5 ms·

Perhaps I'm being dense in not seeing the issue here? It seems like a relatively minor mistake which turns the card from "obscenely good value for money" into "

Perhaps I'm being dense in not seeing the issue here? It seems like a relatively minor mistake which turns the card from "obscenely good value for money" into "very good value for money". Generally I buy hardware based on performance, not on technical specifications. This is certainly normal purchasing behavior for a CPU (a 3.0GHz Intel beats similarly specced 3.0GHz AMD almost always), so I'm surprised to hear people buy GPUs based on whatever obscure number they've been told to care about.

gambiting 12y ago
I've bought my last card(GTX780) with the very specific intention of using all(well, nearly all) of its ram(3GB) for CUDA calculations I was doing at the time - if it turned out that I couldn't allocate it fully, then the card simply would not be what they have advertised and I would have returned it.
- anon4 12y ago
  You can allocate it fully even here, it's just that accessing some addresses is slower than others. That's a shitty situation. If you want really fully guaranteed specs and performance, buy a workstation card.
  - gambiting 12y ago
    Why? If it's not a workstation card why can I no longer expect solid specs and performance? I don't need to work on doubles, so a customer grade card was perfectly reasonable for my work - and it was easily 5-6x cheaper than an equivalent Quattro/Tesla card. I hate the notion that if something is not from "professional" segment then it can be shitty or not fully spec compliant. It's still misleading advertising.
  - pixl97 12y ago
    >If you want really fully guaranteed specs and performance, buy a workstation card Wrong answer. If you want guaranteed specs you and every other user file a complaint with your countries advertising standard. When a hefty fine is laid upon said manufacture the spec sheets will become amazingly accurate.
    - felixgallo 12y ago
      Heh. Is that so. http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/specification-updates/xeon-e5-family-spec-update.pdf http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/...
detaro 12y ago
There have been reports of games having noticeable frame rate drops when they start to utilize the slow memory area, far above the few percent NVidia claims happen "typically". This might be fixable, either in the drivers or with game patches, but if they don't even publish the information that there is a special case, how are people supposed to work around it? I imagine that if they had documented this from the start the backlash would have been way smaller, and it leaves people to wonder if problems they have are related to it.
madaxe_again 12y ago
I have a GTX970 and it performs beautifully, and this news makes no difference to my impression - the card is great bang for its buck, and runs everything I've thrown at it without issue, supersampled, at obscene framerates - I've been using it to play elite in the rift, everything cranked, supersampled, 75Hz... yeah. How it manages memory really doesn't matter currently, and it'll be obsolete on the same timeline as its superior sibling.
pixl97 12y ago
>Perhaps I'm being dense in not seeing the issue here? Taking the technology out if it, it's a rather serious violation of advertising law, at least in the U.S. and Britain. Try to whitewash the issue with 'well it's still a good deal' is a poor way of looking at it because if not dealt with more fraud from the manufacturer is likely. Even though your value calculation was not changed by the revelation your experience does not encompass all experiences. The 3.5G split is certainly unexpected behavior. https://www.gov.uk/marketing-advertising-law/overview https://www.gov.uk/marketing-advertising-law/overview
- richthegeek 12y ago
  Is it actually a breach? It might be because I don't look at or for that level of specs but I didn't think the "advertising" such as it was included "it has this many ROPs". There is a line, i think, in what counts as advertising in this case. If the specs that were wrong were not advertised by NV themselves I imagine they don't count as misleading.
  - paulmd 12y ago
    Yup - the documents they sent out to reviewers stated that the 970s had 64 ROPs [1]. This was also further pushed down the line to the OEMs building the cards, who used it in their own advertising (see the chart from ASUS in [2]). NVIDIA advertised the cards as having 64 ROPs - the fact that the first bunch of dupes parroted it to a wider audience is irrelevant. [1] http://www.techpowerup.com/209339/gtx-970-memory-drama-plot-thickens-nvidia-has-to-revise-specs.html http://www.techpowerup.com/209339/gtx-970-memory-drama-plot-... [2] http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/67488-asus-gtx-970-strix-oc-review.html http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-review...
    - proveanegative 12y ago
      Why didn't the OEMs catch it? You'd think they would verify the specifications of the chips they are given to some degree to assure they are accurate. Have they grown complacent?

gambiting 12y ago

I've bought my last card(GTX780) with the very specific intention of using all(well, nearly all) of its ram(3GB) for CUDA calculations I was doing at the time - if it turned out that I couldn't allocate it fully, then the card simply would not be what they have advertised and I would have returned it.

anon4 12y ago
You can allocate it fully even here, it's just that accessing some addresses is slower than others. That's a shitty situation. If you want really fully guaranteed specs and performance, buy a workstation card.
- gambiting 12y ago
  Why? If it's not a workstation card why can I no longer expect solid specs and performance? I don't need to work on doubles, so a customer grade card was perfectly reasonable for my work - and it was easily 5-6x cheaper than an equivalent Quattro/Tesla card. I hate the notion that if something is not from "professional" segment then it can be shitty or not fully spec compliant. It's still misleading advertising.
- pixl97 12y ago
  >If you want really fully guaranteed specs and performance, buy a workstation card Wrong answer. If you want guaranteed specs you and every other user file a complaint with your countries advertising standard. When a hefty fine is laid upon said manufacture the spec sheets will become amazingly accurate.
  - felixgallo 12y ago
    Heh. Is that so. http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/specification-updates/xeon-e5-family-spec-update.pdf http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/...

detaro 12y ago

There have been reports of games having noticeable frame rate drops when they start to utilize the slow memory area, far above the few percent NVidia claims happen "typically". This might be fixable, either in the drivers or with game patches, but if they don't even publish the information that there is a special case, how are people supposed to work around it? I imagine that if they had documented this from the start the backlash would have been way smaller, and it leaves people to wonder if problems they have are related to it.

madaxe_again 12y ago

I have a GTX970 and it performs beautifully, and this news makes no difference to my impression - the card is great bang for its buck, and runs everything I've thrown at it without issue, supersampled, at obscene framerates - I've been using it to play elite in the rift, everything cranked, supersampled, 75Hz... yeah. How it manages memory really doesn't matter currently, and it'll be obsolete on the same timeline as its superior sibling.

pixl97 12y ago

>Perhaps I'm being dense in not seeing the issue here? Taking the technology out if it, it's a rather serious violation of advertising law, at least in the U.S. and Britain. Try to whitewash the issue with 'well it's still a good deal' is a poor way of looking at it because if not dealt with more fraud from the manufacturer is likely. Even though your value calculation was not changed by the revelation your experience does not encompass all experiences. The 3.5G split is certainly unexpected behavior. https://www.gov.uk/marketing-advertising-law/overview https://www.gov.uk/marketing-advertising-law/overview

richthegeek 12y ago
Is it actually a breach? It might be because I don't look at or for that level of specs but I didn't think the "advertising" such as it was included "it has this many ROPs". There is a line, i think, in what counts as advertising in this case. If the specs that were wrong were not advertised by NV themselves I imagine they don't count as misleading.
- paulmd 12y ago
  Yup - the documents they sent out to reviewers stated that the 970s had 64 ROPs [1]. This was also further pushed down the line to the OEMs building the cards, who used it in their own advertising (see the chart from ASUS in [2]). NVIDIA advertised the cards as having 64 ROPs - the fact that the first bunch of dupes parroted it to a wider audience is irrelevant. [1] http://www.techpowerup.com/209339/gtx-970-memory-drama-plot-thickens-nvidia-has-to-revise-specs.html http://www.techpowerup.com/209339/gtx-970-memory-drama-plot-... [2] http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/67488-asus-gtx-970-strix-oc-review.html http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-review...
  - proveanegative 12y ago
    Why didn't the OEMs catch it? You'd think they would verify the specifications of the chips they are given to some degree to assure they are accurate. Have they grown complacent?