nVidia and the nerfing of products

[Amalaric]

GTX 1080 Ti with it's 11GB of RAM when it physically on the PCB can have 12GB of RAM and being 352-bit when the Titan X which it's based off is 384-bit.

GTX 970 with it's odd RAM configuration of the first 3.5GB being full speed RAM and the last 0.5GB being very slow just so that it wouldn't compete with the GTX 980.

So what do you think of nVidia nerfing it's products and maybe you could give me more examples of this happening?

[Thunderball]

It's all over the place. GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti, 1070 and 1080, all Vegas, RX 570 and 580 (same with 470 and 480, obviously), list can go on forever. It's completely normal.

[msdos]

I thought this thread was going to be about how Nvidia supposedly starts gimping older cards with driver changes to force you to upgrade.

I don't think they are "nerfing" as much as they are trying to strictly bracket everything even though they pretty much have the tech.

[chronia]

This is done nearly everywhere in PC hardware land. Nearly every GPU / CPU maker only makes a couple of different dies for all its products in a generation, AMD with Ryzen even only 1 die, and uses those dies for a bunch of different SKU's, only by disabling some features / lowering the clock speed / the amount of cores / the maximum amount of memory it can address and more of these to create the differences in the SKU's.

[Deleted]

This doesn't change benchmarks, so, you still buy your targeted performance/value. This phenomenon is in, litterally i dare say, all market sector.

Pointing this out is bitching for the sake of bitching and you are completely ignoring the rules of trade.

[Sorshen]

Why make 3-4 chips when you can make 2 and cut them down? It's about minimizing production/r&d costs.

[Amalaric]

This doesn't change benchmarks, so, you still buy your targeted performance/value. This phenomenon is in, litterally i dare say, all market sector.

Pointing this out is bitching for the sake of bitching and you are completely ignoring the rules of trade.

The GTX 1080 Ti could have had higher performance but nVidia choose to nerf it and the same thing with the GTX 970... are you really ok with this?

[Deleted]

The GTX 1080 Ti could have had higher performance but nVidia choose to nerf it and the same thing with the GTX 970... are you really ok with this?

You probably mean they do their research on public expectation, price they would pay, competition products and a mean to lower their costs?

You can always have 'better performance', but it will be at the cost of die size, power consumption and GPU cost. You'll then bitch about that anyway. And they would almost certainly sell waaaaaayyy less, therefore making less money thus doing less R&D and making less good GPU in the futur.

And i repeat, this does not change actual benchmarks and actual perfs, you know what you buy.

If you don't like this, you can buy not from Nvidia, period.

[Thunderball]

The GTX 1080 Ti could have had higher performance but nVidia choose to nerf it and the same thing with the GTX 970... are you really ok with this?

No, it couldnt. Look at Titan Xp.

[Sorshen]

The GTX 1080 Ti could have had higher performance but nVidia choose to nerf it and the same thing with the GTX 970... are you really ok with this?

1080 Ti throttles ... a lot.

[Amalaric]

1080 Ti throttles ... a lot.

Yeah... it's so that it shouldn't compete with the GTX 1080 Ti refresh aka the GTX 2080 Ti.

Anyway... it's sad to see so many modern day consumers with their heads so far up their asses.

[dark666105]

If your card is throttling a lot, take a look at your fan curve.

[Lathais]

GTX 1080 Ti with it's 11GB of RAM when it physically on the PCB can have 12GB of RAM and being 352-bit when the Titan X which it's based off is 384-bit.

Ever think about the fact that because it's silicon and not a perfect process, those areas were faulty, so they disabled them and turned them in to something usable instead of throwing them away. This is literally the way GPUs and CPUs have been being made for years. They make the best, then bin the chips and take all the perfect ones and make their flagship. What else do you expect them to do with all that faulty silicon? It can't be re-used for anything else.

You literally have 2 choices. One, throw it in the trash, which would make those Titan X's about 10 times more expensive than they are, because they need to get the money for all that silicon from somewhere. Two, cut out the faulty parts and use it for a slightly less powerful GPU that you can sell.

GTX 970 with it's odd RAM configuration of the first 3.5GB being full speed RAM and the last 0.5GB being very slow just so that it wouldn't compete with the GTX 980.

Again, not nerfing it just so it wouldn't compete with the 980, it's just the way things turned out on that card. Sinceit was cut down from something else, that was what they had left to use, so they used it.

So what do you think of nVidia nerfing it's products and maybe you could give me more examples of this happening?

No nerfing. Same exact thing happens with intel as well. Chips start off as a 7700k or whatever, then get binned down and sold based on what clocks the silicon can actually handle. This is pretty much the norm for the industry really.

[Palizangetsu]

The GTX 1080 Ti could have had higher performance but nVidia choose to nerf it and the same thing with the GTX 970... are you really ok with this?

You don't seem to understand how the cards work at all and the how each PCB is chosen per card. They reuse pcbs where certain cores are defective and disable them which makes them a lower tier card. You seem to believe they are different cards for example you say the 970 is nerfed so it wont compete with the 980 if the pcb had full functionality it would be a 980 and the 970 wouldn't exist I don't see the problem as a consumer you have the option of getting the full functionality of the GPU but you don't seem to want to pay for it or you have the option of saving money and getting a slightly lower tier card and that seems to be a problem for you. Why would it make sense for a company to sell 2 identical products for different prices with different names/models? What you are suggesting is the equivalent of a company like McDonald's selling a Big Mac for $2 or one for $5 same ingredients and size in the same store... Your post makes me wonder if you are trolling or just lack some common sense.

[Seranthor]

GTX 1080 Ti with it's 11GB of RAM when it physically on the PCB can have 12GB of RAM and being 352-bit when the Titan X which it's based off is 384-bit.

GTX 970 with it's odd RAM configuration of the first 3.5GB being full speed RAM and the last 0.5GB being very slow just so that it wouldn't compete with the GTX 980.

So what do you think of nVidia nerfing it's products and maybe you could give me more examples of this happening?

What you call 'nerfing' is marketing to particular price points... if you want the hot rod card, then you have to pay the hot rod price... Dont like it... find another maker. The only thing 'nerfed' here is your level of education.

- - - Updated - - -

You don't seem to understand how the cards work at all and the how each PCB is chosen per card. They reuse pcbs where certain cores are defective and disable them which makes them a lower tier card. You seem to believe they are different cards for example you say the 970 is nerfed so it wont compete with the 980 if the pcb had full functionality it would be a 980 and the 970 wouldn't exist I don't see the problem as a consumer you have the option of getting the full functionality of the GPU but you don't seem to want to pay for it or you have the option of saving money and getting a slightly lower tier card and that seems to be a problem for you. Why would it make sense for a company to sell 2 identical products for different prices with different names/models? What you are suggesting is the equivalent of a company like McDonald's selling a Big Mac for $2 or one for $5 same ingredients and size in the same store... Your post makes me wonder if you are trolling or just lack some common sense.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's simply lacking of basic knowledge.

[Zenfoldor]

If the ram on 1080 ti was double, there would be little or no change on any game.

On memory bandwidth, I doubt you would see significant fps gain over such a small bandwidth difference, but can't say without benchmarks.

Either way, the cards are cut down, not "gimped" in the end you get what you pay for. You want Titan memory profile, buy a titan but get ready to pay in other ways.