Q4 2014; NVIDIA released two new Maxwell architecture GPU's. The titanic GTX 980 & the people's favourite; the GTX 970. With a 4K performance promise & Titan-like performance for a 3rd of the cost; this was the card that had the punters drooling.
In 2015 though; a few controversial issues arose with the cards performance and promise:
- NVIDIA had provided an incorrect specifications sheet in the reviewers' guide, supplied to professional reviewers.
- The card shipped with 4GB's of on-board RAM. Only 3.5GB's of this RAM would operate at full capacity, with the remainder 500MB of RAM operating at a much slower speed.
This posed a PR struggle for NVIDIA, but ultimately this did not hinder the GTX 970 sales performance making this piece of hardware NVIDIA's most popular product in 2015.
- The card shipped with 4GB's of on-board RAM. Only 3.5GB's of this RAM would operate at full capacity, with the remainder 500MB of RAM operating at a much slower speed.
This posed a PR struggle for NVIDIA, but ultimately this did not hinder the GTX 970 sales performance making this piece of hardware NVIDIA's most popular product in 2015.
As of January 2016, Steam Hardware Survey shows 4.28% of gamers whom participated in the survey, utilise a GTX 970 in their system. This is followed closely by a HD 4000 at 3.19% & the GTX 960 at 2.53%.
Interesting then that the above proves there are plenty a PC Gamer out there who are more than willing to shell out for a non-budget GPU.
Moving on to 2016; NVIDIA need to bring the same to the table once more but with the added addition to reveal a GPU which is not only effective at a price:performance ratio, but also can persuade current GTX 970 users to upgrade from NVIDIA's now over 1 year old card.
Perhaps VR will be the push on this front & perhaps NVIDIA will take the initiative there.
Source: fool.com
