False Specs on GTX 970?

the card never made ot over 3.2gb of vram usage though. according to afteburner

Just loaded it up and maxed out everything (which seemed to be required at 1440P to hit 3.5GB used vram).

The problem is, as EarthDog mentioned, a single 970 just doesn't have the horsepower to run the game smoothly at those settings.

2015-02-01 09:37:14 - FarCry4
Frames: 1763 - Time: 46922ms - Avg: 37.573 - Min: 32 - Max: 44

Whether it was the "horsepower" issue or the vram issue, the game felt very "unplayable" at those settings, IMO.

dejo said:

the card never made ot over 3.2gb of vram usage though. according to afteburner

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Mine seemed to top out at 3512MB usage. Not sure if that was really all that was needed or an artificial software/hardware cap?

did you get the 59second hitch like clockwork?

my worry is that with the 970 the fps was a bit higher than the titan at same settings and was more playable at those settings. his card also used more vram without having to fight for it

dejo said:

did you get the 59second hitch like clockwork?

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I'll have to try again later (also forgot to overclock my card, so I'd like to see what happens there as well).

I'll post back later with more results.

my tests were with no oc. all stock settings on card and nvidia settings as well

I have 2x 970s , and I played Battlefield 4 4k Ultra . its running smooth but I get lag spikes every 10 seconds, and I looked at MSI afterburner. 3,370 - 3,453 MB . MAX. If I hit that 3,4mb invisible wall , I get a lagg spike. And that sucks. Please Nvidia fix it or I will switch to the 3xxx series of the Red Team. Have a good one.

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Source:
Huge spikes here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/nvidia-gtx-970-problems-this-isnt-acceptable.209416/
Basically making a 100+ rush, and then crashing to a deep bottom (bottom is a fast frame but adds high contrast and expanding spike-behavior) level... followed by another rush-spike (100+ ms is a huge spike, followed by a "drive"). Is it what Nvidia calls "just 3 FPS loss" on the paper but without a precise frametime (not FPS) graph? Spikes can be worse than low but stable FPS.

Remember, card can be used in SLI and the double processor can handle almost any load, so it is not true that the 970 is GPU limited... the chance of RAM limit is real. Its just 10% lower performance than the currently strongest single GPU on earth... dunno why many people consider the processor insufficient. I bet a nice 970 chip at OC may be able to go even closer to the 980 performance and the only thing that can hurt is the memory issue.

Woah... this issue ive been following... seriously shaking my stalwart stance with nVidia... like wow how can you do that, I've been reading the 300 page topic on GeForce.com this is crazy.

AMD might have a new fanboy when I upgrade lmao. I don't have a 970 but if this happened with my 670s I would be raising hell

Man I'd love to see this level of righteous indignation over things that mattered like people dying over faulty airbags or car manufacturers routinely lying about MPG.

How many of these people are being gouged every month for ****ty speeds and service from the Comcast's of the world but have less of a problem while paying that bill every month?

Priorities not straight.

Culbrelai said:

I've been reading the 300 page topic on GeForce.com this is crazy.

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Read the revised reviews and stay away from that thread like the plague. The 970 is still the best card for 1080p gaming, by a mile. And if you quadruple 1080p you are going to need at least two cards anyhow to get 30fps+ and they are having awful difficulty replicating any issues in sli. They have to go to unrealistic levels of eye candy with MSAA enabled that shouldn't be enabled on any build because it is a ram hog.

At this point the only gripes are that Nvidia wet the bed with respect to this mistake (you cannot logically make an argument that it was done on purpose) and that the 970 remains $20+ over release price.

If there has to be a bad guy in this two-horse-race then Nvidia is definitely that but they get my money for a reason. I play games and like giving the least amount of money to the power company to do so. I dont mine bitcoin and I dont fold.

Doesnt count for modders, even at 1080P can easely crack the 3.5 GB. The VRAM becomes a critical ressource, not raw GPU power. But people may tell "why to care for minoritys, do they actually count"?
1. OCer are minority too, so it would make yourself questionable going against minoritys.
2. True gamers are another minority because nowadays most bucks is done with either online or social and mobile (phone, tablet) games, like it or not. True gamer systems = PC and next gen consoles (PS4/XBoxOne), nothing more. True gamer systems or software are probably less than 50% profit on the market.

Read the revised reviews and stay away from that thread like the plague. The 970 is still the best card for 1080p gaming, by a mile. And if you quadruple 1080p you are going to need at least two cards anyhow to get 30fps+ and they are having awful difficulty replicating any issues in sli. They have to go to unrealistic levels of eye candy with MSAA enabled that shouldn't be enabled on any build because it is a ram hog.

At this point the only gripes are that Nvidia wet the bed with respect to this mistake (you cannot logically make an argument that it was done on purpose) and that the 970 remains $20+ over release price.

If there has to be a bad guy in this two-horse-race then Nvidia is definitely that but they get my money for a reason. I play games and like giving the least amount of money to the power company to do so. I dont mine bitcoin and I dont fold.

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What revised reviews? All I see are the ones singing the 970s praises.

Yeah, because 1080p gaming doesn't use that much RAM, and I know because I have 4GB cards as well, and I used to game on 1080p. I don't think ive ever seen them get to 2.5GB on 1080p (unmodded skyrim and everything of course, it probably could get to higher with mods and stuff, as Ivy said above ) , let alone the 3.5GB where the 970s microlags begin to start. If its one thing I hate its microlags, it's the reason I abandoned my ATI 5770 and have stayed away from AMD cards ever since, and I was just shy of buying a 970 and now I feel I dodged a bullet lmao.

he is speaking of the ones that nvidia had people do so they look fine in every situation, and that is not the case. there are some issues. Who is to say if they do get worked out with a driver or firmware. But there are some hiccups to be smoothed out for sure
My problem is nvidia acting like they do no wrong or have never lied about specs- and they have. I for one dont believe for one second that not one nvidia person noticed what was stated on the review sites that they endorse

Its really hard to believe it is all just a mistaken, an unfortunate accident or even "all fine still". Nvidia may be worse at marketing compared to AMD, but their engineers and such are acting like super geeks, always able to be one notch ahead of AMD and always well aware of the market situation. It is a contradiction in that term... i think they know every single spec of every competitor card and hard to believe they accidentally failed to release the own card specs properly... many mistakens to be precise, just weird. Somehow i get the sad undertone that some people that represents Nvidia got in mind that everything was actually correctly done and no issue at all... in that term making a fool out of everyone seeing an issue. Most important marketing spec is to always take the customer serious... he is the king and it cant be reverse order... marketing rule number 1. Rule #1: Customer is king, Rule #2: Always be accurate with marketing and tell the truth. Rule#3: PWN.

If it is indeed a mistake made by nvidia, it would be pretty easy to make a ton of customers happy by just stepping up and doing the proper thing and offering something to those that feel wronged by the "mistake". It doesnt really matter at all if it was accidental or on purpose. Just step up and take care of your customers in whatever way you feel inclined or that the law requires.
Would be way better than to have many others jumping into the unhappiness of seeing a major player just slam customers to the ground. Sure there will always be those that buy nvidia just cause they are nvidia. I personally have lost all faith in them as a company and dont think that I will give them anymore money on new cards.
I will admit that I am less than a twinkle on nvidias priority list, but there are many of us that feel similar. I truly hope that enough of us will stick together and make it known financially that we do count at the end of the day.

Culbrelai said:

AMD might have a new fanboy when I upgrade lmao.

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If we learn anything from this, please let it be than fanboyism is nonsensical.

dejo said:

I truly hope that enough of us will stick together and make it known financially that we do count at the end of the day.

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I do understand your position, although from my point of view there is no place for revenge or continued grudge, its all without use and more damage than gain. However, i surely will do my best i can in order to bring up and provide the 970 issue and i dont take that matter on the light side, it is a true issue and have to be handled according to this spec.

One thing i want to add, the 08/15 user is not even aware of the issue, i guess 80-90% of the people may not notice anything of it. Those that truly are aware is already the top of the mountain. The users interested into overclocking just a few % and people that want to "stick together" is just a "small bunch" in the scale of Nvidia customers. The mainstream customers usually buying Nvidia may either simply buy a complete system already premade by a system OEM or may barely watch a review site, where the Nvidia may be a notch better performing, and are not checking out more than that. The OEM builders itself usually pick Nvidia because they saw the benchmark and was deeply impressed and just because it is simply the "marketleader", so there is not much question asked for the dumb. The result simply is that it may have a lesser impact on Nvidia as the "experts" may actually think. Simply because non experts are majority and the mechanisms there is different, those people rarely pick cards them self but rather are being "served" and they simply do "accept", but i know it may be difficult to get such a weird reality.

Its good to stick together but the impact is probably so minor that is is not truly worth it "drawing the sword". So best deal is simply to move on and be aware of future Nvidia purchases or maybe buy AMD more frequently. There might be some ugly Nvidia secret no one knows... except for the ones that are not anymore fooled the easy way. The deal is easy: Nvidia is always doing memory cuts at almost every generation, so you know what to look out for... and what to test! Apart from that it is simply not worth it holding a grudge, simply pick the stuff that works the best and be aware that some manufacturers generally may act "more dirty" than others and that trust have to be earned, trust is never free. So for some time Nvidia surely may have a hit in trust, thats reasonable, no more and no less than that. At the end of the day, for a company to lose trust is not a minor matter, especially when experts and reviews sites may lose trust it can truly put them into a struggling spot because those people are in the position to serve the mainstream by reviews and hints, so i think Nvidia already got their punishment and there is not truly any need trying to "make them feel it".

Once again, my interest is simply trying to solve the 970 issue as good as i can and probably finding some work arounds for my needs. Lets say i may become issues with my modded games it will be hard to find better options. Even when i send back the card which is not free of charge and additional work, the only other option i may have is a 290 card. But this one simply is running to hot for my SFF system, i worry i cant handle the heat... and the 980 GTX is simply to expensive for my current wealth (im already above the edge to be honest), so not truly a option. Finally it seems like i am simply gonna try to work out the 970 issue. Nvidia may not move a single finger... but it doesnt mean that i should do the same, i will simply try to figure out possible solutions and test test test. Maybe when AMD is releasing a new card and in term i cant solve issue up to that point... i will see some new options, who knows.

Returning my son's GTX970 to Amazon. They have already setup the return for refund. Just ordered him a MSI 290x Lightning ($300 AR) so it saves $60 over the GTX970 G1 Gaming card.

The 290X Lightning is surely a good card and may run cool enough on your system, although it may not be enough of cooling for my SFF because it is still 10C+ hotter than a 970 with the same cooler attached. At least it works out for you, so good to hear. I have to add, the cheapest 290X Lightning is around 510 USD in my country, so it is around 105 USD pricier than a 970 (at the time of buying, prices of 970 was increasing the past few days), so its a huge margin but at least still way cheaper than a 980. Somehow my countrys card prices are insane... but i am used to such prices, it has never been different. When i can buy it 15% above Newegg price (including taxes) i am already very happy and it was the case for the MSI 970.

Although, now that i am checking i found a Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 8GB at a price level of 510 USD, which is pretty much the Newegg price (including taxes), so actually it would be "my best deal ever". The only issue once again... 1. Still rather hot 2. Hard to fit 3. 2x8 PIN. But surely the probably best deal, at a price that is still to high but i could cry for it. I mean 8 GB even... and the price is very reasonable for sure, not cheap building such a card. On big boards it could be run in CF, such a CF is surely powerful enough for 4k gaming and no memory issues at all.. never ever.

No matter how i tackle it... always some problems, sadly.

It was quite a bit higher when I purchased his GTX970, however, AMD has lowered the price in light of this issue to generate business and the Lightning also went on sale so its a no brainer really.

Ivy said:

The 290X Lightning is surely a good card and may run cool enough on your system, although it may not be enough of cooling for my SFF because it is still 10C+ hotter than a 970 with the same cooler attached. At least it works out for you, so good to hear. I have to add, the cheapest 290X Lightning is around 510 USD in my country, so it is around 105 USD pricier than a 970 (at the time of buying, prices of 970 was increasing the past few days), so its a huge margin but at least still way cheaper than a 980. Somehow my countrys card prices are insane... but i am used to such prices, it has never been different. When i can buy it 15% above Newegg price (including taxes) i am already very happy and it was the case for the MSI 970.

Although, now that i am checking i found a Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 8GB at a price level of 510 USD, which is pretty much the Newegg price (including taxes), so actually it would be "my best deal ever". The only issue once again... 1. Still rather hot 2. Hard to fit. But surely the probably best deal, at a price that is still to high but i could cry for it. I mean 8 GB even... and the price is very reasonable for sure, not cheap building such a card. On big boards it could be run in CF, such a CF is surely powerful enough for 4k gaming and no memory issues at all.. never ever.

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Also wouldn't come close to fitting in your case, Ivy.