NVIDIA settles graphics card False advertising class action

[Maverick177]

There you go: https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit...graphics-card-false-advertising-class-action/

Nvidia graphics cards cost approximately $350 and the anticipated $30 payout was calculated to represent a portion of the cost of the storage and performance capabilities the consumers thought they were obtaining in the purchase of the product, according to the proposed settlement.

 

[railven]

Sent the info to another forum buddy. His response annoyed me. Basically:

"You mean my 980 only cost me $200!?"

Haha, if he sells it for $200 he basically got a GTX 980 to use for 2 years for free.

 

[raghu78]

Not bad. For people who defended the GTX 970 advertising this is a good reality check. Nvidia lied and have settled out of court. As always the lawyers for the plaintiffs are laughing all the way to the bank.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Has someone sued them for the Maxwell async promises yet? It would be pretty sweet if 970 owners could get two payouts.

 

[thilanliyan]

Companies should not be able to get away with these "settlements". In this case the amount of money nV made on those 970s is likely waaaay more than anything they have to pay out. Any company can basically say whatever they want in their advertising, sell millions, and then say "oops" and give some of that money back. Not just nV, but any company that misled people with their product should be fined the number sold times the original MSRP. The only deterrant for large corporations are hefty fines.

 

[Maverick177]

Companies should not be able to get away with these "settlements". In this case the amount of money nV made on those 970s is likely waaaay more than anything they have to pay out. Any company can basically say whatever they want in their advertising, sell millions, and then say "oops" and give some of that money back. Not just nV, but any company that misled people with their product should be fined the number sold times the original MSRP. The only deterrant for large corporations are hefty fines.

What do you mean?, free $30 for GTX 970 owners. I wish AMD would only be half as decent.

 

[railven]

Has someone sued them for the Maxwell async promises yet? It would be pretty sweet if 970 owners could get two payouts.

Someone gets that ball rolling, sign me up. I got no qualms taking NV's money!

 

[sontin]

Has someone sued them for the Maxwell async promises yet? It would be pretty sweet if 970 owners could get two payouts.

They have never promised Async Compute for the GTX970.

 

[poofyhairguy]

They have never promised Async Compute for the GTX970.

Good call, I forgot the slide was labeled for the 980 ti:

I am sure some 980 ti owners wouldn't mind taking Nvidia's money.

 

[SK10H]

Companies should not be able to get away with these "settlements". In this case the amount of money nV made on those 970s is likely waaaay more than anything they have to pay out. Any company can basically say whatever they want in their advertising, sell millions, and then say "oops" and give some of that money back. Not just nV, but any company that misled people with their product should be fined the number sold times the original MSRP. The only deterrant for large corporations are hefty fines.

Until this happens, expect the same going forward.

Nvidia denied all allegations of wrongdoing, and both parties entered into the settlement and agreed upon the terms, believing them to be in the best interests of all parties involved.

I would happily give up the 10% inconvenience payout to punish the company instead.

 

[boozzer]

Good call, I forgot the slide was labeled for the 980 ti:

I am sure some 980 ti owners wouldn't mind taking Nvidia's money.

consider it a belated rebate

 

[raghu78]

Companies should not be able to get away with these "settlements". In this case the amount of money nV made on those 970s is likely waaaay more than anything they have to pay out. Any company can basically say whatever they want in their advertising, sell millions, and then say "oops" and give some of that money back. Not just nV, but any company that misled people with their product should be fined the number sold times the original MSRP. The only deterrant for large corporations are hefty fines.

But unfortunately the lawyers who appear for both the plaintiffs and defendant are the most unscrupulous people you will ever come across. So until a law comes which forbids such out of court settlements on class action suits (which I doubt will ever happen) large companies will get away with false advertising or even worse crimes like anti-competitive practices (just like Intel and Microsoft got away).

 

[Headfoot]

Lol. You guys realize that if there is no private right of action, this case never would have been brought in the first place, right?

The FTC has jurisdiction over this exact sort of thing and they brought no action. They could have, and chose not to, whether they thought the case was weak or they didnt have the resources to bring it doesn't really end up mattering.

This case ONLY happened because of the private right of action you all are so quick to dismiss and that's a fact.

 

[Headfoot]

Also please explain precisely how a fine payed to the government provides any more deterrence than a fine paid to consumers directly. The answer is - it doesn't. It's exactly the same except in a private right of action the people ACTUALLY HARMED by the misleading advertising get compensated, and not some bureaucrats in a government office.

In reality the plaintiff class action lawyers get a ton of money, but that is an issue much more easily solved with small tweaks in the court rules instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

A note to anyone who wants to come and comment on how the system is broken: step 1 is actually have any idea at all how the system currently works. Look up material on how the FTC works, and how each state's attorney general office's divisions for consumer protection work. There is an abundance of law against consumer deception.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Not bad. For people who defended the GTX 970 advertising this is a good reality check. Nvidia lied and have settled out of court. As always the lawyers for the plaintiffs are laughing all the way to the bank.

GTX 970 was a great card. A lot of my friends are using them and they couldn't be happier.

 

[AnandThenMan]

$30 payout is lame Nvidia got away with another one here.

 

[Maverick177]

GTX 970 was a great card. A lot of my friends are using them and they couldn't be happier.

Now they will be even happier with the extra $30!!

 

[poofyhairguy]

GTX 970 was a great card. A lot of my friends are using them and they couldn't be happier.

It was a shocking value at the time of launch (faster than 290x, within 15% of 980), but it is very disappointing how that value has eroded over time. It is no longer faster than a 290x in current benches (even at 1080p), and the gap between it and the 980 (ESPECIALLY in Directx 12) keeps growing. And the 970 still has room to fall- who knows what will happen with drivers aren't running interference for the 3.5GB of ram "feature."

I remember when it was the hot card everyone here recommended it over a 980 because the 980 offered poor value at the time. But today the people who bought a 980 got a card that should last longer at top settings and I try to remember that when I recommend cards to people.

I got a 970 for myself and I loved the damn thing at the time, still the prettiest card I have ever had. But as soon as Directx 12 benchmarks (or even just recent Directx 11 games excluding Tomb Raider) started hitting it became obvious to me that the 970 boat was sinking. I replaced it with a 390x (which is actually slower than the OCed 970 in old games) simply because I don't want to HAVE TO upgrade next year if I decide to stay at 1080p. I feel like the 970 will end up aging worse than any other $300+ card since the 2GB 680, and that makes me sad when you consider its place at the top of Steam surveys.

 

[master_shake_]

Now they will be even happier with the extra $30!!

just wait till they have to give up all kinds of personal information.

 

[railven]

just wait till they have to give up all kinds of personal information.

Few Class Actions Suits I was involved in just asked for name, address, copy of receipt/transaction.

What other personal info are people giving up?

 

[Maverick177]

just wait till they have to give up all kinds of personal information.

Well it's not like they haven't got used to it already ( Geforce Experience ). Does it really matter?

 

[sxr7171]

I'm so glad someone called them out on it. Let's see them try that again.

 

[sxr7171]

It was a shocking value at the time of launch (faster than 290x, within 15% of 980), but it is very disappointing how that value has eroded over time. It is no longer faster than a 290x in current benches (even at 1080p), and the gap between it and the 980 (ESPECIALLY in Directx 12) keeps growing. And the 970 still has room to fall- who knows what will happen with drivers aren't running interference for the 3.5GB of ram "feature."

I remember when it was the hot card everyone here recommended it over a 980 because the 980 offered poor value at the time. But today the people who bought a 980 got a card that should last longer at top settings and I try to remember that when I recommend cards to people.

I got a 970 for myself and I loved the damn thing at the time, still the prettiest card I have ever had. But as soon as Directx 12 benchmarks (or even just recent Directx 11 games excluding Tomb Raider) started hitting it became obvious to me that the 970 boat was sinking. I replaced it with a 390x (which is actually slower than the OCed 970 in old games) simply because I don't want to HAVE TO upgrade next year if I decide to stay at 1080p. I feel like the 970 will end up aging worse than any other $300+ card since the 2GB 680, and that makes me sad when you consider its place at the top of Steam surveys.

Sure the 980 is better but it was expensive. Nobody knew about the 3.5G issue at the time.

 

[Elixer]

$1.3 million in attorneys’ fees

Yeah... it always works out this way.

The recent settlement with Nvidia includes a total of 15 consumer class action lawsuits that were consolidated in Northern California as well is a pending action in San Diego, according to court documents.

In addition to the size of video access memory and its setup, the consumers also accused Nvidia of having 64 render output processors rather than the 56 that were advertised and of having smaller specialized memory cache than advertised.

I think they got that backwards.

Anyway, this is a very small price for nvidia to pay, they got away with it, and this won't be any deterrent for future bad behavior.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'm glad to see a hit to their wallet over this. They hid the 3.5 GB issue at launch, hoping to cover it up with per-game driver fixups.

That's great until they stop adding per-game fixups for new games, and new games are the ones most likely to see the card report "4 GB RAM" and try to use it.

There is some hope for 970 owners if Unreal, Unity, etc. bake 970 detection into the engine level, but I have no idea whether that's happened. Or if enough game developers include 970 fixups in their games.