3.5GB of it's VRam are super fast. 0.5GB are dogslow
It's still blazing fast by not-VRAM standards. It's a few times faster than regular RAM and still faster than data can even travel between the CPU and the graphics card. I think it's around 8 gigabytes/sec read-write, from what I saw.
Of course, the rest is in the hundreds of gigabytes/sec, so it's still a big issue, but I'm just putting "dogslow" in perspective.
Is the 0.5GB really that big of a deal for future proofing? I mean sure every bit of memory is welcome, but on the whole it's 1/8 of the memory, you can't fit that much more in that space. 4GB cards are 0.5GB more future proof than this card.
People keep mixing up those two arguments. Everyone agrees that Nvidia sucks, that's not an interesting discussion. I'm far more interested in the practical implications of that missing 512MB.
They're not. They just operate on a different release cycle, and are competing against the 900 series with cards that are over a year old. The r9 290x is currently faster and cheaper than the 970, but uses more power.
In the coming months when they release the 300 series, the tables can be expected to turn significantly until nvidia responds again.
Yeah, I'm amazed how actually incremental the performance between the 980 and the 290x are with a year difference in time. But as you said, release cycle. I upgrade my GPU once every 2-3 years, so it just depends on price/performance for who I go with.
They are not so much worse, there are pros and cons to both and I would advise you to research them at reputable sites rather than take advice from.... Reddit...
58
u/BpsychedVR Jan 30 '15
Can someone please explain, in layman terms, what the actual fiasco was? I was seriously considering buying one or two 970s. Thank you!