GeForce GTX 970 Design Flaw Caps Video Memory Usage to 3.3 GB: Report

I have held back on this card for quite some time now and could not play PC games the last month. So gonna take the plunge and buy the card regardless of the issues.

I will only be playing on 1080p so I SHOULD not get any issues.

Because of my mini-itx system, I have opted for the Gigabyte gv-n970iXoC-4gd which happens to be a small factor GTX970, slightly underclocked for R4,957.86
 
I already maxed my 970's VRAM in Dying Light at 1080p with full graphics. Not everything is that VRAM intensive though, but still.

To clarify, with maxed I mean it goes up to ~3.6GB VRAM and just stops, from the memory usage graph you can see it hits a "barrier".
 
Blazzok said:
I already maxed my 970's VRAM in Dying Light at 1080p with full graphics. Not everything is that VRAM intensive though, but still.

To clarify, with maxed I mean it goes up to ~3.6GB VRAM and just stops, from the memory usage graph you can see it hits a "barrier".
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How badly is the performance affected in your experience?
 
blaaislaai said:
How badly is the performance affected in your experience?
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The game still runs smooth, I'll get a stutter though sometimes when I've been running in one direction and then turn around to look into a wide open space that isn't loaded, but it passes quickly.

My biggest gripe though is the game will hang for a second or 2 sometimes, but that doesn't feel GPU related. I think it's more the game itself.
 
i have the MSI 970 and playing Lords of the Fallen maxed out and it looks awesome and card seems to be coping just fine. and when people were benchmarking this card and raving about its performance, it still had the "gimped" memory, and yet it did not seem to matter. I can understand why some may feel "cheated" if they expected 4GB of ram, but if performance has made you happy BEFORE you read this article, don't see why it should now make you sad now
 
Hiro said:
i have the MSI 970 and playing Lords of the Fallen maxed out and it looks awesome and card seems to be coping just fine. and when people were benchmarking this card and raving about its performance, it still had the "gimped" memory, and yet it did not seem to matter. I can understand why some may feel "cheated" if they expected 4GB of ram, but if performance has made you happy BEFORE you read this article, don't see why it should now make you sad now
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Because there is an issue with the card, as soon as you start hitting higher resolutions you start to encounter stuttering, I tested 2x 970's in sli @4K and it was a nightmare, even at lower settings the cards stuttered like crazy.

Like I said right now its good for 1080P, there will be some games that max it but it should be ok, with the odd stutter here and there.
 
The Joker said:
Because there is an issue with the card, as soon as you start hitting higher resolutions you start to encounter stuttering, I tested 2x 970's in sli @4K and it was a nightmare, even at lower settings the cards stuttered like crazy.

Like I said right now its good for 1080P, there will be some games that max it but it should be ok, with the odd stutter here and there.
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aah, okay that's a fair point. I'm only running at 1200P and hence everything seems fine.
 
The Joker said:
Because there is an issue with the card, as soon as you start hitting higher resolutions you start to encounter stuttering, I tested 2x 970's in sli @4K and it was a nightmare, even at lower settings the cards stuttered like crazy.

Like I said right now its good for 1080P, there will be some games that max it but it should be ok, with the odd stutter here and there.
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I'm not too phased with the lack of ~500MB of memory or whatever they go one about and I am currently looking at getting this card as per The Joker's recommendations. The fact that it can play most (if not all) titles at max settings @ 1080p is warrant enough for me. And by the looks of things most people are actually satisfied with their cards, beside the fact that they feel cheated. That's not the cards fault and doesn't hamper performance. Besides, how may people actually play beyond their native 1080p these days. Sure the numbers are increasing but overall most people are satisfied with 1080p native. imo of course.
 
[MENTION=4071]BeoTeK[/MENTION] for what it's worth, I am very happy with my 970 and am generally able to play every game at max settings. And I am running at 1920x1200 res. I think current bottleneck is my CPU.
 
BeoTeK said:
I'm not too phased with the lack of ~500MB of memory or whatever they go one about and I am currently looking at getting this card as per The Joker's recommendations. The fact that it can play most (if not all) titles at max settings @ 1080p is warrant enough for me. And by the looks of things most people are actually satisfied with their cards, beside the fact that they feel cheated. That's not the cards fault and doesn't hamper performance. Besides, how may people actually play beyond their native 1080p these days. Sure the numbers are increasing but overall most people are satisfied with 1080p native. imo of course.
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Card runs 1080P perfectly.
 
Snare said:
So essentially, is the card is only really suited for 1080p gaming ?
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Well I'm sure it'll handle 1440P as well depending on the game.
Something like Dying Light which can and does use all the available memory @ 1080P maxed out might struggle at 1440P

I would have to test it though, unfortunately I don't have a 970.
 
Snare said:
So essentially, is the card is only really suited for 1080p gaming ?
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i don't think it's as simplistic as that. I guess the small memory "leak" will have some sort of impact on 1440p gaming, but i cannot imaging it would be as catastrophic and some in the media have made it out to be.

long story short, IMHO, card still offers excellent bang for your buck
 
Ghost02 said:
Are our suppliers taking back any of these cards or doing anything about the situation?
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So far no they aren't and I don't think they will.
Nvidia messed up big time and the card sux for super high res gaming but for 1080 and 1440 its fine and its still a lot of bang for your buck.
That said my 970 Hof will be here in the next 2 hours so will do some testing for you guys.
 
The Joker said:
So far no they aren't and I don't think they will.
Nvidia messed up big time and the card sux for super high res gaming but for 1080 and 1440 its fine and its still a lot of bang for your buck.
That said my 970 Hof will be here in the next 2 hours so will do some testing for you guys.
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I'll gladly take that HoF off you hands once you are done with it :3
I'm willing to take one for the community
 
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