Nvidia facing 51 lawsuits...AMD in there too...

[KeithTalent]

I'm having flashback to the whole RAM fiasco:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7445

Though RAM became much cheaper after it was all sorted out.

Cheers,
KT

 

[Acanthus]

This has been going on for a while now, its a shame that they are allowed to artificially inflate prices by not competing with each other.

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
This has been going on for a while now, its a shame that they are allowed to artificially inflate prices by not competing with each other.

Yeah, it just seems to be so much easier when there are really only 2 dominant players. Too bad Intel is not getting into the high-end GPU market anytime soon to shake things up.

KT

 

[Bateluer]

Seems like a lot of those lawsuits count of frivolous though.

 

[soybeast]

I knew it! 300$ as the new "mid-range"? Cmon. Really.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: soybeast
I knew it! 300$ as the new "mid-range"? Cmon. Really.

$200 is where you can buy a mid range 8600GTS. I dont consider the 8800GTS 320mb or the 8800GTS 640mb "mid range". Those are direct derivatives of the high end 8800GTX.

 

[cyclohexane]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: soybeast
I knew it! 300$ as the new "mid-range"? Cmon. Really.

$200 is where you can buy a mid range 8600GTS. I dont consider the 8800GTS 320mb or the 8800GTS 640mb "mid range". Those are direct derivatives of the high end 8800GTX.

flashback to 4 years ago, when a top of the line 9800pro went for $300. There's definitely
some collusion going on...

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: cyclohexane

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: soybeast
I knew it! 300$ as the new "mid-range"? Cmon. Really.

$200 is where you can buy a mid range 8600GTS. I dont consider the 8800GTS 320mb or the 8800GTS 640mb "mid range". Those are direct derivatives of the high end 8800GTX.

flashback to 4 years ago, when a top of the line 9800pro went for $300. There's definitely
some collusion going on...

Agreed.... Every year for the last 3 years they have added $100 to the flagship cards price....

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: cyclohexane

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: soybeast
I knew it! 300$ as the new "mid-range"? Cmon. Really.

$200 is where you can buy a mid range 8600GTS. I dont consider the 8800GTS 320mb or the 8800GTS 640mb "mid range". Those are direct derivatives of the high end 8800GTX.

flashback to 4 years ago, when a top of the line 9800pro went for $300. There's definitely
some collusion going on...

Can it be proven though?

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Matt2
Can it be proven though?

Perhaps. Samsung probably thought they were invincible with the whole DDR fiasco too.

However I won't be holding my breath.

 

[wahoyaho]

I hope they drop their prices back down to where it should be ><

 

[Cooler]

There is at least $100 on the high end that they can take off.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
I hope they drop their prices back down to where it should be ><

I hope they dont. If Nvidia and AMD are forced to drop video card prices drastically, who do u think will be the real loser? We will.

Nvidia and AMD will no longer be inclined to put millions upon millions of dollars in R&D. GPUs will fail to make the same kind of advancements in such short product cycles. The only thing that will come out of this will be that mid range offerings will become the new high end.

My $0.02

 

[soybeast]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
I hope they drop their prices back down to where it should be ><

I hope they dont. If Nvidia and AMD are forced to drop video card prices drastically, who do u think will be the real loser? We will.

Nvidia and AMD will no longer be inclined to put millions upon millions of dollars in R&D. GPUs will fail to make the same kind of advancements in such short product cycles. The only thing that will come out of this will be that mid range offerings will become the new high end.

My $0.02

And what's your logic behind this reasoning? I think there's motivation wherever there's profit. Even if their profit shrinks, neither company can afford to "not be motivated" to innovate and create new products. Especially in Nvidia's case, unless they have another arm of their business that can support the company, not innovating in the GPU market would basically mean suicide. For AMD, their CPU business has been their bread and butter and most likely will continue to be. AMD can afford to not be the market leader and be a smaller player (at least in comparison to Nvidia).

Even if the reduced profits results in one of the two companys exiting the GPU business, there will eventually be someone else who will step in and replace them. The cycle of companies exiting and entering markets is basic economics. When a market becomes saturated and no one makes profits, players will exit the market. The opposite is also true.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
I hope they drop their prices back down to where it should be ><

I hope they dont. If Nvidia and AMD are forced to drop video card prices drastically, who do u think will be the real loser? We will.

Nvidia and AMD will no longer be inclined to put millions upon millions of dollars in R&D. GPUs will fail to make the same kind of advancements in such short product cycles. The only thing that will come out of this will be that mid range offerings will become the new high end.

My $0.02

Intel just need to release a powerful GPU into any CPU they sell which doesn't require any upgrade for 5 years to play 3D games and suddenly Nvidia or even AMD will find themselves doomed. Sounds familiar?

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
I hope they drop their prices back down to where it should be ><

I hope they dont. If Nvidia and AMD are forced to drop video card prices drastically, who do u think will be the real loser? We will.

Nvidia and AMD will no longer be inclined to put millions upon millions of dollars in R&D. GPUs will fail to make the same kind of advancements in such short product cycles. The only thing that will come out of this will be that mid range offerings will become the new high end.

My $0.02

Because time and time again history has shown us that you get the best innovation when you have no competition and pricing pressure...oh wait, you seem to have got some pretty fundamental economic theory ass-backwards

Competition (and the price pressure it brings) drives R&D, otherwise, why try harder?

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
I hope they drop their prices back down to where it should be ><

I hope they dont. If Nvidia and AMD are forced to drop video card prices drastically, who do u think will be the real loser? We will.

Nvidia and AMD will no longer be inclined to put millions upon millions of dollars in R&D. GPUs will fail to make the same kind of advancements in such short product cycles. The only thing that will come out of this will be that mid range offerings will become the new high end.

My $0.02

Because time and time again history has shown us that you get the best innovation when you have no competition and pricing pressure...oh wait, you seem to have got some pretty fundamental economic theory ass-backwards

Competition (and the price pressure it brings) drives R&D, otherwise, why try harder?

The more profit they make the more they can spend on R&D though.. How much is their price inflated? Probably something like $50. How much do you think the profit margin is to begin with? I don't know about you, but I don't mind paying a little bit extra vs the extreme lowest price with virtually no profit. Now, it would be nice if they made good drivers, and didn't disable half the pipelines on their otherwise awesome notebook graphics cards.

 

[nyker96]

no winder the price of g-cards almost never came down in the past 4-6 months!

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
I hope they drop their prices back down to where it should be ><

I hope they dont. If Nvidia and AMD are forced to drop video card prices drastically, who do u think will be the real loser? We will.

Nvidia and AMD will no longer be inclined to put millions upon millions of dollars in R&D. GPUs will fail to make the same kind of advancements in such short product cycles. The only thing that will come out of this will be that mid range offerings will become the new high end.

My $0.02

Because time and time again history has shown us that you get the best innovation when you have no competition and pricing pressure...oh wait, you seem to have got some pretty fundamental economic theory ass-backwards

Competition (and the price pressure it brings) drives R&D, otherwise, why try harder?

The more profit they make the more they can spend on R&D though.. How much is their price inflated? Probably something like $50. How much do you think the profit margin is to begin with? I don't know about you, but I don't mind paying a little bit extra vs the extreme lowest price with virtually no profit. Now, it would be nice if they made good drivers, and didn't disable half the pipelines on their otherwise awesome notebook graphics cards.

I fail to see how you think non-compete agreements make them more motivated to put out bettter products.

 

[Woofmeister]

From NVIDIA's SEC filing:

On November 29, 2006, we received a subpoena from the San Francisco Office of the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice, or DOJ, in connection with the DOJ's investigation into potential antitrust violations related to graphics processing units and cards. No specific allegations have been made against us. We are cooperating with the DOJ in its investigation. As of May 14, 2007, 51 civil complaints have been filed against us. The majority of the complaints were filed in the Northern District of California, several were filed in the Central District of California, and other cases were filed in several other Federal district courts. Although the complaints differ, they generally purport to assert federal and state antitrust claims based on alleged price fixing, market allocation, and other alleged anti-competitive agreements between us and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., or AMD, as a result of its acquisition of ATI Technologies, Inc., or ATI. Many of the cases also assert a variety of state law unfair competition or consumer protection claims on the same allegations and some cases assert unjust enrichment or other common law claims. The complaints are putative class actions alleging classes of direct and/or indirect purchasers of our graphic processing units and cards. The plaintiffs in a few of the Northern District of California actions filed a motion with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, or JPML, asking that all pending and subsequent cases be consolidated in one court for all pre-trial discovery and motion practice. A hearing on this motion took place on March 29, 2007. The JPML subsequently granted the motion and conditionally transferred all of the actions currently pending outside of the Northern District of California to the Northern District of California for coordination of pretrial proceedings. An initial case management conference for the coordinated cases is scheduled to be held on May 24, 2007. We believe the allegations in the complaints are without merit and intend to vigorously defend the cases.

Everyone is assuming that simply because NVIDIA has been sued by fifty-one different plaintiffs, it must have engaged in price fixing. It is important to keep in mind that these are private lawsuits brought by individual plaintiffs following disclosure of a preliminary DOJ investigation. To date, the DOJ has not brought its own suit, which would markedly raise the stakes for NVIDIA. In any case, lawsuits are only allegations of wrongdoing, the plaintiffs will have the burden of proving that NVIDIA engaged in antitrust violations. Good luck to them in that.

Though there are 51 lawsuits, they have now been coordinated into one proceeding by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. The coordinated proceeding will seek class action status, but a determination by the court as to whether or not the case may proceed as a class action is a long way off. NVIDIA has not even had the chance to move to dismiss the complaint in the coordinated proceeding yet, something it will surely do. Sufficiently pleading allegations of antitrust in order to survive a motion to dismiss is very difficult. The U.S. Supreme Court made it even more difficult in the beginning of the month in a case called Twombly v. Bell Atlantic.

Let's just say that NVIDIA is a long way off from having to worry about anything more than paying their lawyers.

 

[bob4432]

didn't something like this happen a couple years ago w/ the ceo making multi millions and all kind of other sh!t going on? or is it the same stuff?

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
I hope they drop their prices back down to where it should be ><

I hope they dont. If Nvidia and AMD are forced to drop video card prices drastically, who do u think will be the real loser? We will.

Nvidia and AMD will no longer be inclined to put millions upon millions of dollars in R&D. GPUs will fail to make the same kind of advancements in such short product cycles. The only thing that will come out of this will be that mid range offerings will become the new high end.

My $0.02

it just means the ceo won't make as much, r&d will still get the same $$$ just like gas. all this b.s. w/ gas so high but in the end the upper management just gets fatter, nothing else.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: soybeast
I knew it! 300$ as the new "mid-range"? Cmon. Really.

$200 is where you can buy a mid range 8600GTS. I dont consider the 8800GTS 320mb or the 8800GTS 640mb "mid range". Those are direct derivatives of the high end 8800GTX.

but the 8600gts is a joke of a card. a x1950xt 256MB is cheaper and a much better performer, just lacks dx10 support....

 

[n7]

There is no doubt in my mind that we are getting screwed as consumers.

Whether it was actually agreed upon by nV & ATi, or was allowed to "happen", i don't doubt for one bit that there is a lot going on we don't know about.

One reason i can say this w/o question is partially because i know what ATi sold their cards to us under their employee purchase programs (for retail store staff).
That alone tells me there's a lot more markup than many of you might think.

 

[Nelsieus]

Originally posted by: Matt2
I hope they dont. If Nvidia and AMD are forced to drop video card prices drastically, who do u think will be the real loser? We will.

Nvidia and AMD will no longer be inclined to put millions upon millions of dollars in R&D. GPUs will fail to make the same kind of advancements in such short product cycles. The only thing that will come out of this will be that mid range offerings will become the new high end.

My $0.02

Absolutely correct. What most of these complainers don't realize is that the progressive rise of GPU prices matches the rising cost (R&D) it takes to design them. On top of that, you have the increased bus-widths and extra Vram, matched with the complexity of software to develope drivers for (Vista), and it's completely reasonable to see prices where they currently are.

I think it would be an atrocity for the government to get involved with dictating prices, and the claims are quite frivolous. If you don't want to pay top dollar for an ultra-high end system, then don't. Nobody is taking away the midrange or lowerend counterparts to satisfy your budget.

As far as competitive practices go, I can't see how anyone can make the claim that the prices are choking other potential competitors. What other potential competitors are they referring to? Intel? Because it would take an already well established corporation to get into the GPU business in regards to the massive amount of money to get "up and started." If mom&pop want to get into the GPU business, the least of their worries is going to be how their competitors are pricing their products (in this particular industry).

And for everyone who thinks forced price restrictions wouldn't lesser motivation, that's far from true. No, nVidia or AMD would not immediately pull out because they couldn't earn a nice profit, but you would definately see that lost revenue/profit transfer into the offerings of their main business lineups (in terms of both innovation and performance). Our system motivates people by allowing them to "reach for the stars" and "persevere." By capping that potential, you take away that very essential element of human progression.

That's not what I want to see.

Nelsieus