gtx 970 too toxic to buy?

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Thehubbapubba

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Dec 12, 2014
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HI!
I was going to buy 2x970 but with the new information, im not so sure
If Im not incorrect, when a game demands over 3.5gb, the speed drops to 1/8 which causes lags, stuttering and other shit in the game? I have seen some very serious problems with the card, and I was going to buy 2x 970, but considering that it may not be able to perform correctly over 3.5gb, I think im going for 1x 980
What do you think that i should do? ETC. ETC!
Heres a link for some very extreme problems when exceeding 3.5gb, I dont assume that this is the case with everyone but the scenario is possible, and Im not (ofcourse) gona buy a card which cannot run correctly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQE6p5r1tYE
 
Solution
manofchalk
At this point I have to wonder whether you came looking for our opinions or for us to echo yours. You have obviously made up your mind on the issue.
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I think there are some issues with it for high resolutions. Also single cards are usually a safer bet than SLI / Crossfire set ups. A single 980 is probably currently your best bet imo.
 
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I would go with the single gtx 980 because its is simply a better card. Later on you can buy another one when prices fall.
 
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What resolution are you playing at? I'm not sure what is going on in that video but it isn't related to memory allocation. I play far cry 4 on SLI'd 970's and haven't had any issues.

 
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I have (2) 970's and am paying close attention to the write ups coming out. I am pretty made that this info wasn't disclosed from start. The ROPS and L2 cache not so much because it still performs as tests on release when everyone loved it. However, the 3.5GB memory segment item is really what gets me mad. If you run a single 970 you will "probably" never run graphic settings to high enough to use close to or more than 3.5GB. However, in SLI you have the GPU power to do so.

I tested FarCry4 last night with DSR@1440P 60Hz with MSAAx8 on. (MSAA since it uses more of the framebuffer). inside I was around 3.3~3.4GB and as soon as I walked outside the game crashed, every time. One error gave me "insufficient memory", but most of the time I got a locked screen or blank screen and had to reboot. Now, I would never run at this setting and I did purposefully try and break it. The FPS couldn't sustain 60FPS anyway. BUT it would not allow the use of that extra .5GB of VRAM. That does bother me a lot. Maybe it is specifically with FC4. Maybe they can patch the game or the driver to allow the use of the extra .5GB, I don't know. Not many games use this much VRAM. It is just something to consider.

Now, is the 970 a really great performing the card, ABSOLUTELY. Would I recommend it, YOU BET. Does it have an issue I wish I was told about before purchasing, you better believe it. Would I buy 2 of them again, yes I would. Why? Because 970 in SLI blows the pants off a single 980 for only $150 more. SLI 980's will run you $1100 instead of $700 for (2) 970's. The 3.5GB memory limit is something to just keep in mind when setting your graphic settings. That is all. It is still a great buy. Nvidia just dropped the ball on it and really owes us an apology, free game, or something cause people are MAD. Secondly, I really get the feeling from these sites that they are being payed off by NVIDIA to help them with damage control and play this down. On the other hand, there are open sites that are just bashing this like it's the end of the world. It's somewhere in the middle. I want a site to test every game it can and deliver results in each scenario to show us what happens when you go over that 3.5GB framebuffer and the impact in a REAL WORLD scenario.
 
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After seeing your post I wanted to test this myself. I set DSR to 5120x2880 using the high preset, except I disabled AA completely. My VRAM usage was just over 3.5gb and my framerate stayed between 35 - 44. I only played for 5 minutes so I will need try again later and see if it breaks with more play time.

Pushing it higher with more AA might push the vram usage up more but at a high resolution with high AA usage the drop in performance probably has more to do with not enough gpu power rather then vram allocation.

 
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Sure it would be Much More powerfull and cheaper but there is no point buying a card that cannot run correctly under heavy load, Thats just not how it supposed To work. Im very upset about this cause I really want To get 970 sli, but as U saw from the youtube video that I linked plus everybody Else who have complained about stuttering Etc, it wouldnt be wise To buy it if they cant fix it
 
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not bad! but the performance SHOULD drop drastically, due the fact how it has been engineered, nvidia has come clean about this facts. But im also concerdned not only the performance issues but the stuttering and other lags, because not only in that youtube video, but my friend has gtx970 and he have these problems too, not so extreme but still
 
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I play 1080p
the performance SHOULD drop drastically, due the fact how it has been engineered, nvidia has come clean about this facts. But im also concerdned not only the performance issues but the stuttering and other lags, because not only in that youtube video, but my friend has gtx970 and he have these problems too, not so extreme but still
 
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There is your answer on 3.5gb vram limit and bad performance. My last tests.

AC Unity - 3.8gb VRAM Usage, with MSAA8x I get 4.0gb but fps drops to 30fps, no shuttering.
[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7a5mcsY_NE&feature=youtu.be"][/video]

Dying Light Maxed Out
[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOAgsr0qimo&feature=youtu.be"][/video]

They will be working on upcoming driver where idle 0.3-0.5gb's from Aero/OS/Flash will be rellocated on 0.5gb segment which is slower which means that game will be able to utilize full 4gb's on higher speed.
 
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Although a single 980 is such a poor value against dual 970's. Comparing equivalent models, the only difference between dual 970's and a 980 is ~$100 and your talking roughly double the performance.

In my opinion, even with the 3.5GB problem their still the same cards they were a week ago and a week ago they were very good. Besides, Nvidia will probably release a patch or firmware that will minimize the problem to some extent (I know it cant be truly fixed since its a hardware problem).
 
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They are the same card as a week ago, and they are having the same problems Then and now. I cant see why would I spend Like 700€ on gpu's Which breaks down under heavy load. Considering the Fact that Then I would have 2 cards with the same problem, Which might be very harming in the future. And Like U said, it cannot be fully fixed, ever, so even Though 980 Isnt So Much More powerfull and costs More, but I cant really see other options here.
Double performance doesnt really help, if the card cant Handle the workload as it should
 
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Ehh...
If the 3.5GB problem were actually a problem, it would have been found a long time ago and wouldn't require extreme situations or synthetic benchmarks to demonstrate. Like I said, its performing the same it was a week ago and no one had a problem with it a week ago.

The bigger thing to pull from all this is that Nvidia lied on their spec sheets and now that its been found, the community has interpreted it as a 970 performance issue rather than a corporate one.

 
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You may be right, I was kinda hoping for people To tell me Not To buy 970 😀
I am just Too scared To buy 970 at this point..
 
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Well if your really after super high performance of 2 cards... 2 x R9 290's wouldn't be a bad compromise. Cheaper than the 2 x 970's and not far off in performance (the Radeon boards actually scale a bit better than the GTX so I'd bet the performance won't be much different actually), and although other radeon boards aren't great in crossfire, the 290 cards have hardware frame pacing so they're no worse for microstutter than any Nvidia cards (lower radeon boards are based on an earlier version of GCN so they have to rely only on software frame pacing, which isn't as good, so probably best to avoid setups like 2 x 280 or 280X cards if possible).

The only downside to that is the R9 290 uses more power, so you'd need a really good PSU to run 2 (ideally gold certified 800W or better I'd guess).
 
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I am using a single Asus Gtx970 and none of the games at 2k resolution shuttered so far. My vram usage seems arround 3,8-4gigs and nothing causes a problem at all. Here is a list of my Vram usage ; http://imgur.com/a/Fe1AO#GDZOiJk

4k Shadow of mordor - 1080p Far Cry4 - 1080p Shadow of Mordor - 2k Far Cry4 Fps and gameplay is consistent and no shuttering or major fps loss is happening in my graphics card. Just a heads up.
 
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Yeah the results of this are hit and miss... quite a few people saying no problems, but lots of others claiming they are having issues..... I think there are *too many* bad reports for it to all be made up, so there must be more to it than simply using all 4gb of memory. Nice to know some of them are fine, although I can understand people being put off at the possibility of there being issues.
 
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