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YIKES! Nvidia GTX 970 memory problems! Recall incoming?
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EKRboi Jan 24, 2015
I read about this not too long ago but I figured if it was really an issue it would have exploded by morning. It seems to have just taken a bit longer than I expected to blow up in Nvidia's face.

Pretty much ALL GTX 970s are having an issue where the memory speed/bandwidth basically tanks when VRAM fills past 3.5gb, which it usually won't unless forced artificially.. I know I paid for a 4gb card and not a 3.5gb one. It is not an issue on the 980's so some are speculating that it could be due to the cut down 980 die used in the 970 which would make this a hardware problem that would not be solvable by any driver/firmware update. Which would mean a massive GTX 970 recall

ManuelG of Nvidia has acknowledged the problem and says they are looking into it.
ManuelG Nvidia Post

Scary stuff, I myself wondered why FarCry4 wouldn't load up my VRAM past 3.5gb on my 970's playing @ 5760x1080 with much of the settings cranked to the max when I had seen screenshots of it using every bit of VRAM a 980 had.

I did some quick searching but came up empty handed, so does anyone know of a tool for Linux to test the VRAM in linux in a similar manner as the windows users have been testing (see screenshot below). I very much doubt the issue is OS dependent, but it certainly cannot hurt to find out.

The internet is not going to allow Nvidia to sweep this under the rug, and hope everyone forgets. I have not seen this news posted to any of the Linux sites I frequent so I thought I would make everyone here aware. If you are considering picking up a 970, I suggest either waiting for a response/fix from Nvidia or grabbing a 980 instead.

Some Links:
Lazygamer
Reddit
Guru3d
Overclock.net
Nvidia GeForce Forum Post

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Liam Dawe Jan 24, 2015
That does sound bad indeed, but there must be driver updates they are planning to put in to try to fix it software-side first.
EKRboi Jan 25, 2015
Quoting: liamdaweThat does sound bad indeed, but there must be driver updates they are planning to put in to try to fix it software-side first.

I was hopeful that would be the case, but they went the better route (for them), and just deny and "explain" away the issue. It's suppose to be that way lol. Will be interesting to watch this for a few more days, it doesn't seem like many are buying Nvidia's response.

Guru3D: Does the GeForce GTX 970 have a memory allocation bug ? (updated + NV answer)
Liam Dawe Jan 25, 2015
Hmm yeah, but what game realisticly will want more than 3.5? Any?
EKRboi Jan 26, 2015
There are some VRAM hungry games out there and it is only going to get worse. When you start getting into multi GPU systems that have the horsepower to max out the settings in these new games VRAM usage is through the roof.. I'm already maxing out that 3.5gb in a few I've been playing. Mostly just disappointed in Nvidia as I do feel a bit cheated.
sub Jan 26, 2015
These are the specs for the GTX 970 according to Nvidia:

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-970/specifications

To me the problem is that Nvidia lied to their customers.
GoCorinthians Jan 26, 2015
Its that horrible app that cant allocate more than 3.5GB. Kombustor and AC U has shown more than 3.9GB allocated here!
sub Jan 26, 2015
Quoting: GoCorinthiansIts that horrible app that cant allocate more than 3.5GB. Kombustor and AC U has shown more than 3.9GB allocated here!

All of the memory can be allocated.
However, all memory above 3.5 GB has a MUCH slower memory bandwidth.
According to the reputable German news site heise.de*, the crossbar
configuration does not allow those last 512 MB to be accessed equally fast.
See the numbers in EKRboi's image for channel no. 25 to 29:

~22 GB/s instead of ~150 GB/s!

By design this cannot be fixed in a driver or firmware upgrade.
When more than 3.5 GB are allocated strange effects are to be expected,
e.g. noticeable micro jitter due to the partially slow access to the problematic
memory resources.

However, a driver limiting the card to 3.5 GB seems to be the best solution.

[*] http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Nvidia-fuehrt-Kaeufer-der-GeForce-GTX-970-hinters-Licht-Nur-3-5-statt-4-GByte-RAM-schnell-angebunden-2528588.html
EKRboi Jan 26, 2015
Much better description from Nvidia on what is actually going on.
Article from WCCFtech (basically same as above)
Anandtech article ("simpler" explaination)
So, they have now admitted that there was some miscommunication between Nvidia's engineers and the PR team. So what everyone thought they were buying is NOT what they got. That last bit of ram CAN be used but unless it is used perfectly (it normally isn't) then the memory speed of that last bit of ram is severely degraded. The big issue here is the "false advertisement" whether by accident or on purpose it doesn't matter. As a consumer I purchased a card with 4bg of VRAM that runs at 224 GB/s* with 64 ROPs and 2mb of L2 Cache and that is not what I received. I imagine Nvidia is going to be in some hot water in the UK with their consumer protection laws.. here in the US we have "corporate protection from the consumer laws" so who knows what is going to happen here.

*"To those wondering how peak bandwidth would remain at 224 GB/s despite the division of memory controllers on the GTX 970, Alben stated that it can reach that speed only when memory is being accessed in both pools." (lol.. so in other words.. not all the time)

what we were told:
GTX970
64 ROPS
2048kb L2 cache

what we actually got:
GTX970
56 ROPs
1792kb L2 cache
EKRboi Jan 27, 2015
Someone in a thread made a very valid point. In the 4 months the cards have been on the market not a single one of the people who engineered the chip and knew exactly how the architecture worked and the 970s cut down specs read even one of the bazillion reviews which listed the specs or any other place that lists the specs?

I find that extremely unlikely.. I would want to know what people thought of my labor of love if I were a designer/maker of these chips.. What I do think is likely is that someone noticed and Nvidia knew they screwed up and I'm guessing they just hoped nobody would ever put 2 and 2 together. After all, at the moment it is a small fraction of people running multiple GPU's and high resolutions who are actually running up against the memory issues. It could be a year or 2 before many games are running up against that VRAM limit on single card, single 1080p monitor setups.
n30p1r4t3 Jan 27, 2015
If I were the owner of a 970 (980 here), I would get my money back. Games are only going to get more demanding. For example Shadow of Mordor and Titanfall require (and use) 4GBs of ram for the Ultra Textures. Just saying "Oh this doesn't bother me" is telling Nvidia it's okay to pull this crap (not saying they knew about it, just saying they should fix it rather than sweeping it under the rug).
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