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Although the buzz in various forums and social networks about memory allocation issues of Nvidia Corp.’s GeForce GTX 970 is fairly loud, the amount of customers wishing to return their graphics cards to stores or manufacturers is fairly low. According to various sources polled by KitGuru, the actual return rate of the GeForce GTX is below 5 per cent. The low return rate of the GTX 970 is good for Nvidia, its partners and the market
“I have heard as many as 5 per cent of the buyers are demanding a refund from the AIB suppliers,” said Jon Peddie, the principal analyst at Jon Peddie Research.
While retailers and add-in-card vendors do not want to share a lot of details about the amount of customers wishing to return their graphics cards following the scandal with incorrect specifications and inability to use more than 3.5GB/s of memory, they also confirmed that the amount of returned GeForce GTX 970 is very low. According to some estimates, the return rate of the GTX 970 because of the aforementioned issues is between one and two percent.
The returned GeForce GTX 970 will not vanish into thin air and will reappear on the market. Suppliers of graphics cards who voluntarily decided to accept returns will get them back, test them, ensure that they work properly and then will either market them again as new. They could also somehow rebrand the returned GeForce GTX 970 graphics boards. Those graphics cards that will not be accepted by manufacturers will be re-conditioned by retailers and will be sold with a discount. In short, all returned GeForce GTX 970 will shortly be available with 5% – 10% – 20% price reduction.
Nobody knows for sure how many GeForce GTX 970 graphics cards have been sold so far, but even at 5 per cent return rate the amount of the boards set to return to the market will barely be significant. Still, it will have certain impact on the market.
“Let’s assume Nvidia sold 2.5 million of [GeForce GTX 970 cards], and 5 per cent are returned, that is 125 thousand add-in-boards (AIBs),” said Mr. Peddie. “Is that a lot when the total AIB market is going to be about 53 million in 2015? […] I suppose if 125 thousand GTX 970 turn up at half price then that is going to have some impact on AMD and Nvidia’s sales, but only for a short time, one quarter max.”
In reality, it is highly likely that the amount of GeForce GTX 970 set to be returned by the end-users because of the controversy will be a lot less than 100 thousand units. 100 thousand unhappy customers can create a lot of negative noise all over the Internet, but they will hardly have a significant impact on the market.
Last week Overclockers UK and Caseking.de – two leading European online stores from the U.K. and Germany – said that they would accept all GeForce GTX 970 graphics cards from all suppliers back if certain customers are unhappy. The window for returning a GeForce GTX 970 is between now and end of February.
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KitGuru Says: While it is unlikely that the returns of the GeForce GTX 970 graphics boards will have a significant impact on the market, it will still cause some negative effects. As a result, it is completely unclear why Nvidia decided not to react on the situation anyhow or settle with the end-users.
Probably because there’s no good amd alternative to the 970 unless you would like a power hungry furnace (290X).
If amd had their 300 series out right now imo that return number would be a lot bigger.
I’m looking to return mine but its much more difficult in the U.S. I picked up two for SLI and every triple A game that has been released since the 970 came out hitches once 3.5GB is hit.
Surprising as it is quite tough to find game that use more than 3GB for the moment (most of them needing almost insane settings to reach that “limit”)
Um. A lot of games these days use more than 3GB. Shadow of Mordor, Far Cry 4, CoD AW all go above 3GB at ultra settings 1080p. There’s probably more games like Ryse, Evil Within. They are getting vram hungry.
If you game at above 1080p you’ll be hitting the 4GB limit is no time.
Indeed. Despite that “flaw”, the 970 has still the best performance/price ratio for the moment, and most single card user will have framerate issues before reaching 3.5GB since it requires insane graphical settings (very high downsampling + other AA method).
SLI users might be able to reach that limit with less difficulties
It isn’t tough at all. Every triple A title since the release of the 970 uses over 3GB, even if it is at max settings. If I’m gaming at 30fps or 60fps in SLI, why would I have to be forced to turn down settings to stop the freezing and hitching, which makes the game nearly unplayable?
I’m not talking about lowering settings to gain a few extra frames. This is full on vram thrashing of assests being loaded into and out of that last 512 mb of memory. The latest failed attempt was with Dyling Light at 1440p. I can achieve 60fps and even have it optimized by the GeForce experience. I’ll let you guess what happens when vram usage goes above 3.5GB.
Like I said, above 3.5GB (not 3GB) is not that common, especially in 1080p, and you need very high (excessive ?) AA method to reach that (downsampling/DSR + AA).
You also need to consider that some games like COD are filling the memory as long as they can without unloading what they don’t use anymore.
Again I’m not saying that “flaw” isn’t one, especially for SLI users like yourself who can push those games higher that single card users. Just that “for the moment”, it’s not such a big deal.
Those who keep their card for several years might regret they didn’t return their card in a few years … but again, I don’t think the 290X is a very good replacement for it, so does those people have any choice right now ?
Sure shit went down but ifyou purchased a 970 and were happy with the performance of your 970 then I hope you’re smart enough not to cry about this whole situation. It may not be as advertised but if it works whats thereto complain about
I have the 970 and I couldnt give a shit if it wasn’t quite as good as advertised. It plays everything well.
You said “more than 3GB” not above 3.5GB
Actually, that is only true for older games. You don’t need to have high resolution down sampling or high levels of AA to go above 3.5 on newer titles. At 1440p Both AC: Unity and Dying Light max the cards frame buffer with the lowest AA methods enabled. Even FC4 with TXAA bumps up against this limit and can cause stutter. Dragon Age maintained a 3.2GB average but even though the GPUs have reserves left for higher resolutions I can not play them due to the memory controller limitation.
It seems too early in this graphics cards life cycle to be having this problem. I knew 4GB would be a limiting factor, coming from a 4GB 770 GTX build, so losing that .5 really hurt the longevity of this product.
A 960 GTX plays everything well. A PS4 plays everything well. The integrated GPUs on Intel processors plays everything well…if you play flash games. This problem doesn’t sound like it is affecting you, so why bother commenting.
That and the fact many European stores are still refusing returns (at least mine is).
The primary reason is nobody knows whom to return that shit.
I dont understand why stupid people like Joshua walker even cease to exist.
The rate of return is low because most vendors will not allow anyone to return these cards.
Anton, this article is not up to scratch. You’ve got missing punctuation, grammar issues, and other issues. The worst is that it isn’t sound at all, and you really show your bias. For example:
>good for Nvidia, its partners and the market
It’s certainly not good for the market, and it is debatable whether it’s good for the partners or Nvidia. People keeping cards that they aren’t happy with is very likely to create a more lasting impression than just returning them. Most importantly, you’ve presented it as if return is the only option. One key reason for the return is that retailers are offering huge discounts for customers if they don’t return – that I’m sure they’ll force Nvidia to reimburse – of 25% or even more. Those retailers are really doing their jobs, I don’t mean to suggest they’re bad, but it skews those figures and changes that image.
The major problem is for titles that hover around the 3.5GB mark. The performance drop if you’re consistently past that point, say a steady 3.7GB, isn’t too bad at all. It’s the transition between the 3.5GB to the final .5GB that causes huge microstutter, and there are a heck of a lot of games (as you say) that hover around that point at the moment, which is worse right now than if they were pushing 4GB.
I don’t think they actively try to cease to exist dude, it just happens to us all.
It might work worse in the future, in fact it’s very likely to. It restricts your upgrade options in terms of res/monitors. It’s extremely poor marketing practice that everyone – whether 970 owner or not, whether happy with the 970 or not – should condemn. There are many reasons.
But obviously no games need more than 512mb dram, right? A dual core is still overkill, right? RIGHT?
It’s amusing when people make positive assertions about the state of modern games and they obviously haven’t updated their view for a few years 😛
I’m waiting on the 8gb cards purely because I don’t upgrade that often and with the current games mostly lying somewhere between 3.2 and 4ish it seems like a worthwhile investment. Not going AMD though unless they’ve updated their architecture by the time I’m buying.
It doesn’t matter why games use more vram, it just matters that they do. Most of the blockbuster modern games use 3-4GB of ram currently, even at 1080p, and there’s no reason to think that’s not actually going to get worse. And the real problem is that a lot of those games hover around the 3.5GB line, which is much worse for 970 users than those that use more, because the transition between the 3.5 and the 0.5 causes crazy microstutter and slow-down. It’s already a big issue, and it’s very likely to get worse, but it certainly won’t get better. It’s no excuse to say that you need to ramp up the setting to use that much vram because obviously when you’ve paid for a 4gb card that can handle those high settings then you want to use them. It’s not ‘excessive’ if you’ve bought a card that has been specifically targeted at a market segment that can handle it, and specifically advertised as capable.
To be honest, a Tri-X or Vapor-X AMD card is pretty cool and fairly quiet, even if it does dump a bunch of heat into your room.
Not really when the card will take a FPS dump down to ZERO due to the problem. Thats not the same thing as a card not being powerful enough and you only get 55 FPS instead of 60 FPS. Watch a 2:12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgObJcJhKoc&feature=youtu.be&t=2m6s
I don’t think you know what cease to exist means
Anton, 1 in 20 people returning a card, especially when vendors often make such returns exceptionally difficult, is not “fairly low” in my opinion.
Of course the return rate is low. Nivida and it’s partners, along with most retailers, are not accepting returns (based on the false advertising claims).
FFS, get your facts right, they are 5% returns because Manufacturers and shops are not accepting returns since all of them are waiting for an official word from Nvidia, Nvidia is keeping silent about this and keep saying there is no issue rather than addressing it, so those 5% were able to return their cards in countries that has legislations against false advertising and consumer protection, they just filed a complaint and shops were forced to return these cards.
so how much did Nvidia pay you to publish this article ??!
Been trying to return mine in USA to B&H and they are having none of it and MSI is only allowing returns to some European countries.
Yup… B&H not accepting returns at and MSI for USA customers is silent.
“Suppliers of graphics cards who voluntarily decided to accept returns
will get them back, test them, ensure that they work properly and then
will either market them again as new.”
1. Old cards marketed as new isn’t going to help Nvidia’s already tarnished image.
2. Hire a proofreader.
Nice prepaid-by-NV article.
The thing is, stores are not taking them back, nGreedia is totally silent on the issue, what are people supposed to box it up and leave it at the counter?
Don’t worry, there are several class actions lawsuits in the works already.
How can I return the card when my seller keeps sending me this bullshit
The following is NVDIA response:
Please see links below to help your customers understand that there is no problem with the card at all.
Specification Questions: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-specifications,28464.html
Memory Questions: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation
Regards
Article is FALSE. The 5% amount is not that 5% “wish to return their card”. The 5% is because only few vendors accept returns. MOST VENDORS DON’T. The amount of people who “wish” to return their cards sure is higher than 5%.
for me, this article means kitguru is not objective, and i can’t trust their articles/reviews anymore…
The resolution is in fact the limited factor! The majoritiy of the gamers out there still have a 1080p monitor. Maybe the masses will buy 4k or higher displays in a year or two. At that point in time a card like the GTX970 will be already outdated in speed and general 4GB only used for smaller cards.
Most games will need way more VRAM in the future. I would be happier with 6-8GB VRAM than 4 at all.
the place of purchase and manufacturers are refusing to refund or exchange
I didn’t say there was no problem, Of course there is and since it is related to the hardware, the only thing NVidia will be able to “fix” with a driver update will be how to make those 3.5GB dedicated to the things that needs a high speed bandwith, and allocate other stuff to those slower 512MB. It will be a way to pass-by the problem, not a fix,
Thank you for the video which is proving my point.
The game is played at 2K + 4xMSAA (which is not what most people would use) and is already not running at 30fps before that slow down (not sure it relates to vram since there was no sudden increase but whatever, this is a slow down).
During the rest of the test, it is maintaining a 5~6fps difference from the 980 which is barely keeping up over 30fps (even going below at times).
As I said, the problem is real, but not encountered very often in normal gaming situation.
SLI users, might be more impacted since they can use those settings more easily, and so encounter these situations way more often.
End of February is rubbish. If the item has been miss-sold you have at least a year to get a refund, in the uk at least. If I were 970 owners I would wait until the 300 series AMD gpu’s appear then trade up.
Yup hello summer all year round…
Just read the articles and the comments and it’s obvious Kitguru are fucking shills.
That 5% figure is evidently completely wrong. Apparently, *much* more than 5% of owners want to return their 970. And 5% is already a HUGE fail, despite the article desperately trying to downplay that number. What is really required at this point is a massive class action against Nvidia.
The fact the article do not even mention most retailers are refusing to take the 970 back + no mention about a possible class action is very, very telling of where Kitguru’s loyalty really lies. And it’s in its readers…
Well I guess the nvidia cult is known for bending reality. We call this the RDF, also known as the “Reality Distortion Field”. (Apple founded those tactics.)
Point is, It doesn’t matter what (or how) you sell the masses your product. They agree with you no matter what. Infact, there are no wrong moves possible for a company like Nvidia.
I say, if I had to take an educated guess, This is what we are seeing right here.
Ladies & Gentlemen, I present to you the RDF in action. Behold.
Same, I know a few people who have been refused returns on the product too.
The return rate is only low because hardly anybody is accepting returns. Nvidia won’t offically acknowledge the problem and give retailers the all clear to return cards, so it’s on a case by case basis and most people are being shafted. In europe the card falls under distance selling regulations, improper description, falsified claims and many other selling regulations and laws. Stores who refuse returns are playing fast and loose with consumer law. Under European law you don’t have to return within 7 or 14 days, you can return at ANY time if a problem is discovered.
Don’t do a warranty return, that won’t work. Tell your retailer you want to return under distance selling regulations as item does not meet quoted specifications. Specifications that are clearly printed on the box for christ’s sake.
I’m running BF4 on a 4K TV @ 60Hz (3840 x 2160) fine, all on ultra with a single card and pulling 50-60FPS. I’m pretty happy with that considering I tested an MSI 980 and pulled only 10-15FPS on average more. I know that’s only BF4 and it’s not the graphically most intense game, but put another GTX 970 in there and it’s future-proof, at least, for now, and you can pick two up for just a bit more than a single GTX 980.
I had the 970, and yes, for 1080p gaming it was amazing. Indeed I was very happy with the card and planed to sli in a few months as I move to an ultra wide HD monitor. And that is where the problem begins. When you sli you don’t stack video memory. So 2×970 is still 3.5 gb of vram and if you go over that (and I tested myself) huge performance issues. 970 in sli is now pointless. You only need sli with this card for 1440p and above…. except many new games at those resolutions use over 3.5 gb of vram… even if its just 3.6gb used performance hits a brick wall and stutter is everywhere.
My only choice was to return it while the value of a 970 is still high to offset the cost of a 980.
Seems the impact is not as big as everyone think it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtWL3D9ZL3Q
(and it is tested at very high settings)