Home Gaming Nvidia isn’t “fixing” the GTX 970 with drivers

Nvidia isn’t “fixing” the GTX 970 with drivers

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DriverMissDaisy

Yesterday, we told you that Nvidia would be helping alleviate that curmudgeonly memory issue on its otherwise beastly GTX 970 by releasing a driver that would help tune the card’s memory allocation. Presumably, this would place thinks like desktop visuals and other low intensity bits of graphics program in to the slower memory. Only it’s not happening. There won’t be a magical driver.

The information came from NVidia employee PeterS, speaking on the GeForce forums.

“The GTX970 is an amazing card and I genuinely believe it’s the best card for the money that you can buy. We’re working on a driver update that will tune what’s allocated where in memory to further improve performance,” he said.

His post, however, has now been edited further, and all traces of anything relating to a new driver removed. In effect, he’s retracted the comments about an impending driver to fix everything.

Further to that, NVidia’s gone and said that they’ve said officially said nothing to suggest that the 970 will be getting a performance-tuning driver.

“[Performance improvement] is not something we have officially said,” a spokesperson for Nvidia said in an emailed statement, apparently, to Kitguru.

As you’ve seen by now, Nvidia is facilitating refunds for those who feel hard done by, while AMD is cheekily capitalising on the situation. Here’s the thing though; the 970 performs just the same as it did before the hoopla – and back then, everyone thought it was the best value card on the market.

Still, I think it’s the deception – whether planned or mistaken – that has people so up in arms. And because people are quite fond of complaining about things, I suspect we’ll see a class-action lawsuit coming soon.

Last Updated: January 30, 2015

74 Comments

  1. Blood Emperor Trevor

    January 30, 2015 at 13:07

    Look at it like short-weighting.

    Reply

    • Tosh MA

      January 30, 2015 at 13:10

      Something you’re used to doing, I take it? 😛

      Reply

      • Blood Emperor Trevor

        January 30, 2015 at 13:12

        Not if we’re talking about YOUR MOM!

        Reply

      • Lord Chaos

        January 30, 2015 at 13:23

        * “Your”

        Reply

        • Tosh MA

          January 30, 2015 at 13:27

          I hate you…

          Reply

          • Stinkfish

            January 30, 2015 at 14:32

            you stink!!

        • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

          January 30, 2015 at 13:29

          Actually in the sentence it’s meant to be You’re. “Something you are used to doing, I take it?”

          Reply

          • Quo Vadis?

            January 30, 2015 at 13:31

            He’s taking the piss wiff Tosh, so that’s why LOL

          • Lord Chaos

            January 30, 2015 at 13:31

            I know, just poking the grammar nazi. Kinda like how “grammar” is made up of 7 characters.

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 13:32

            FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

          • Lord Chaos

            January 30, 2015 at 13:35

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 13:42

            BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Day made!

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 13:44

            “I was looking at it upside down”

            “Well sometimes that helps”

            HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

          • zeemonkeyman

            January 30, 2015 at 15:02

            Money, always being right, making you feel as though you’ve done something wrong even when you haven’t, withholding sex to gain power, ummm I can’t remember the last three.

      • Quo Vadis?

        January 30, 2015 at 13:28

        * “too”

        Reply

        • Tosh MA

          January 30, 2015 at 13:31

          I hate you too…

          Reply

          • Quo Vadis?

            January 30, 2015 at 13:32

            * “to”

  2. Ryanza

    January 30, 2015 at 13:07

    They ain’t fixing shit because the thing was designed to be like that.

    Reply

  3. RinceThis

    January 30, 2015 at 13:11

    BWAHAHAHAHA! Header WIN!

    Reply

  4. Lord Chaos

    January 30, 2015 at 13:23

    Too late in the week for another flaming. Almost time to drink, play games and enjoy the weekend.

    Reply

    • Tosh MA

      January 30, 2015 at 13:26

      Three cheers for this guy!

      Reply

    • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

      January 30, 2015 at 13:30

      DRINK DRINK DRINK DRINK DRINK

      *just hope no one writes doos on my forehead… again…*

      Reply

      • Lord Chaos

        January 30, 2015 at 13:33

        What permanent marker? There’s nothing in my left hand, see…

        Reply

        • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

          January 30, 2015 at 13:35

          #GlaresSuspiciously

          Reply

      • Quo Vadis?

        January 30, 2015 at 13:35

        For the 7th time this year… 😀

        Reply

  5. FSR

    January 30, 2015 at 13:24

    The benchmarks didn’t suddenly change. I get that people feel deceived, but it’s not like they gave us a card, said it would do X and then it suddenly couldn’t do X.

    #GREENTEAM4LIFE

    Reply

    • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

      January 30, 2015 at 13:31

      IN FACT, they gave us a card that said it could do X, then it turns out it could do X with LESS resources than originally thought…..

      Reply

      • Tosh MA

        January 30, 2015 at 13:32

        This. LOL. AMD must be livid after finding this out. Their card is not only more expensive AND inferior, it’s both with MORE in it. XD

        Reply

        • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

          January 30, 2015 at 13:34

          hehehehehehehehe. Warm fuzzy feelings all over

          Reply

          • Tosh MA

            January 30, 2015 at 13:35

            Not for the people exchanging for AMD now, when they install the card and realise. xD

          • Spaffy

            January 30, 2015 at 13:36

            I wonder how many people are doing that?

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 13:38

            They won’t realise though. That’s the thing. If they get a discount on a R9 290 to equal the price of the 970… They get… exactly the same performance (And less in some cases, but not by much)

            So all they are doing is literally changing brands for…. 0 gain and pretty much 0 loss…. It’s…. illogical…

            Now if they take that discount and go for a R 9 280x or less… Then they are seriously shooting themselves in the foot with performance

          • Tosh MA

            January 30, 2015 at 13:40

            What about the difference in power consumption and heat generation? If they’re on a 550W PSU, they’ll find serious performance drops, and a lot more cooling needed in the case. These are 2 other things Nvidia have over AMD, not just the numbers.

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 13:42

            I wouldn’t be putting even a 970 on just a 550w 0_o

            But I get what you are saying and yes, it’s a possibility. The 970 would be working on the current PSU but the AMD card that is using the industry standard power before Maxwell may just break its back

          • Tosh MA

            January 30, 2015 at 13:42

            The 970 uses less power than the base gtx 560. Not the ti, just the 560.

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 13:46

            Hehe and here I am using SLI 560Ti’s…. No wonder my electricity is so high….

          • Lord Chaos

            January 30, 2015 at 13:42

            I have honestly never had a problem with the high temps.

          • Tosh MA

            January 30, 2015 at 13:43

            You probably have a good case then, with some sensible cooling (not OP cooling, just sensible). But what about people who don’t? People who don’t have case fans and a decent case? Skimping on the cover because they spent more on the contents?

          • Lord Chaos

            January 30, 2015 at 13:46

            True, decided to get a proper case seeing as I kinda did go overboard with the contents…

          • Lothy

            January 30, 2015 at 13:59

            where are u getting ur prices from? The R9 290 is nearly $100 cheaper than the 970??
            Heck on frontosa’s pricelist the Sapphire R9-290 is R4499 and the Asus GTX970 R4579. And u make it sound like as if the 970 trumps the R9-290.

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 14:07

            Urm, where is the 9290 almost $100 cheaper?

          • Lothy

            January 30, 2015 at 14:10

            apologies $30 according to newegg.

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 14:16

            Ok looking at newegg I see that. Not sure how it’s less by $10 – $30 depending on brand and OC vs non OC varients etc. In SA the 9290 and 9290x both generally work out more expensive than the 970.

            Either way, the 970 performs on par even with the 9290x and even beats both in 3Dmark Firestrike

            http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2015-vga-charts/compare,3664.html?prod%5B7266%5D=on&prod%5B7199%5D=on&prod%5B7202%5D=on

        • Spaffy

          January 30, 2015 at 13:35

          HAHA Nice XD

          Reply

        • Frik van der Hewerskink

          January 30, 2015 at 13:37

          Which AMD card are your referring to ?

          Reply

    • Lothy

      January 30, 2015 at 13:31

      ah yes they did.
      1. was meant to have 4gb mem
      2. the moment u attempt to access anything above 3.5gb u card turns into a moped.
      No matter how u cut it, this will become the red head kid of ur green team

      What they should do is change the marketing to say its 3.5gb card and using drivers just remove access to that additional memory. That way it wouldn’t matter.

      Reply

      • FSR

        January 30, 2015 at 13:33

        Did the BENCHMARKS change?

        Reply

        • Lothy

          January 30, 2015 at 13:37

          lol relax gents im not saying its a poor performing card. But its a borked card…
          You were sold something that had a hardware based issue, simple. Knowing that there is a hardware fault on it, why on earth would someone actually keep the card?

          Reply

          • Spaffy

            January 30, 2015 at 13:38

            It comes with a warranty.

          • Lothy

            January 30, 2015 at 13:40

            (facepalm). Lol it actually comes with a full refund now

          • Spaffy

            January 30, 2015 at 13:53

            Haha!, true dat XD

          • FSR

            January 30, 2015 at 13:40

            What issue? The performance of my 980 is EXACTLY what I expected. There is no ‘fault’ in the card, they simply marketed ‘incorrectly’. Seems you’re just butthurt for the sake of it.

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 13:40

            It’s not really a hardware fault. It’s just designed with 2 memory banks.

            It’s not a flaw. It was designed to run like that and the benches have already shown from the start that pushing 4K has an odd dip % wise… Now people know why.
            The scary part is that in most cases the 4K tests that utilise all 4GB VRAM is still better than similiar priced cards across the market

      • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

        January 30, 2015 at 13:34

        Yes, but the 4K benchmarks for Crysis etc is still what it was before all this was made known. The tests that would push beyond 3.5GB VRAM (AKA 4K tests) was known to everyone before the release. Those results are still the same

        Reply

  6. Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

    January 30, 2015 at 13:28

    You know what, they may not be increasing the performance but nVidia may be on to something here. A seperate memory allocation that runs background tasks while gaming (Desktop, open word docs etc) to free up system RAM….. Plus then your switching between game and background tasks will be far faster… Mmmmmm…. Can I patent this idea before they catch on?

    Reply

    • Quo Vadis?

      January 30, 2015 at 13:29

      You actually can, yes. The intellectual property resides with you.

      Reply

      • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

        January 30, 2015 at 13:29

        *runs off to patent office*

        Reply

        • Quo Vadis?

          January 30, 2015 at 13:30

          Not a patent, so not the patent’s office. Just register IP on it. A patent costs R500k to reserve 🙂

          Reply

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 13:30

            *runs to IP office*
            *ends up at ISP*
            *confused*

          • Quo Vadis?

            January 30, 2015 at 13:32

            Just run to the DTI offices, dammit!

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 13:56

            Gotcha!!

            *instructions unclear, ended up at nkandla

          • Quo Vadis?

            January 30, 2015 at 13:57

            *facepalm* How is my hard earned money looking like over there?

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 13:58

            The pool is nice

          • Quo Vadis?

            January 30, 2015 at 14:00

            Its not a pool! it is a fire fighting reservoir! Hope you pissed in it at least? LOL

          • Raptor Rants A Lot:Original #7

            January 30, 2015 at 14:22

            Who me? Piss in a poo…. I mean firepool? NEVER!!!

          • Ceyber, The Metal Rabbit

            January 30, 2015 at 13:37

            Hahaha!

  7. Lord Chaos

    January 30, 2015 at 13:29

    I’m fine with AMD lagging a bit behind currently, Their APUs are amazing and the new CEO has some big things planned.

    Reply

    • Weanerdog

      January 30, 2015 at 13:54

      It is you amd fellas that are causing all the Eskom problems, if you went green I could have my power back :'(

      Reply

      • Lord Chaos

        January 30, 2015 at 13:59

        Lol. Maybe… 32 Gb RAM, 12Tb HDDs, 3.5 octa-core and 2xHD7970x2 might do that.

        Nah, I have Asus EPU running and the power management is really good.

        Reply

  8. Michael

    January 30, 2015 at 13:33

    The RAM limitation is due to the architecture of the 970, this can’t be changed by software. I don’t believe NVidia tried to lie to anyone, they just made a huge mistake when originally releasing the specs. The “missing” 500MB RAM can still be used as cache although it is not as fast as the remaining 3.5GB.

    Reply

  9. Stinkfish

    January 30, 2015 at 14:28

    what are you maggots talking about????

    Reply

  10. zeemonkeyman

    January 30, 2015 at 14:56

    So from what I’ve heard it basically has 3.5GB of Ram instead of 4 right? Who fucking cares?? It’s still an amazing card for the price! Why can’t people let little indiscretions go these days? Every feels damn entitled dats da problem.

    Reply

  11. Stinkfish

    January 30, 2015 at 15:18

    something fishy is going on……

    Reply

  12. Wyzak

    January 30, 2015 at 15:56

    NVidia’s gone and said that they’ve said officially said nothing to suggest that the 970 will be getting a performance-tuning driver.

    Reply

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