NVIDIA Responds To GTX 970 Memory Bug

Vigile writes Over the past week or so, owners of the GeForce GTX 970 have found several instances where the GPU was unable or unwilling to address memory capacities over 3.5GB despite having 4GB of on-board frame buffer. Specific benchmarks were written to demonstrate the issue and users even found ways to configure games to utilize more than 3.5GB of memory using DSR and high levels of MSAA. While the GTX 980 can access 4GB of its memory, the GTX 970 appeared to be less likely to do so and would see a dramatic performance hit when it did. NVIDIA responded today saying that the GTX 970 has "fewer crossbar resources to the memory system" as a result of disabled groups of cores called SMMs. NVIDIA states that "to optimally manage memory traffic in this configuration, we segment graphics memory into a 3.5GB section and a 0.5GB section" and that the GPU has "higher priority" to the larger pool. The question that remains is should this affect gamers' view of the GTX 970? If performance metrics already take the different memory configuration into account, then I don't see the GTX 970 declining in popularity.

Comments

Car analogy

[ruiner13]

It is the same as selling a car saying it has a 20 gallon gas capacity, then finding out that the tank itself is 15 gallons and there are 5 one gallon gas cans in the trunk. Yes, there's 20 gallons. Yes, it is all usable. However using the last 5 gallons is slow because you have to stop the car and keep adding it to the tank. Sure, you're getting 20 gallons, but it can't all be used at the same time.