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Can somebody explain the Gtx 970 Vram fiasco please?

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Mike_333
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Joined: Fri May 25, 2012 10:19 pm

Can somebody explain the Gtx 970 Vram fiasco please?

Post by Mike_333 »

Hi all. Ive started saving money for a new video card and my first choice would be the Gtx 970. But I heard rumours about its Vram not being able to use all of its 4Gb, but only 3.5Gb. If it goes over 3.5Gb some games will lag horribly o.O Is this true? Can a tech guru enlighten me about this? (Im looking at you Trent.) And if this is true, what other video card do you recommend that is equal or a little better/worse than the Gtx 970 and it doesnt cost a fortune like the Gtx 980?

Thanks for the answers!
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skyNET
turbo bastard
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Can somebody explain the Gtx 970 Vram fiasco please?

Post by skyNET »

I'm no tech guru, so here's what I read over the nets.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang explains:

"We invented a new memory architecture in Maxwell. This new capability was created so that reduced-configurations of Maxwell can have a larger framebuffer – i.e., so that GTX 970 is not limited to 3GB, and can have an additional 1GB.

GTX 970 is a 4GB card. However, the upper 512MB of the additional 1GB is segmented and has reduced bandwidth. This is a good design because we were able to add an additional 1GB for GTX 970 and our software engineers can keep less frequently used data in the 512MB segment.

Unfortunately, we failed to communicate this internally to our marketing team, and externally to reviewers at launch…

Instead of being excited that we invented a way to increase memory of the GTX 970 from 3GB to 4GB, some were disappointed that we didn’t better describe the segmented nature of the architecture for that last 1GB of memory.

This is understandable. But, let me be clear: Our only intention was to create the best GPU for you. We wanted GTX 970 to have 4GB of memory, as games are using more memory than ever.”

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2888877/its-a-feature-not-a-flaw-nvidia-ceo-addresses-geforce-gtx-970s-memory-spec-fiasco.html

Anandtech explains:

"Accessing the weaker 512MB segment blocks access to the stronger 3.5GB segment if both memory operations are identical; or put another way, using the 512MB segment can harm the performance of the 3.5GB segment."

"The upshot here is that while this is the first time NVIDIA has used this specific ROP/MC configuration in a product, this is not the first product they have designed with segmented or otherwise unbalanced memory configurations. Since the GTX 500 series, on some midrange SKUs NVIDIA has used unbalanced/asymmetrical memory configurations, most recently on the GTX 660 and GTX 660 Ti. In the case of both of those cards, NVIDIA utilized a 192-bit memory bus with 2GB of VRAM attached, which meant that some memory controllers had more VRAM attached to them than others. The end result as it turns out is very similar, and while NVIDIA has never explained in-depth how they handle memory allocation on those cards, it turns out that it’s very similar to GTX 970’s memory segmentation. Which is to say that NVIDIA actually has multiple generations of experience with segmented memory, and this is not the first time they have implemented it. Rather this is first time we’ve seen such a configuration on a high-performance card such as the GTX 970."

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

TL;DR

Read them articles dammit! Both of them are worth the time, and you might end up smarter.

My opinion is, I would go the 970 if i had the intent of upgrading immediately. Still might worth the wait until summer, when new AMD cards are about to hit the markets.

If you want an alternative it's the R9 290X, altough it uses more power than the GTX 970, keep your PSU in mind.
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Mike_333
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Joined: Fri May 25, 2012 10:19 pm

Can somebody explain the Gtx 970 Vram fiasco please?

Post by Mike_333 »

So basically Im paying for a half broken vga that if goes over 3.5Gb (and looking at todays games its likely to go over) it will slow down to hell.. Great. I dont wanna buy an amd card because of the high power usage, plus I want Shadowplay too.
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skyNET
turbo bastard
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Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 7:11 am

Can somebody explain the Gtx 970 Vram fiasco please?

Post by skyNET »

It won't slow down necessarily. Read them articles, dammit! The first is a short one. Another excerpt:

"Make no mistake: The GeForce GTX 970 is still a beast of a graphics card, and doubly so for its $330 starting price point. This memory design brouhaha doesn’t change any of the killer benchmark results reviewers got in their initial reviews, and even after the situation was dragged into the light, tests by numerous enthusiast sites revealed that the memory allocation usually fails to meaningfully impact performance in real-world scenarios."

Numerous enthusiast sites is three links. Read, not just look.

P.S.

It's the typical overreaction of the nets. You can tax a GPU with 4gb of ram to a crawl too, if visual settings allow it. Most software will recognize it as 4gigs anyways, they have no knowing of what's under the hood. The rest is handled by the GPU drivers.

It's not half-broken, it's by design, but was poorly communicated, and conspiracy theorists - as always - yelled the moon down from the skies.
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Mike_333
mechanic
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Joined: Fri May 25, 2012 10:19 pm

Can somebody explain the Gtx 970 Vram fiasco please?

Post by Mike_333 »

Im just a little worried and try to be careful, because here in Hungary it costs 100.000 Ft and an average salary is around 70000-80000 Ft.. So I wanna spend my money on something that it is powerful just like they advertised it, and wont collapse when I set the details on ultra and so on.
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elricehran
pedestrian
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Can somebody explain the Gtx 970 Vram fiasco please?

Post by elricehran »

hehe... I know he means Forint, but I can't help but read the Ft. as feet XD

Chiming in here, I have a GTX 970 and I love the living crap out of it, I'd hug it if it wasn't in my rig already.
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Mike_333
mechanic
Posts: 34
Joined: Fri May 25, 2012 10:19 pm

Can somebody explain the Gtx 970 Vram fiasco please?

Post by Mike_333 »

Hehe yeah its Forint, I wrote it Ft because of habits :D

Well at least thats some positive info elrichran :) Do you play a game that uses more than 3.5Gb Vram? If so, do you notice any stutter or fps drop, or everything is normal?
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elricehran
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Can somebody explain the Gtx 970 Vram fiasco please?

Post by elricehran »

I haven't run into any games that have caused any stutter with my video card, the only game I have any graphical issues with is C:R but I know that's optimization and my Phenom 9850 causing that.
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