While it's a nice move for consumers, I'm not really sure if this is a good thing for AMD considering the company is already struggling to keep afloat.
And then there's a gentle reminder from AMD to graphics card buyers with $300-ish in their pockets. With AMD, "4 GB means 4 GB." AMD also emphasizes that the R9 290 and R9 290X can fill their 4 GB video memory to the last bit, and features a 512-bit wide memory interface, which churns up 320 GB/s of memory bandwidth at reference clocks, something the GTX 970 can't achieve, even with its fancy texture compression mojo.In related news, word hit the web that consumers are returning perfectly functional GeForce GTX 970 graphics cards due to "false advertising".
In absence of every other recourse, laws in most EU member states dictate that the retailers accept returns for a full refund, if they are not able to "repair" the defect, or exchange with another unit that works as advertised (which a retailer obviously can't, in this case). Retailers' options in the matter boil down to: 1. Taking back cards from whoever isn't happy with their GTX 970 and giving them a refund; 2. compensating with something of value (eg: game-coupons, in-game currency, etc.,) and 3. Springing up a surprise, such as exchanging GTX 970 cards purchased before a set date, with a GTX 980 (if that's your idea of a "repair."). This will come at the expense of a cascading lawsuit-chain (customers suing retailers, who in-turn sue AICs, and who in-turn sue NVIDIA).NVIDIA said it's working on a driver update that will improve the way the GTX 970 allocates resources.