nVidia & the GTX970: caught in a lie

[Tels]

Good points, Tels. Actually, the difference in price between the 960 and 970 means you should get a 970 with the extra vram. If either would require a complete new PC... then its time to upgrade. Christmas in February for Tels! (Though if I'm being honest you should hold out till the end of the year and get skylake +new gfx).

 

Yeah, the price difference is small, but the performance difference is very small, too. Especailly if you upgrade from such an ancient system where granite slabs represent the graphics memory like mine

 

I'm more concerned with the power consumption and noise levels. My usage is 90% websurfing, and 10% games, mostly older titles, with only the occasional modern 3D thrown in. It would be good to play a few more of these, of course.

 

So:

 

The GTX 750 is about 130 €, can be had as silent version, does not require an extra 6-pin power connection and never draws more than 80 Watt - haven't found out what it draws in idle, hopefully not too much. https://www.alternate.de/ZOTAC/GeForce-GTX-750-ZONE-Edition-Grafikkarte/html/product/1150897

 

The GTX 960 is about 230 €, requries an extra power connector, haven't found a silent version and draws up to 120 Watt. It requires only 10 Watt in idle, which is good.

 

The GTX 970 is about 380 €, needs even more power (up to 145 Watt) and usually uses 3 slots.

 

The more power the GPU needs, the bigger and better-aired the case needs to be. But I'm actually trying to get away from these gigantic, but mostly-empty-air desktop towers and try to fit it into a smaller one like this:

 

https://www.alternate.de/Chieftec/FI-01W-U3-Geh%C3%A4use/html/product/1119815?tk=7&lk=8353/A or

https://www.alternate.de/Lian-Li/PC-Q11B-Geh%C3%A4use/html/product/410150?tk=7&lk=8353

 

Acttually, I'm not to sure if it should be µATX, miniATX or ATX or whatever, I completely out of touch with the hardware side now

 

Anyway, I just don't have 700..1000 € lying around for a new PC, so this is all window shopping for me

Edited February 6, 2015 by Tels

[Tels]

Here is an example configuration:

 

http://www.atelco.de/pcconfigurator/meinpc/296603

 

Don't know if the power supply is even going to work (its external and has only 90 Watt, so unlikely), and it's still over 700 € for a "not so fast for gaming" PC. Oh well...

[Bikerdude]

moved to another thread.

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/16918-upgrade-options-for-tels/?do=findComment&comment=365543

[Bikerdude]

Well gigabyte have got back to me asking for a copy of my receipt and serial number and have they will get back to me.

 

So watch this space.

[Bikerdude]

Got a reply back from nVidia -

 

 

Hello Biker,

Thank you for contacting us. I understand your frustration regarding the marketing miscommunication of some of the advanced technical specs. However, the GTX 970's memory architecture is a core feature of its overall design that helps it deliver class-leading performance results, and it is working as intended. We are not able to provide any compensation for this issue.

Regards,

Nvidia Customer Care

My reply -

Dear nVidia

 

So nVidia gets caught lying and this is the stock bullshit copied and pasted response is it..? This reply with its thinly vailed marking BS is nothing more than bloody insult.

 

Working as intended you say, do you not know when you’re telling a bared faced LIE…?! nVidia is duty bound to sort out some sort of compensation as promised by one of your customer care reps PeterS –

• https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/803518/geforce-900-series/gtx-970-3-5gb-vram-issue/post/4438090/#4438090

 

I don’t have any particular brand loyalty, but after this little stunt my next card maybe an AMD.

[Lux]

Nice. Like I said, I don't think with the specs on the box being accurate "enough" that anything can really be done about it unfortunately. I guess we'll see how this is handled in the future.

[Bikerdude]

Well no suprises, but thought I would post a copy the convo online etc -

 

- see the OP

[Bikerdude]

So I emailed Gigabyte for an official reponse -

But unlike nvidia, Gigabyte are attempting to help after all. They have asked for a copy of my receipt and serial number, so watch this space.

[Bikerdude]

Review websites now listing the GTX970 as having 3584-512MB of ram , and it looks like even at 2k res the 970 is seeing abnormal slowdowns -

 

- http://www.techspot.com/review/962-evolve-benchmarks/page3.html

[Lux]

Still though, you're talking about <1% of users (probably) playing at higher than 1080p.

[Diego]

"Hello Biker"

Did you identify yourself to Nvidia as Bikerdude? That's awesome

[Bikerdude]

You're talking about <1% of users (probably) playing at higher than 1080p.

Not really, the Geforce experience app enables DSR resolutions on all games that can run higher resolution without slowdown. So that figure is is massively higher where users have GFE and default settings enabled.

[Lux]

Ah, yeah, forgot about DSR which I've never used.

[Bikerdude]

Did you identify yourself to Nvidia as Bikerdude? That's awesome

heh, of course. I try to do most things online via an apropriate alias etc.

Ah, yeah, forgot about DSR which I've never used.

Man, you should use it. nVidia have finally gotten the hires-versus-perf nailed with the medium/high end cards. Which is ironiq as AMD have been good at that for years.

[Lux]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/02/nvidia-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit-over-graphics-card-ram-issues/

 

Hehe, if this causes 970 prices to plummet, I may get me a couple of them

Edited February 23, 2015 by Lux

[Lux]

heh, of course. I try to do most things online via an apropriate alias etc.

Man, you should use it. nVidia have finally gotten the hires-versus-perf nailed with the medium/high end cards. Which is ironiq as AMD have been good at that for years.

 

I play at 5760x1200 or 5916x1200 on a single 780 and it barely has the ass to push that at High settings in most games so that's a no-go for me.

[Bikerdude]

Hehe, if this causes 970 prices to plummet, I may get me a couple of them.

I was wondering what was going to hpappen, I'm still waiting for Gigabyte to get back to me - will poke them with the above link.

I play at 5760x1200 or 5916x1200 on a single 780 and it barely has the ass to push that at High settings in most games so that's a no-go for me.

Er, those res require SLI minimum mista. Either 2x780's or 970's

[Lux]

I was wondering what was going to hpappen, I'm still waiting for Gigabyte to get back to me - will poke them with the above link.

Er, those res require SLI minimum mista. Either 2x780's or 970's

 

Nope. All the recent games, I run on High, AO off, motion blur off, DOF off, and FXAA 2x.... works just fine on a single card

Edited February 24, 2015 by Lux

[STiFU]

Yuck, AO off.

 

Image quality > Insane Image Resolution

 

I play on my 55'' Full-HD-TV with a 770 on everything maxed most of the time. Works splendidly.

[STiFU]

There is apparently a class action lawsuit going on in the US of A. Let's see how NVIDIA will react.

[Lux]

Yuck, AO off.

 

Image quality > Insane Image Resolution

 

I play on my 55'' Full-HD-TV with a 770 on everything maxed most of the time. Works splendidly.

 

I would run AO if it didn't drop FPS below 35ish but it is a performance hog and "image quality" is subjective. When you're embroiled in a story and running around an environment, I at least, don't pay a massive amount of attention to the visuals. Occasionally sure, and sure it looks better, but once you get in to the story, it takes a back seat for me and AO doesn't make a massive difference if you're asking me. It does however drop the FPS by 10-20 at 5760x1200 res. Also, having peripheral vision increases immersion way more than AO ever could.

 

I previously linked the class action lawsuit