nVidia is cutting down performance on GTX970 cards in new drivers?

[Nicholas Peyton]

For benchmarking, the best one I found was 353.62. I never installed anything different, until TimeSpy came out, and went with a newer driver on the 980tis with it's release. I don't recall which one I used though.

you should share that on 1080 owners club mate; that's very useful info

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Why does this surprise anyone? New drivers are developed with newer cards in mind. The increased memory, different features of the GPU and architecture. Just stick to the last supported driver for an older card before the new cards and drivers for those cards first came out.

 

[R-T-B]

Why does this surprise anyone? New drivers are developed with newer cards in mind. The increased memory, different features of the GPU and architecture. Just stick to the last supported driver for an older card before the new cards and drivers for those cards first came out.

There's a problem with this philosophy now.

Windows 10 is contantly mucking with the driver model to implement new parts or features of DX12.

The last update occured in redstone, and is known as "WDDM 2.1"

It broke some things, yes (mostly badly programed bethesda games), but it should be a good thing and something you want overall. Key thing is the driver must support it.

Sticking with an old driver will deny you this.

 

[slozomby]

Nice to see someone else confirm 373.06 is a good driver, since I've stuck with it a few months now.

everything after 373.06 has performed worse on my gtx1080

 

[Vellinious]

you should share that on 1080 owners club mate; that's very useful info

That's for Maxwell. For pascal, the best driver so far on firestrike is 372.9, and the best I've tested for TimeSpy is 375.70.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Sticking with an old driver will deny you this.

Except you'll keep the ability to play those Bethesda games still.

 

[R-T-B]

Except you'll keep the ability to play those Bethesda games still.

Valid point... lol.

 

[evernessince]

This isn't anything new. Nvidia doesn't really support performance improvements for anything but it's latest. If you are looking for a card that will last a long time you should go AMD. The 7970 is old AF and is still pretty beast thanks to performance improvements over the years.

 

[Vellinious]

Yeah....maybe in a few more years, the 480 will actually outperform a 1070. How's that for awesome?! lol

 

[the54thvoid]

Nvidia always does this, its called planned obsolescence and it should encourage you to buy a new card when they want or need you to.

You're so cynical... and so damned right.

Thanks for looking after your customers playing dirty tricks NVIDIA.

Nope. Standard low brow thinking. Facts are under DX11, Nvidia drivers deliver close to optimum performance. AMD don't. AMD improve over time so a year on, that same game where Nvidia had a 10% lead might now be a loss. But that's because their initial work for that game was optimal and their is no incentive a year on to improve its performance.
Similarly, this is shown in DX12 where AMD have a definite advantage over Nvidia where drivers are not required to be abstracted to mimic the API.

My Maxwell card has not decreased in performance and if you check @W1zzard's gfx card reviews, you'll see Nvidia does improve over time but not as much as AMD.

It'd be nice if people didn't blindly agree with post truths and actually did some valid, sample size relevant checks. Like I say, check over the TPU reviews.

 

[Recus]

Considering that your Doom and Rise of the Tomb Raider results are higher than GTX 980/1060 your claims are very suspicious.

 

[sliderider]

Only thing it encourages you to do is buy competitor's product instead...

You think AMD doesn't do it, too?

 

[MxPhenom 216]

You think AMD doesn't do it, too?

You should see some of his rants about Nvidia. Its priceless.

 

[FYFI13]

I'm not sure what is this thread about, my GTX 970 is doing just great. No issues in games and performance is decent too.

 

[alucasa]

I'm not sure what is this thread about, my GTX 970 is doing just great. No issues in games and performance is decent too.

It's for those who can tell 1 ~ 3 fps difference.

 

[FYFI13]

It's for those who can tell 1 ~ 3 fps difference.

...after running like 66 benchmarks, that might be incorrect after all

 

[Divide Overflow]

This is pretty sad since video drivers practically have to be updated every major game release in order to provide proper "support". Remember back when the games were patched to support the video drivers?

 

[rtwjunkie]

This is pretty sad since video drivers practically have to be updated every major game release in order to provide proper "support". Remember back when the games were patched to support the video drivers?

Except they really don't need those game updates. Get a good stable driver and stick with it. I can't tell you how many new games I have played for which I do not have the latest game-ready driver.

 

[R-T-B]

Nope. Standard low brow thinking. Facts are under DX11, Nvidia drivers deliver close to optimum performance. AMD don't. AMD improve over time so a year on, that same game where Nvidia had a 10% lead might now be a loss. But that's because their initial work for that game was optimal and their is no incentive a year on to improve its performance.
Similarly, this is shown in DX12 where AMD have a definite advantage over Nvidia where drivers are not required to be abstracted to mimic the API.

My Maxwell card has not decreased in performance and if you check @W1zzard's gfx card reviews, you'll see Nvidia does improve over time but not as much as AMD.

It'd be nice if people didn't blindly agree with post truths and actually did some valid, sample size relevant checks. Like I say, check over the TPU reviews.

My thoughts to a tee.

You think AMD doesn't do it, too?

I don't think either side does it, at least not intentionally. This is conspiracy hogwash.

 

[Nergal]

970´s and 980´s are still excellent cards, and will remain so as long as the 480&1060(6GB) remains as well.

Thou I do propose that OP does the same test on regular intervals.
I wouldn´t be shocked to found out that NV actually did this.
Conspiracy hogwash is only hogwash if there is actually no conspiracy/bad intention. ( >.> 1060 3GB)

 

[qubit]

Nope. Standard low brow thinking. Facts are under DX11, Nvidia drivers deliver close to optimum performance. AMD don't. AMD improve over time so a year on, that same game where Nvidia had a 10% lead might now be a loss. But that's because their initial work for that game was optimal and their is no incentive a year on to improve its performance.
Similarly, this is shown in DX12 where AMD have a definite advantage over Nvidia where drivers are not required to be abstracted to mimic the API.

My Maxwell card has not decreased in performance and if you check @W1zzard's gfx card reviews, you'll see Nvidia does improve over time but not as much as AMD.

It'd be nice if people didn't blindly agree with post truths and actually did some valid, sample size relevant checks. Like I say, check over the TPU reviews.

Standard low brow thinking? You cheeky monkey! Perhaps you misunderstood what I was saying?

I don't see how what you've said contradicts what I've said. The fact is the OP tested the same games with older and newer drivers where the newer drivers had lower performance, which they shouldn't do - they should at least equal the older drivers if not improve on them. I'm just responding to this as was Steevo.

 

[Vellinious]

Good lord....is this thread still going?

 

[the54thvoid]

Nvidia always does this, its called planned obsolescence and it should encourage you to buy a new card when they want or need you to.

You're so cynical... and so damned right.

Thanks for looking after your customers playing dirty tricks NVIDIA.

Standard low brow thinking? You cheeky monkey! Perhaps you misunderstood what I was saying?

I don't see how what you've said contradicts what I've said. The fact is the OP tested the same games with older and newer drivers where the newer drivers had lower performance, which they shouldn't do - they should at least equal the older drivers if not improve on them. I'm just responding to this as was Steevo.

If what you say is true Steevo's meaning was lost on me but his comment "always does this" implies a conscious decision by Nvidia to do as the OP says and is actively "cutting down" or intentionally hobbling their product. This is very different from letting a product age with less optimised driver support, which is my angle. Additionally, to base an assumption on one driver release to promote the hypothesis that this is proof of Nvidia cutting back performance is most definitely low brow thinking.

There are merits to certain driver releases as many have posted and usually it is to optimise for new releases, bugfixes or for brand new cards. Given the 970 is approaching 2 years old, it is optimised as much as it will be. More drivers will not produce substantially better results. However, as i suggest, to single out just one release as proof of concept is absurd. Also, as noted by others the figures do not quite add up from the OP numbers across all game results. There are also possibilities that certain bios revisions from manufacturers will react slightly differently if fan profile and power limits are addressed via driver releases.

I'm not attempting to be a mischievous simian but these threads dredge up some standard, popular and misconceived notions about graphics cards. Your reply to Steevo clearly uses language to suggest they are playing dirty. In no way whatsoever can that be misconstrued to mean the same as my reply which was to suggest there is no planned obsolescence, rather a lack of optimisation for 2 year old cards already optimised to the hilt.

So, no - you are suggesting a different (diametrically opposed) concept to mine. I say potato - you say aubergine.

 

[qubit]

I've seen this performance drop before and even older games that I like to play stop working properly for months until they eventually fix the problem. So yes, I think NVIDIA are playing dirty and I'm not basing my criticism on just one example.

Fact is, that once all the optimisations for an older card have been done, it should continue to work the same with subsequent driver releases, but it does not which is why some of us cry foul play.

I don't buy the BIOS releases causing performance drops either which sounds like grasping at straws to me. I'd like to see a bit more evidence of that before I'll accept it. I appreciate that it might not be too easy to get that evidence, so this argument can dismissed in my opinion.

 

[Steevo]

If what you say is true Steevo's meaning was lost on me but his comment "always does this" implies a conscious decision by Nvidia to do as the OP says and is actively "cutting down" or intentionally hobbling their product. This is very different from letting a product age with less optimised driver support, which is my angle. Additionally, to base an assumption on one driver release to promote the hypothesis that this is proof of Nvidia cutting back performance is most definitely low brow thinking.

There are merits to certain driver releases as many have posted and usually it is to optimise for new releases, bugfixes or for brand new cards. Given the 970 is approaching 2 years old, it is optimised as much as it will be. More drivers will not produce substantially better results. However, as i suggest, to single out just one release as proof of concept is absurd. Also, as noted by others the figures do not quite add up from the OP numbers across all game results. There are also possibilities that certain bios revisions from manufacturers will react slightly differently if fan profile and power limits are addressed via driver releases.

I'm not attempting to be a mischievous simian but these threads dredge up some standard, popular and misconceived notions about graphics cards. Your reply to Steevo clearly uses language to suggest they are playing dirty. In no way whatsoever can that be misconstrued to mean the same as my reply which was to suggest there is no planned obsolescence, rather a lack of optimisation for 2 year old cards already optimised to the hilt.

So, no - you are suggesting a different (diametrically opposed) concept to mine. I say potato - you say aubergine.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=400385 Almost a 5% performance decrease over time, and that is more than 1-2FPS on most games.

I try to stay unbiased, I hate AMD's vaporware and Crimson for taking the good video tuning ability away, Nvidia is shady on things too.

I know all companies have to EOL products, but there is a reason a GPU costs $3-500 when it only costs $75 to make, and that is support after sale.