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Forums - PC Discussion - PSA: GTX 970 is really a 3.25 GB 208-bit card

Protendo on 25 January 2015
Uabit said:

Nvidia said they are working on a patch for this, but whoever wants can go get an AMD card and enjoy shitty drivers.


They had an official statement. They can't patch the memory controller to perform like the non-gimped version they passed on. The hardware is the bottleneck.



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Captain_Tom on 25 January 2015
vivster said:

 

Captain_Tom said:

What makes you so sure?  I have a 7970 that still plays EVERY game on Ultra maxed out.  Hell the 7970 GHz Benches like a 780 now because of how forward-thinking AMD is with their architectures, and the 7950 beats a 680 when it used to lose to a 670.

Who is to say that in 2 years the 290 couldn't be benching close to a 980 while the 290X trades blows with a 980 Ti?   By no means am I saying it will happen, but weirder things have happened...

 

Oh and your VRAM comments make me remember 3 years ago when everyone said "You don't even need any more than 1GB of VRAM anyways!"  Now all of those 580's are struggling to keep up with 6970's...

All I'm saying that VRAM will be the least problem of the cards. It just doesn't have such a profound effect you want to make it sound like. Please read the article you posted for yourself. The effects are minimal and in the single digits. You sound like someone who wants to make a Pentium III PC faster by putting more RAM in it.

Your 7970 plays every game maxed out on 30 fps. That's no standard. 60fps or go home. Your 7970 is not able to do that on current games, hell even the 980 struggles with that at in certain extreme cases. 970 barely keeps the status quo today. It won't be able to play any games properly 2 years in the future even if it had 200GB of RAM and a 1025 bit memory interface.

And that the 290X will ever come close to the 980ti is absolute garbage. Do you even know what you are talking about? Big Maxwell will have about the same RAM and memory bandwidth  as the 290X while massively surpassing it in everything else. Please educate yourself before making such "predictions".


No it plays games at 76 FPS on my overclocked monitor.  Don't be a 60 FPS peasant!  Remember it plays games as well or better than a 780.

The 980 Ti should be ~20% faster than the 980 and it is the Titan II (Which I never mentioned) that won't be touchable by the 290X.  I never predicted anything either.  The fact is that the 6970 caught up to the 580, and the 7970 caught up to the 780.  So why can't the 290X surpass the 980?  At this point it would be abnormal for it not to.



Captain_Tom on 25 January 2015
Protendo said:
Uabit said:

Nvidia said they are working on a patch for this, but whoever wants can go get an AMD card and enjoy shitty drivers.


They had an official statement. They can't patch the memory controller to perform like the non-gimped version they passed on. The hardware is the bottleneck.


I wonder if this really will get them a lot of bad press.  I mean for god's sake they pulled a fast one on their customers!  No wonder it was $350.



Captain_Tom on 27 January 2015

Update: It turns out Nvidia lied about a few other specs as well:

http://www.techpowerup.com/209339/gtx-970-memory-drama-plot-thickens-nvidia-has-to-revise-specs.html

^This is a good summary of the whole situation.



green_sky on 27 January 2015

Are they gonna do a price drop. Going to pick up a couple more then. For the green team!



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fatslob-:O on 27 January 2015
green_sky said:
Are they gonna do a price drop. Going to pick up a couple more then. For the green team!

NOPE! ... 



Fayceless on 27 January 2015

Oh noes what a horrible scandal!!!!!!! (internet illiterate, please note the sarcasm)

Doesn't make me want one any less. It's still a great card. I don't think I'll upgrade anytime soon, though, video isn't a big priority for me right now. That's one of the perks of not playing FPS/action type games.



Captain_Tom on 27 January 2015
green_sky said:
Are they gonna do a price drop. Going to pick up a couple more then. For the green team!


Yes.  They should be rewarded...



green_sky on 27 January 2015
Captain_Tom said:
green_sky said:
Are they gonna do a price drop. Going to pick up a couple more then. For the green team!

Yes.  They should be rewarded...

Thanks! That is sweet news. Friend is super exited too. Might just go tri sli. :D



Captain_Tom on 27 January 2015
green_sky said:
Captain_Tom said:

Yes.  They should be rewarded...

Thanks! That is sweet news. Friend is super exited too. Might just go tri sli. :D


Yeah because why get a cheaper, more futurproof R9 290 when you can spend more for less!