Should you be compensated for the GTX 970 issues and spec changes?

[SViscusi]

You want to be compensated because it was intentional and they got caught. OK. The problem is, you don't know it was intentional, you're just going by gut feeling.

It would be incredibly hard to argue that it wasn't intentional. At a minimum it was a lie by omission. Had they included fine print then they'd be covered legally though not morally.

Ultimately it's imperative not to give companies a pass when they do things like this intentional or not. They're not your friends, they're not your family. They won't give you a break. They offer products and services in exchange for your money. In this case they offered one product and the buyer received a different one. They can't get a pass because bad behavior can't be rewarded.

A small but not insignificant move by them to their customers affected would probably be the correct way to go.

 

[loccothan]

Im still waiting for my R380X
nV have to stop lie to their customers :-( and afterall do something, not re-do the Fermi all the time :-(
Last GPU from nV was GTX285 and its still im my House. (BTW Great card)

 

[tential]

Also I find it insane that people say "The GTX 970 benches just as well as it did before so I don't care!"
You seriously think Nvidia is that backwards of a company to release a GPU with a flaw like the GTX 970 has, and not ensure it works on the games that people will be using to benchmark it?

It's tomorrows games you have to worry about. It does great in 2014 benchmarks, but the year is 2015. What happens when we see a new host of games pushing the borders this year?

And I know people keep saying "4K isn't coming anyway anytime soon!"
I'm sure the R9 380x/390x and GTX 980Ti have something to say about that. Not to mention next year.

Ya, maybe you guys may only plan on keeping your GTX 970 for 1 year and don't care, but there are many keeping it for 3-4 years and don't think it's fair that they won't have Nvidia's driver team optimizing for an odd 3.5+.5GB configuration in 2018 on Triple A releases.

 

[SViscusi]

And, of course, you have evidence of this?

If this were unintentional that would mean that the people working on the product had no idea what the product was. They put out the specs they made the claims they wrote the drivers. They didn't do all those things without knowing what the underlying product was.

There are only two options here. They either got caught being cute with their specs knowingly, or they didn't understand their products. The latter is not likely given the quality of Nvidia's engineering team.

 

[lehtv]

If this were unintentional that would mean that the people working on the product had no idea what the product was. They put out the specs they made the claims they wrote the drivers. They didn't do all those things without knowing what the underlying product was.

There are only two options here. They either got caught being cute with their specs knowingly, or they didn't understand their products. The latter is not likely given the quality of Nvidia's engineering team.

There's a third option: the erroneous specs made it through due to an oversight or mistake by the people working on the product. (I'm not saying this is what happened.)

 

[tential]

If this were unintentional that would mean that the people working on the product had no idea what the product was. They put out the specs they made the claims they wrote the drivers. They didn't do all those things without knowing what the underlying product was.

There are only two options here. They either got caught being cute with their specs knowingly, or they didn't understand their products. The latter is not likely given the quality of Nvidia's engineering team.

So essentially, Nvidia did this unintentionally and had no clue the product was a 3.5/.5 product with cut down ROPs and L2 Cache.
But their Driver team mysteriously wrote drivers for the GTX 970 to ensure it would fill up the 3.5 first then that extra .5....

 

[homebrew2ny]

I did not buy this card so my opinion should not be weighted as much as someone who did, but having said that.....

As some have already said, the performance bracket has not changed so in that regard I would not be upset and would still be content with the 970 if I were an owner. However, companies simply can not misrepresent product(s) as a selling point and not expect to compensate. For that reason alone I voted 'Yes' I think they should offer something to people who had purchased the card.

 

[lehtv]

For that reason alone I voted 'Yes' I think they should offer something to people who had purchased the card.

That's not what the poll asks though. Your answer is skewing the results slightly because it's a question of how GTX 970 owners feel, not what they (not to mention non-owners) think NVIDIA should do.

 

[tential]

I did not buy this card so my opinion should not be weighted as much as someone who did, but having said that.....

As some have already said, the performance bracket has not changed so in that regard I would not be upset and would still be content with the 970 if I were an owner. However, companies simply can not misrepresent product(s) as a selling point and not expect to compensate. For that reason alone I voted 'Yes' I think they should offer something to people who had purchased the card.

Don't vote if you don't own it. The question is targeted at owners.
Just for future reference so the poll actually means something...

 

[Abwx]

it's a question of how GTX 970 owners feel, not what they think NVIDIA should do.

You mean that the eventual compensation, for those asking it, should be paid by someone else..?.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Also I find it insane that people say "The GTX 970 benches just as well as it did before so I don't care!"
You seriously think Nvidia is that backwards of a company to release a GPU with a flaw like the GTX 970 has, and not ensure it works on the games that people will be using to benchmark it?

It's tomorrows games you have to worry about. It does great in 2014 benchmarks, but the year is 2015. What happens when we see a new host of games pushing the borders this year?

And I know people keep saying "4K isn't coming anyway anytime soon!"
I'm sure the R9 380x/390x and GTX 980Ti have something to say about that. Not to mention next year.

Ya, maybe you guys may only plan on keeping your GTX 970 for 1 year and don't care, but there are many keeping it for 3-4 years and don't think it's fair that they won't have Nvidia's driver team optimizing for an odd 3.5+.5GB configuration in 2018 on Triple A releases.

I'm glad you have a crystal ball to see into the future. Must be nice.

Keep dreaming. You won't be seeing games eating up a full 4GB without ridiculous settings anytime soon not to mention the 6GB a titan has or the supposed number for the next releases.

 

[lehtv]

You mean that the eventual compensation, for those asking it, should be paid by someone else..?.

Huh? It's not a question about whether anybody should do anything. It's a question about how the owners feel.

 

[buklau]

I'm satisfied with a $50 mail in refund.

 

[Charlie98]

If this were unintentional that would mean that the people working on the product had no idea what the product was. They put out the specs they made the claims they wrote the drivers. They didn't do all those things without knowing what the underlying product was.

There are only two options here. They either got caught being cute with their specs knowingly, or they didn't understand their products. The latter is not likely given the quality of Nvidia's engineering team.

The problem in a big company like NV is the disconnect between 'departments' It looks to me like a breakdown in commo between 2 or 3 departments, and a lack of QC in the release of the final product, to include it's specifications. It may be as simple as that.

I'm always mystified when, in a field as ravenously picked apart as PC tech in general... and video tech specifically, that a company like NV would release a substandard product on purpose, by design, and not expect someone to discover it? Actually, we saw it with Kingston and the V300 SSD... and sure as shootin', they were outed. I don't really think NV is that stupid. A mess-up...? For sure. Negligent? Maybe a little, but not criminal.

I'll bet over at NV... the Engineers are pointing fingers at Marketing, Marketing is pointing fingers at Engineering, Management is pointing fingers at everyone including the cleaning crew... and it will all wind up in Marketing's lap with a dictate to 'get us out of this mess!'

 

[tential]

I'm glad you have a crystal ball to see into the future. Must be nice.

Keep dreaming. You won't be seeing games eating up a full 4GB without ridiculous settings anytime soon not to mention the 6GB a titan has or the supposed number for the next releases.

I see, so you think games will not utilize above 3.5gb vram for a couple of years? Must be nice having a crystal ball that can see into the future and tell you that.

 

[SimianR]

How much do you guys wanna bet that if people make enough noise about this NVIDIA will probably have some sort of additional digital game code for everyone that bought a 970.

 

[Silverforce11]

I'm glad you have a crystal ball to see into the future. Must be nice.

Keep dreaming. You won't be seeing games eating up a full 4GB without ridiculous settings anytime soon not to mention the 6GB a titan has or the supposed number for the next releases.

You do realize what you are doing exactly what you are accusing him of doing? Assuming to know what future games will or won't in terms of vram requirements.

We can only go with facts and extrapolate the trends.

We're already seeing games use 4gb at 1080p due to textures, not fancy 16x AA or 4x SSAA settings. The question here is would such an occurrence be more common or less common moving forward?

You don't need a crystal ball. You just need some grey matter in your head.

 

[lehtv]

I see, so you think games will not utilize above 3.5gb vram for a couple of years? Must be nice having a crystal ball that can see into the future and tell you that.

Games might, but GTX 970 almost certainly won't be fast enough to run them at playable framerates at settings which use over 3.5gb

 

[stahlhart]

Reopening thread. Any contributions not deemed to be appropriate for a technical forum or useful for furthering this discussion will result in a ban of one month from posting here.

-- stahlhart

 

[SPBHM]

Games might, but GTX 970 almost certainly won't be fast enough to run them at playable framerates at settings which use over 3.5gb

I'm not so sure, think of a 580 1.5GB, it's from 2010 and depending on the settings/games it's pretty limited by vram in some new games.

the difference is that the 580 doesn't have additional slow memory, it would be interesting to see how much the slow 512MB from the 970 helps compared to simply using PCIE/ram

I'm not a 970 owner (unfortunately, it still is a great card), initially I thought this situation was serious enough to offer refund for all the owners, but it's probably not a practical solution, and it's not like the card is delivering less performance than what was promised by reviews and Nvidia marketing slides, still I think some free game codes at least would be fair.

 

[TeleBee]

If performance hasn't changed why you need compensation? If for fake advertising HDD makers would go bankrupt.

http://wolfcrow.com/blog/bits-vs-bytes-and-the-story-behind-disk-drive-sizes/

Also this
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5176/amd-revises-bulldozer-transistor-count-12b-not-2b

 

[robxygta]

Didnt even know, and i had 970.

 

[exar333]

As a 970 owner, I do think NV owes something to 970 buyers. I don't know what that is, but they would be wise to do something without the order of class-action lawsuit. A free game, Steam coupon, or small rebate ($25-40 or something) would be fair IMHO.

Personally, I got the 970 as a stop-gap until either GM200 or the 390x was released. I needed a faster card than the 670 and (more importantly) >2GB VRAM. It works just fine...BUT if I had purchased the 970 as a long-term card, I would be upset at the 3.5GB vs. 4GB RAM. That will have longer-term performance impacts, and I suspect we will see a growing performance delta between the 980 and 970 over time.

Just my $0.02.

 

[imaheadcase]

Why would you think you deserve a refund of any sorts? lol It makes zero sense considering performance is fine as before. This is the same as those people who tried to sue because of memory and hardrive manufacturers sizes are not the exact same as listed.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Not even remotely the same, that was due to people not understanding how the capacity was represented.