I do not agree : GTX 970 really has 4 Gb but only 3.5 Gb at full speed (224 bits bus speed ) and 512 mb at low speed (32 bits bus speed)

It's not a matter of oppinion, the 512 mb on it is more useless than the left over of a circumcision. The performance gets so bad when using the 32 bits memory that you're better off using system ram.

Nahh, people need to stop overblowing this issue. This doesn't mean that I think what nvidia did is ok but the impact on FPS after using 3.5GB is minimal. Usually when you're past the 3.5GB you're already playing on something so intensive that the framerate tanked already. For how much f*ck ups nvidia did with that card they dealed with the issue with their drivers pretty good. http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/198223-investigating-the-gtx-970-does-nvidias-penultimate-gpu-have-a-memory-problem

I understand where you're coming from but the reality is that nvidia has capped the memory to 3.5Gb unless told otherwisein driver, therefore it is a 3.5Gb card and not 4gb. The situation is specially obvious with game's you're running with graphic mods. I will bet you that if they unlocked the 970 to 4Gb in NFS, that it will run, much slower than having 3.5Gb. Okay, I don't think 512mb less makes a big difference, but I'm just saying that its worthless and you're better off without it.

That 4gb recommendation....those 970's choke after that 3.5gb. It irks the heck out of me when i see people recommend the 970 with little regard to people's hard earned money. Most people buying a performance (not enthusiast) level card like to make it last a few years. If you are in the market for a new card..i would highly suggest to go with one of those true 4gb card or better yet..get one of those 390s with 8gb of vram..it's the best bang for the buck card out there. I hear all sorts of yada yada yada that more than 4gb is not needed...well i been hearing that with 1gb cards, 2gb cards and so on. Also it's nice to have extra room to DOWNSAMPLE resolutions or better yet..its nice to actually have room to use mods for PC games...you are NOT gonna be able to do much of that with 3.5gb vram. Even those 4gb cards are on the brink of being breached even at the 1080p level...that 8gb vram is sure nice.

Maybe if the f*cking 390's ACTUALLY PERFORMED BETTER than people constantly say they do. Literally every goddamn time its the same thing, "Oh yeah like the 290 is so much better on paper and more futureproof" well screw me silly because that never did me anything good. Sorry for my outburst but stop the goddamn foolishness and this cocks*cking on the 290/390 cards. I'm not even gonna begin on the stupid 8GB vram argument, last time it happened it got me a strike and someone else banned.

Again wrong, here's a video example of it using its full 4096mb buffer and having expected performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOvUP07HBzs

Maybe if the f*cking 390's ACTUALLY PERFORMED BETTER than people constantly say they do. Literally every goddamn time its the same thing, "Oh yeah like the 290 is so much better on paper and more futureproof" well screw me silly because that never did me anything good. I'm not even gonna begin on the stupid 8GB vram argument, last time it happened it got me a strike and someone else banned.

Did it ever occur to you that it is faster and cheaper

If you do Anandtech's 2015 bench comparison, the 970 wins in various games as well. Crysis 3, BF4, Total War, Grid Autosport and GTA @ 1080p. It just depends on what game your playing. Long term 390 probably a better buy though. 3.5/4GB of ram just not enough for newer games and QHD res. I'm starting to run into issues even on my 980.

8 gigs or not, 390's are still not powerful enough to play the newest games even for 1080/60 unless you take two of them in crossfire. They'll run out of juice far quicker than they run out of memory.

8 gigs or not, 390's are still not powerful enough to play the newest games even for 1080/60 unless you take two of them in crossfire. They'll run out of juice far quicker than they run out of memory.

if that happens to be true for certain games, which i think it is true, the 970 will be affected in the same way too. You make it sound as if youre saying " as opposed to the 970" to my Personal experience, i had a gtx 980 before i bought my 4k screen and it worked horribly. It wasn't even the fps that was bad, it was just not smooth at all, in Inquisition when there was dialogue the fps would be fine, like at 40 fps but when the image would switch to a different character, there was a pause before things showed up on screen. I deducted that the problem was with the horribly small bandwidth the 980 (and 970) has, Nvidia reduced memory bandwidth compared to the 780 saying that they found more efficient ways to use memory. The problem is that those efficiencies don't translate to 4k display memory use. The amd 390 (or even 290 8gb) are FAR better at high resolutions, not simply because has far more of it, but also the bandwidth. the r9 has 384 GB/s memory as opposed to the 980 having 224GB/s (the 970 has 196 GB/s). This problem was solved for me when i moved to the 980Ti which has plenty of memory speed juice of 336.5GB/s, the more efficient use of memory doesnt hurt either but it is clearly not enough. Inquisition runs fine now ;-)

I had both 290 and 970, so I know what i'm talking about.