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GTX 970 Controversy - Will you still buy one or keep it if you own one already?


Brian

Do the 970 GTX revelations impact your decision to purchase the 970 GTX or from NV?  

30 members have voted

  1. 1. Do the 970 GTX revelations impact your decision to purchase the 970 GTX or from NV?

    • It doesn't really bother me, I will keep my 970 GTX because the performance is still fantastic.
    • It does bother me and I plan to return my card for a refund and buy AMD.
    • It bothers me, I will seek a refund but still buy from NVIDIA in the future.
    • I don't like what NVIDIA did and won't buy their products as a result ever again.
      0
    • I don't own a GTX 970 and will still continue to buy NVIDIA products.


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  • Founder

So now that we know the GTX 970 has 3.5 GB full speed memory and the other 0.5 GB that is segmented and 1/7th the speed with less ROPs than originally thought, does that impact your decision to buy the card or keep it? PCPer did some frametime analysis and here's a few of their results:

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KitGuru has an article where they quote John Peddie research saying only 5% of users have requested refunds so considering all the outrage we saw across the internet and the news of this being plastered on every major computer enthusiast site, it may demonstrate the average user just doesn't care because the performance hasn't changed. While one can set ridiculous settings like 4k DSR + AA to demonstrate the effect of segmented memory, in reality I don't see people ever facing that in real world use, even in SLI. What are your thoughts? Is this a serious issue or one where NVIDIA screwed up but it doesn't change your decisions about your future purchases with them?

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Yeah, that really sucks. I would not entertain the idea of buying the second fiddle GPU anyway, since I care about performance more than saving a few bucks. But still, what NVIDIA did there was pretty lousy and there is no excuse for it. If they were going to make 0.5GB of the vRAM worthless (for market as a gimmick, I am guessing) just selling them as 3.5GB GPUs would have been the right thing to do.

Whether desktop or laptop, enthusiasts and gamers find themselves in the unfortunate position of having to choose from the lesser of two evils (red versus green). It's too bad at least one of them can't be awesome most of the time.

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  • Founder
Yeah, that really sucks. I would not entertain the idea of buying the second fiddle GPU anyway, since I care about performance more than saving a few bucks. But still, what NVIDIA did there was pretty lousy and there is no excuse for it. If they were going to make 0.5GB of the vRAM worthless (for market as a gimmick, I am guessing) just selling them as 3.5GB GPUs would have been the right thing to do.

Whether desktop or laptop, enthusiasts and gamers find themselves in the unfortunate position of having to choose from the lesser of two evils (red versus green). It's too bad at least one of them can't be awesome most of the time.

Agreed, when I go for a GPU I usually want the best one on the market although the next Titan will be the exception to that rule. That said, whether NVIDIA intentionally did this or really did have a miscommunication w/their technical marketing team still puts them in a negative light to many 970 owners and other potential customers. I do think they should have offered an upgrade path to the 980 for 970 owners where they return the card for a coupon from the retailer they purchased it from and then can use that coupon strictly for a 980 upgrade. That way those who really want all 4 GB ram + ROPs can pay a little extra and do it and those that don't care could stick w/their 970s. As a fan of NVIDIA it did give me slight pause but it won't impact my decision to purchase their products because I still feel they offer the best package overall. AMD to me is a second tier video card manufacturer and is good for budget users but isn't on NVIDIA's level of refinement.

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I'm with Fox. I replaced my 7970 with a 980 last month to drive my 30" HP. When I upgrade, I never go with second tier cards on my desktop. I still would be a bit miffed if I purchased the 970 and found out it was partially neutered in specific (albeit unrealistic) settings.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I personally think that it sucks they didnt tell people and are just using these tricks (such as sending press different models of this gpu) and I wanted to buy it and now I'm thorn aparat... I'll probably stick to my laptop for now and buy GTX970 when GTA V will arrive- maybe itll be cheaper...

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  • 1 month later...

Well galaxy gave me a 970 as a replacement for my faulty 780 so ill take the extra 512mb. I know the 970 isn't exactly much of an upgrade but newer software and direct x 12 was something I thought would be worth keeping. Maybe someone else is in my situation?

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

i currently own an MSI 970 and i love it, it runs super cool, its silent at 100% fan, the fans hardly ever spin up at all, and i have yet to hit the 3.5gb thing closest i think i have came is 3gb in metro last light. i wish i could get another one for SLI but i might sell it and upgrade to a 980Ti when it comes out

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Bothered me enough that I ended up splurging for the GTX 980 (coming from a 770 4GB which was great). On most games the .5 GB of VRAM wouldn't make a difference (assuming your at 1080p) but when you start modding games this can change drastically (my Skyrim install runs at about 3.7 sometimes more). Again may not be an issue for most people but I also didn't want to be upset 6 months down the road and unable to do anything about it.

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it only bothers me when I want to max out all settings in GTA V and seeing that VRAM slider only wants to stop at 3.5 GB, otherwise, game crashes or instantly reverts back to dekstop. Still hoping for VRAM memory stacking support (I know wishful thinking) and will SLI these babies to top up VRAM to 8GB - or 7GB (no pun intended)

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  • 4 weeks later...

For my brother's gaming computer build we picked up an MSI GTX 970. It works great and is silent. Wouldn't have known anything was wrong with it if I didn't't read about. I dislike Nvidia bit the 970 is definitely a price and performance sweet spot.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm running dual gtx 980s from evga and I'm building a system for my friend using the 970

In my opinion, the average gamer won't use more than 3.5 even on games like bf4 on high settings

If you're on a budget or one of your friends are, I would recommend this card since its half the price of the 980 but stuff provides a lot of performance

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