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News Nvidia denies GeForce GTX 970 design flaw claims

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 26 Jan 2015.

  1. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    Agreed. The problem is that the entire PC hardware industry, and in particular the "enthusiast" segment, is predicated upon the idea that features are what's important, rather than actual real-world benefits.

    At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether your card has 2 ROPs or 2,000, or 3.5GB of VRAM or 4GB - it's how it actually performs in the real world. The performance of the 970 hasn't changed since this issue came to light, so if you were happy with your 970 last week, you should still be happy with it today, imo.
     
  2. impar

    impar Minimodder

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    Greetings!

    Just to be clear, the consensus in this tech forum is that nVidia didnt do anything wrong,accidentally or otherwise?
    Really?!

    I have no idea on how you buy your cards, but to me a large part of the decision comes from reviews on tech sites, nVidia\Intel\AMD or manufacturers sites have very few importance. And all of the tech sites provided false information coming directly from nVidia, even Bit-Tech:
    Features published are different than the real features.

    Am just shocked you are ok being lied to and provide nVidia with a free pass.
     
  3. N17 dizzi

    N17 dizzi Multimodder

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    That there is a potentially game-breaking memory bottleneck when all memory resources are needed intensively.
     
  4. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Yes, really. They made a mistake, but I'm still trying to figure out how it matters.

    Really? I just ask myself: "Will it run Crysis?". :p Joking aside, that is what I look for: framerates of games at certain settings. Anything that does 2560x1600 (my 30" TFT) at around 60fps in high detail looks fine to me. ROPs don't tell me that; L2 cache size don't tell me that. It's framerates that matter.

    Wait, WHAT?!? OUTRAGEOUS! OMFG, it's a DISASTER! A tragedy of EPIC PROPORTIONS!!! Only 56 ROPs instead of 64!!!

    Which means what, exactly?

    You keep using that word "lied". That would suggest intentional deceit. Care to prove that?

    Has it broken your games? Well then.

    All it suggests is that some demanding games, under demanding settings may slow down a bit sooner than you kind of vaguely had the subjective impression they would based on your vague subjective notions of how ROPs relate to framerates. If maximum performance was so important to you, perhaps you should have bought the GTX 980 instead. As I said before: anything but the top-end card is a compromise between cost and performance.
     
    Last edited: 27 Jan 2015
  5. impar

    impar Minimodder

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    Greetings!
    First time I used it, Nexxo.
    No, it does not require intention, just a deviation from reality.
     
  6. enbydee

    enbydee Minimodder

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    Agreed - this is what differentiates it from the Kingston V300 debacle this time last year, the 970 you can go and buy tomorrow is still the same thing which has been benchmarked by reviewers everywhere; typo's in the spec sheet is a howler and potentially misleading but this does seem to be being stirred up into something it isn't.
     
  7. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    That not advertising, that's technical specs sent out to review sites.

    Like i said if you can provide a link on the Nvidia web site that provides ROP count and/or cache size of the 670 then please do so.

    Not at all, most people know that either on purpose or by miscommunication Nvidia wasn't honest in regards to the specs of the 970 but has that changed how the 970 performs, can it no longer do something, has it's benchmarks scores suddenly drops because of what is now known about it ?

    Example please !
    Because if you can demonstrate a potentially game-breaking memory bottleneck when all memory resources are needed intensively then I'm sure Nvidia and nearly every tech site would like you to provide it, as Anandtech said they have yet to come across an example of where it was a problem.
     
    Last edited: 27 Jan 2015
  8. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Well, no: the definition of 'lie' in this context is 'an intentionally false statement.' If I make a typo in a news article (hah - 'if' indeed) then I'm not lying, even if the typo then makes a false statement because it wasn't intentionally false.

    Did Nvidia mislead with its reviewers' guide? Yes, absolutely: it claimed specifications which were false. Did Nvidia intentionally mislead with its reviewers' guide? That's the real debate, although given how quickly it admitted the truth it seems unlikely. Me, I'm on the side of 'somebody made a whoopsie which, unfortunately, got repeated by every review on the net,' which is unfortunate but happens. Would I be pleased if I'd bought a GTX 970 prior to the correction? Probably not, but it'd be more of a principle-of-the-matter thing than a real problem: if I'd been happy when I thought it was getting 60 frames per second in Generic First-Person Shooter #978 at the original specifications, then I'd still be happy that it's getting 60 frames per second in Generic First Person Shooter #978 at the revised specifications.
     
  9. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    Exactly. The actual performance of these cards (both as tested/benchmarked and as experienced by the user) hasn't changed, so if a 970 was a "good" card for you last week then it still is.

    The people who won't be happy are those who focus more on specifications and technical features than on actual, real world performance. Unfortunately, that's a large segment of the enthusiast market :)
     
  10. DbD

    DbD Minimodder

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    I don't think it is really - there's just a small subsection that like arguing on forums, mostly AMD vs Nvidia, as much as they do actually using the hardware for its indented purposes. That said if they get me a free steam code or something due to the mega injustice of the numbers behind making my card perform the way it does not being quite correct I'm all for it :)
     
  11. loftie

    loftie Multimodder

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    Wasn't there a similar issue with the 600 series? How'd that turn out if there was?
     
  12. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    'If this was a "miscommunication" between marketing and engineering how does the fact that GPU-z reports 64 ROPS for this card, did marketing write the BIOS for the cards '
     
  13. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    You already asked that here, and i tried to answer it here.
    Some of the information displayed in GPU-z and CPU-z is stored in an internal database that gets updated with new releases, like they have done recently.

     
  14. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    As far as I'm aware - and I haven't been a Windows user, Linx 7 tablet aside, for many a year, so I'm perfectly happy to be corrected here - the card doesn't report the number of ROPS; the figures in GPU-Z are obtained by matching the card to a database of specifications. See also how CPU-Z knows that a given CPU is 28nm/14nm/whatever: that's not something the CPU reports, but something obtained from a database lookup based on information the CPU does provide.

    So, if I had to guess: the GPU-Z database was populated using the figures released by Nvidia, which were wrong. Now the correct figures are known, the GPU-Z database should be updated to reflect the true values. If I'm right, GPU-Z will begin to show the correct number of ROPS without any changes being made to the BIOS or driver for the GTX 970.
     
  15. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    I'm convinced: it was a deliberate lie. Because a whole internet of obsessive PC geeks and review websites were totally never going to find them out. Shhhh!

    Remember the Mars Climate Orbiter? Accidentally sent to a fiery doom in Mars' upper atmosphere due to ground-based computer software which produced output in non-SI units of pound-seconds (lbf×s) instead of the metric units of newton-seconds (N×s) specified in the contract between NASA and Lockheed. Turns out that in a large team of engineers, mistakes and miscommunications happen. Even at NASA.
     
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  16. SleepyMatt

    SleepyMatt What's a Dremel?

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    Simple case of Hanlon's Razor - never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

    N17 dizzi - Surely if you spent a grand on 970's, it's more likely that your tri-SLI set-up is going to cause problems before a theoretical memory 'overload' of more-than-3.5Gb-but-less-than-4Gb? If you aren't worried about SLI wouldn't your grand be better spent on two 980's anyway, even before this 'issue' came to light?
     
  17. impar

    impar Minimodder

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    Greetings!
    Like reviews on tech sites arent a sort of advertising...
    Do the sites have to buy the reviewed hardware or are they handed the hardware by the PR\Marketing department?
    What do you mean by "in this contexct"? A lie is alie, intention has nothing to do with it.
    PS:
    Being lied to can have different effect on different people. Some get bothered by it, others seem ok with it.

    Unsubscribing thread.
     
  18. loftie

    loftie Multimodder

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    Scroll down a bit, that's a better choice of definition for lie.
     
  19. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    Clearly Illuminati.

    Everyone knows engineers are infallible :rock:
    :D
     
  20. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Well, that is an unexpected little insight into your worldview... Actually, intentionality is an integral part of its definition.

    No, some people just recognise the possibility that people can make honest mistakes and don't immediately attribute dishonest intent. But go ahead, take your ball and go home.
     

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