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Captain_Tom on 28 January 2015
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JEMC said:
Captain_Tom said:
JEMC said:

I read the AnandTech's article, and I'll post a bit of it:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation

To that end in the short amount of time we’ve had to work on this article we have also been working on cooking up potential corner cases for the GTX 970 and have so far come up empty, though we’re by no means done. Coming up with real (non-synthetic) gaming workloads that can utilize between 3.5GB and 4GB of VRAM while not running into a rendering performance wall is already a challenge, and all the more so when trying to find such workloads that actually demonstrate performance problems.

 

Now, don't take it as if I'm on their side because I'm not. They lied (even if they call it a mistake or a miss-comunication it is still a lie) and put them and the card on a bad situation, with some users angry for buying a card that is not what they thought it was, so they should offer those users the option to ask for a refund.

But that doesn't change the results of the reviews of the card or the performance it showed. The card is still as good or bad as it was when it launched, only that now we know that it may not be as future-proof as some of us thought.


No of course it doesn't.  But it could change how the 970 performs a year from now when that 4GB will be very important.  If in a year the 970 starts performing 10% below the 290 in even 1080p...Well that would be bad and in my opinion count as misleading people since no one expected that to happen.

And I agree with you that it has been a bad move from Nvidia.

But when you, me or anyone buys something like a GPU for not only today's games but also future games, we have to remember that what we are doing is a bet, because we don't know what will happen in the future or how important (or not) will a certain feature be, and as with all bets there is a risk and we can win and we can lose.

Should Nvidia have done things right from the start? Of course! Will the buyers that feel cheated be able to ask for a refund? It's up to debate, but I think yes. Will 4GB be the necessary in a few years? Yes, and more than 4GB too. Will that happen before the main problem is that the card is not powerful enough? Maybe, but maybe not.

And I find it hard to believe that the 970 may fall behind the 290 in 1080p in a year. The 290 has been in the market for so long that drivers for "old" and current games won't make it perform much (if any) better, while Nvidia still has room to improve the drivers of the 970 and squeeze a couple more fps.

 

And, btw, AMD post this today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbHY09Xf0J0

I hope that means that they'll show something of the new cards, and not a new "Never Settle" promo.

Exactly, a card purchase is often a bet on how long it will last.  For instance the 6970 and 580 were honestly pretty bad bets considering their successors had double the performance lol.  However the 7970 was an EXCELLENT bet since it still can go toe-to-toe with a 780.

My point is that a lot of people bet on the 970 being admittedly 20% weaker than the 980, but still having that 4GB so it will last as long.  3.25GB of VRAM will not last nearly as long as 4, and apparently it is starting to get crushed by anything around 4K.