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
This is like nothing by comparison. At least in my books.
A.) 970 Happy user
B.) 970 Unhappy user
C.) 970 User experiencing problems
B user get a refund for his card. Retail sells open/refurbished 970 at lower price. User A buys at discount, now SLI since he was playing at 1440p with no issue decides to turn up detail now or play at 4k. Starts experiencing problems C user is having.
That is what I hoped it would happen because they have such high prices:
00:49:57,828 --> 00:50:01,649
One of these days, the chickens are gonna come home to roost.
And now:
02:49:08,430 --> 02:49:11,158
<i>"The chickens had come home to roost."</i>
If some ones returning a 970 due to just so they can get a 980 i am truly lmfao @ you. You really think nVidia are going to learn if they end up getting more money of you in the end.
If i had one i would return it due to the fact i said above but i do wounder how bad it really is. But still i would as telling people they did not know about this is just total BS.
All so i would feel like i been conned too but not having one to try the current games i play that take more than 3.5GB would lead me to sending it back.
Next time nVidia will thin twice and make sure what they are selling what they say they are.
What will not help is it's near tax return too and new toys are always fun.
This sounds like shilling.
I wouldn't really call an r9 290/290x a 'much worse' card though, they are pretty close in performance.
PS: I'm not a fanboy. I'm running an R9 290X right now and love it for it's own qualities. But the 970's energy consumption would be excellent for another PC without tripping my UPS!I agree there. If it weren't for energy consumption I'd call them equal. As it is, 970 is a little better IMO but I gotta hell of a deal on my R9 290X
Either way this was expected, people are going to be outraged one way or another and you cannot expect anything less. People do not like being lied to on products especially when it comes to alternatives to other products on the market because things like that can influence decisions on purchasing products. When people drop a lot of money on a products they have certain levels of expectation no matter what it is, and when its something that actually does cause a difference they are likely to make a stand. All in all its healthy for the consumer because it means that things like this will not happen (Or will slow down) in the future.
The shouldn't get a free pass just because.
The card still performs in a stellar fashion, yes, that does not change the fact that nVidia knowingly deceived its customers, unless you buy the miscommunication error explanation, and even if that was true, their customers shouldn't have to pay for the company's mistakes.
People who bought two or more of these cards for 4K gaming should be pissed. VRAM totals are very important for making SLI decisions in particular.
From Nvidia's point of view they're perfectly functional because that's how they were designed.
From a buyer's point of view they're faulty because they do not contain the design they were sold.
When OCZ switched the NAND in its Vertex 2 ssds from 32-bit to 64-bit without telling anyone and without changing the specs printed on the box, people were upset. Not only did they lose capacity, they lost performance as well.
According to the point of view of this topic, though, those 64-bit NAND Vertex 2 drives were "perfectly functional".
this can give you a bit of a idea how much performance has really increased in recent generations
www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html
www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html
a lot of gamers have zero reason to make upgrades with years old hardware
Perfectly functional? Pfft. No. These cards are mislabeled. Why did tech sites not test the new Maxwell architecture? It seems they can be as unreliable as nVidia.
Like Tomgang, I feel like this:
What I came to understand is that because it can only access one memory partition at a time, it starts alternating between the two partitions, slowing the whole card down. Basically both partitions become slow when the slower 2nd one starts being used, due to the alternating nature of the config!
That means the whole card suffers a performance drop when performance is needed most!:banghead: