Are you buying GTX 970 after its controversy?

[lilhasselhoffer]

I don't get it.

If you were using a bunch of screen space, the 290X was always the way to go. This controversy hasn't changed that. The limited market segment I can see this impacting is the people who bought two 970s to SLI. To my knowledge, this has been what the analyses determined when the 970 was launched, and it has stayed that way. Where exactly is the hate coming from here?

Yes, Nvidea was full of it when they made press releases. That's nothing new, and anyone with a bit of experience would know to wait for independent benchmarks.



My vote was for this not being an issue, because I never had plans to buy a card. My 7970 doesn't match a 970, so replacing it wouldn't yield better results. The reality is that the 970 was never really a buying option personally. It does slightly better on performance, much better on power, but the cost would never have been unreasonable. AMD and Nvidea both need a new production node to make better cards. All of the cards in question are refinements, not new cards. Eventually you have nothing left to refine, and the memory on the 970 proved that. I can't say that draws my ire, and it doesn't concern me when somebody with $300 to blow and the upgrade itch spends it on things that don't yield appreciable results.

 

[arbiter]

I agree,

With the majority playing on 1080p and enthusiast imploring not to run your graphics card pass 1080p. The majority would never see those issues.

Although you have to wonder if a console would serve those best.

I don't get it.

If you were using a bunch of screen space, the 290X was always the way to go. This controversy hasn't changed that. The limited market segment I can see this impacting is the people who bought two 970s to SLI. To my knowledge, this has been what the analyses determined when the 970 was launched, and it has stayed that way. Where exactly is the hate coming from here?

Most independent reviews, show that only the issue comes in to effect is when you crank every option in a game to max, say BF4 & far cry4. Using Ultra settings on top using DSR to render the game at 4k rez, then tacking on like 4x MSAA. Now what some people that scream about this, forget to say that 4x MSAA is nasty memory pig to run and kills performance too. Most people that don't need all eye candy of DSR, run 1080p and 1440p will turn down options as needed so fps isn't stuttering to a crawl. Still a solid card regardless. Yea it was a drop of the ball that specs were announced wrong but lets be real, AMD hasn't exactly been clean in their history either.

 

[xfia]

4gb means 4gb?

 

[DarkOCean]

huh?

You already voted on this poll.

Like I've said I can vote forever and the counter goes up for me and I doubt I am the only one.
Probably it s just a superpower of the internetz: I can manipulate pools !
gona try it with my bank account next.

 

[Fluffmeister]

I dunno, the results seem fair enough

Apparently fixable polls, dodgy reviews, countless biased users... welcome to TPU!

People might be mad the poll results aren't what they want to see, but a handful of wankers here don't make the difference they'd like to think.

 

[Nordic]

Did you really think this was a scientific poll?

 

[DarkOCean]

as a proof "Sure, the specs don't matter" have gone all the way up. Really? ... Nvidia stuff must be profiting hard by this pool bug.

 

[Batou1986]

IMO the 970 is still a good card, would I buy one now, no.
Having to worry about a possible scenario where this memory issue could lead to abnormal performance isn't worth 350$ to me.
Now with a price cut and drivers that 100% ensure the strange memory configuration does not degrade performance ever, maybe.

 

[Protagonist]

I don't like being lied to,.. doesn't sit well with me,.. getting caught lying makes it worse, just my opinion.

The worst thing they did is trying to justify the lies,.. definitely not buying it for my self or recommending the GTX 970 to any of my clients coz if shit hit the fan then I'll be the one going down in flames for it.

 

[vega22]

i would be interested to see how many ip voted to give the poll such a huge swing in the last day or so.

that being said i think i voted 3 times for the same thing as i was unsure if it had took mine.

it is interesting how many people find it acceptable for a company to lie about something like this and still line up to give them more money.

 

[Nordic]

Yes it is bad that nvidia lied. The fact that many including myself still would buy a 970 says a lot about how good the 970 is as a product. It is everything I want in a gpu.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

I have to say, most responses of "but they lied to us" are unreasonable.

If you are going by that logic, don't buy Intel. They lied about unfair business practice, performance in the Pentium 4 era, and about plenty of other crap. Don't buy AMD, because they lie about performance pretty often. Cherry picking benchmarks, telling half truths, and a bunch of other stuff. Nvidea lies, and now you draw the line in the sand? Get real. Heck, most people who said they'd boycott Origin bought a game on it within a few months. Best of luck trying to get people with the will power to not buy demonstrably better performance in their budget range. AMD is making it hard for the 970 with those sweet 290X price cuts though.


The 970 is a good product for a large segment of the market. 99% of non-nerds (read: none of us) won't even know what micro-stuttering is. If the product works for them, and the price is reasonable, you've got a good product. Anyone arguing otherwise is missing the point.


Do I forgive lying; I don't easily. Do I draw the line in the sand here; absolutely not. Despite all the moaning, if you could have a 970 for $250 most people would. I say this despite having no interest in a 970, and going with AMD for my last half dozen cards.

 

[ZoneDymo]

I find this amazing, we have a computer hardware enthusiast website/forum.
The place where you would think people would care about what is in their PC's.

...yet 60% says Specs do not matter? what?

 

[BiggieShady]

yet 60% says Specs do not matter? what?

Context. Not "Specs don't matter in general" but "The fact that specs are revised don't matter because I play on 1080p screen".

 

[xorbe]

Only if the price dropped to $299, since it's effectively a 224-bit 3.5GB card.

 

[xfia]

from what I gather the driver makes it unnoticeable in most situations but its not perfect and it doesnt change there is a flaw. if a cpu just totally dropped off in performance when it hit 100 percent usage there would be issues to say the least.
I think it certainly shows nv knows how out bin the competition

 

[the54thvoid]

Yes it is bad that nvidia lied.

Bad company, dishonest and somewhat greedy.

The fact that many including myself still would buy a 970 says a lot about how good the 970 is as a product. It is everything I want in a gpu.

This is why there are a few people with irrational arguments getting so upset. The majority of the noise is coming from non 970 owning AMD owners. The fact the card Nvidia were 'dishonest' about still maintains a high level of respect for it's price/performance and it's power/performance irks some because their company brand doesn't get as much love.

And of course if you dare defend the product (not the company) you're some kind of moron. And if you say, yeah, I'll still buy Nvidia, you're a moron too.

The way I see it, it's like Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy. He was made by evil scientists but in the end, the product is a wonderfully psychotic, loveable creature. Perfect analogy for the Nvidia 970 story.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Context. Not "Specs don't matter in general" but "The fact that specs are revised don't matter because I play on 1080p screen".

Even in that context its still one hell of a statement to make to say specs do not matter.

 

[DarkOCean]

I find this amazing, we have a computer hardware enthusiast website/forum.
The place where you would think people would care about what is in their PC's.

...yet 60% says Specs do not matter? what?

that's because a single person can vote forever and it looks like no admin on this forum care to fix this problem
agreing with "Sure, the specs don't matter" it's like answering to the question: "are you ok with eating sh!t for beakfast ?" with: sure I dont care what I eat.

 

[arbiter]

I find this amazing, we have a computer hardware enthusiast website/forum.
The place where you would think people would care about what is in their PC's.

...yet 60% says Specs do not matter? what?

specs mostly don't matter, if you went by them only, 780ti would stop a 980 easy and so would r9 290x beat it. But yet 980 can and does beat both them. Same as if you compare say an i7 4770k cpu, if you go by specs alone 8 core 4ghz amd FX8350 would stomp it, but 4770k stomps on an 8350 pretty easy.

The specs change wasn't really that much and its not like spec changing magically made the card now slower. Its still same card with speed claimed. Most end users don't see the issue come up cause does take in general game running at 4k, ultra settings with 4x MSAA to really make it show up. If you really think about that properly, using those settings ANY card would have fps issues as that is a ton of pixels and MSAA is a killer of performance all in itself.

 

[Protagonist]

specs mostly don't matter, if you went by them only, 780ti would stop a 980 easy and so would r9 290x beat it. But yet 980 can and does beat both them. Same as if you compare say an i7 4770k cpu, if you go by specs alone 8 core 4ghz amd FX8350 would stomp it, but 4770k stomps on an 8350 pretty easy.

You're example is not correct, it's like you are comparing apples to oranges not the same thing at all.

Just to clarify e.g. you cant compare a GTX780TI to a GTX980 with your ideology coz they are different architectures, how ever you can compare their performance directly but they do not employ the same technique to achieve those performance goals (simply put apples and oranges, not same)

 

[The Von Matrices]

I find this amazing, we have a computer hardware enthusiast website/forum.
The place where you would think people would care about what is in their PC's.

...yet 60% says Specs do not matter? what?

Specifications don't matter; performance does.

 

[Constantine Yevseyev]

lying to us and you about it

Lying about what? About how stuff is being implemented deep inside the chip? Come on man, this is ridiculous. No one has ever told us about how it is, simply because we're not qualified enough to be able to make any sense even out of the most thorough explanation.

***** *****

Guys, this is why these people work at engineering positions, and we just buy their stuff. Admit it, you wish to know as much as they do, but you don't, and you never will, unless you stop being just a PC enthusiast and become a proper developer. But no, this is much harder than running your mouth on forums, trying to make a company out of people who can't even tell how much this "3.5" controversy affects them in the first place.

If you're feeling offended by the fact that somebody sold you a part that doesn't really meet the concept of "true" 4 GiB of VRAM, ask yourself a question: do you really know how this memory is being used? Where does the less needed stuff go (like GUI and read-only points of data)? How much memory does it occupy?..

Can everybody please stop trying to look like a smart PC guy and admit that you know very, very little? Just using one particular thing for a long time doesn't make you an expert; when you get a sore throat, you don't automatically become a pharmacologist after swallowing a couple of pills, god damn it.

 

[Xzibit]

Most independent reviews, show that only the issue comes in to effect is when you crank every option in a game to max, say BF4 & far cry4. Using Ultra settings on top using DSR to render the game at 4k rez, then tacking on like 4x MSAA. Now what some people that scream about this, forget to say that 4x MSAA is nasty memory pig to run and kills performance too. Most people that don't need all eye candy of DSR, run 1080p and 1440p will turn down options as needed so fps isn't stuttering to a crawl. Still a solid card regardless. Yea it was a drop of the ball that specs were announced wrong but lets be real, AMD hasn't exactly been clean in their history either.

BF4 VHQ
@ 1080 = 1.4 GB
@ 1600 = 1.6 GB
@ 2160 = 2.3 GB
What other way is there to reach the 3.5GB other then to use scaling.

FC4 Ultra
@ 1080 = 2.8 GB
@ 1600 = 3.4 GB
@ 2160 = 4.0 GB
You still have to add AA to surpass the 3.5GB mark under 4k

CoD:AW VHQ
@ 1080 = 3.2 GB
@ 1600 = 3.8 GB
@ 2160 = 4.0 GB

See the difference.

The "independent reviewers" are leaving out establishing a base vRam usage and are just throwing out 4k AA figures. Which confuses them when they compare a BF4 like game to a COD:AW game.

 

[ZoneDymo]

specs mostly don't matter, if you went by them only, 780ti would stop a 980 easy and so would r9 290x beat it. But yet 980 can and does beat both them. Same as if you compare say an i7 4770k cpu, if you go by specs alone 8 core 4ghz amd FX8350 would stomp it, but 4770k stomps on an 8350 pretty easy.

The specs change wasn't really that much and its not like spec changing magically made the card now slower. Its still same card with speed claimed. Most end users don't see the issue come up cause does take in general game running at 4k, ultra settings with 4x MSAA to really make it show up. If you really think about that properly, using those settings ANY card would have fps issues as that is a ton of pixels and MSAA is a killer of performance all in itself.

And exactly how do those things beat the other things specs wise?