratio.