Proposed Class Action Lawsuit Over NVIDIA GTX 970

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It would seem that NVIDIA has been hit with a lawsuit over the whole GTX 970 debacle. Popcorn anyone?

Nvidia lists specifications on its website stating the GTX 970 the “Standard Memory Config” is “4 GB” and the “Memory Interface” is “GDDR5”. An example is attached hereto as Exhibit C and incorporated herein by reference. The product packaging for the Gigabyte GTX 970 devices represents the product is a “4GB GDDR5” device. An example is attached as Exhibit E and incorporated herein by reference.
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This'll be interesting to watch.

With nvidia muzzling all their employees and "friendly" news outlets, too bad this is the only way anything can be done. Anyone getting money from class action lawsuit is secondary compared to the legal record attached to the company and ensuing PR debacle.
 
Well, it is pretty clear that Nvidia did full on false-advertising, so I am pretty sure that they will get a nice big fine and the lawers will get even richer from it.
 
I don't think its so clear cut .

Ad on box don't lie or on there website for 970 .
It was only tech specs given to reviewers .

I am 970 owner to and don't see any big issue, the card runs like reviews posted .
 
What kind of loss / damages are hoped to be recovered by this lawsuit? Will the plaintiffs be paid in Frames Per Second?

Pardon my ignorance.
 
Lawyers will get a fat pay day, 970 owners will get a $20 game. Class actions FTL
 
I cant view the contents of the page, can someone post it pls?
 
Kardonxt said:
Lawyers will get a fat pay day, 970 owners will get a $20 game. Class actions FTL
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This pretty much sums it up. Does everyone not realize that the Lawyers are the only winners in these. I would hope this would be a lesson Nvidia would learn but who am I kidding..
 
I don't think nvidia is clearly going to lose this case.

a) It technically does have 4GB of vram.
b) The only other misleading claim that the plaintiffs alleged is that the ROPs and L2 cache were less. But those don't appear to be figures that are advertised directly? If they're solely presented by a reviewer then that wouldn't count as advertising methinks.

I'm also thinking about how much weight should be given to specs. How many product A v. product B things have on-paper very similar specs but in practice are completely different?
 
Parja said:
Sounds about right. The only true winners of any class action suit are the lawyers.
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It will be a $20 they already own most likely.

Is the issue hardware or firmware related? The "is" 4GB on the card, but it's not all used / accessible?
 
AthlonXP said:
Does everyone not realize that the Lawyers are the only winners in these. I would hope this would be a lesson Nvidia would learn but who am I kidding..
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Yes, its the teaching NVidia a lesson a bit that matters.
So in a sense that would make us the winners.
 
Kardonxt said:
Lawyers will get a fat pay day, 970 owners will get a $20 game. Class actions FTL
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They will settle, on the terms of the settlement there will be no wrong doing and cards owners will forfeit their right for future suits for any nvidia current or future nvidia product.
plus card owners will be elegible for $20 virtual cash for a mediocre F2P game. :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
cyclone3d said:
Well, it is pretty clear that Nvidia did full on false-advertising, so I am pretty sure that they will get a nice big fine and the lawers will get even richer from it.
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Fine from who? Unless the FTC gets involved or the EU commission the only thing that will happen here is that Nvidia will settle this years from now and we get $5.97 credit in the form of a pre paid card.
 
Waste of Money, the reviewer specs still show the card is blazing fast, Nvidia official box art is correct. People trying to run 4K displays might get a tad more stutter, but it's still blazing fast. Lets see an AMD card that runs as well with less wattage?
 
Glad to see this action being took.

It's a reminder to companies that lie to us. You can't do that. This is not their first lie. If I remember correctly, Nvidia has been in the spot-light before over a few things in the past.

Stop selling your products if you can't be honest.

I'm perfectly happy with Intel and AMD leading the way.
 
dr/owned said:
I don't think nvidia is clearly going to lose this case.

a) It technically does have 4GB of vram.
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That isn't the issue.
Yes, it has 4GB, everyone knows that, but it is the remaining 512MB which operates 80% slower which is the issue, so the GPU was not advertised properly.

This is very much bait-and-switch, and is underhanded, making NVIDIA untrustworthy.
I highly doubt they will win.
 
Red Falcon said:
That isn't the issue.
Yes, it has 4GB, everyone knows that, but it is the remaining 512MB which operates 80% slower which is the issue, so the GPU was not advertised properly.

This is very much bait-and-switch, and is underhanded, making NVIDIA untrustworthy.
I highly doubt they will win.
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How was it not advertised properly? It has 4GB. That's what was advertised. They could have gimped it with an 8 bit memory bus for all it matters - still has 4GB.
 
Also to add I'm not trying to say Nvidia didn't fuck the pooch hardcore here, but I don't see a court case on this being open and shut.
 
dr/owned said:
Also to add I'm not trying to say Nvidia didn't fuck the pooch hardcore here, but I don't see a court case on this being open and shut.
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No way it'll go to court. NVIDIA will settle.
 
Just curious why the exhibits are so sketchy looking ? I mean cant lawyers afford a high resolution color scanner?
 
No way this doesn't settle out. NVIDIA screwed up as the screenshots posted in here show. While it's only the attorneys who are going to get rich at least NVIDIA's feet will be held to the fire.
 
trembli0s said:
No way this doesn't settle out. NVIDIA screwed up as the screenshots posted in here show. While it's only the attorneys who are going to get rich at least NVIDIA's feet will be held to the fire.
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Everyone who bought a 970 will recieve a free upgrade to a GTX 980 giving them a full 4gb of cram ,right before they announce the successor to the GTX 980
 
Parja said:
Sounds about right. The only true winners of any class action suit are the lawyers.
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The only winners. If you get that 5 dollars for your device most aren't even going to bother to cash it in. Law firm takes 1 million bucks in profit and walks away.
 
this will probably be a settlement. Nvidia would win at trial or even if they lost the damages would be minimal (because the card is so damn good).

civil cases are always breach + damages. even if you find a breach, you have a find that breach led to some type of damage.

I'm not sure you could prove to a properderence of the evidence that nvidia falsely advertised and even if you did, i don't think you can show anything other than diminimus damage.
 
somecallmeTim said:
It will be a $20 they already own most likely.

Is the issue hardware or firmware related? The "is" 4GB on the card, but it's not all used / accessible?
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The issue is really twofold:

1) Due to the cut-down architecture of the card (versus the 980), only 3.5 GB of VRAM is accessible at full speed, whereas the last 0.5 GB is only accessible at a much lower speed (like 1/10th normal or something). People were finding this to cause stuttering and issues at higher resolutions. The card will try to not use that final 0.5 GB unless it has to, at which point it accesses it at a much slower speed than the rest of the VRAM.

1) Once this issue with the architecture came to light, it also was revealed that nVidia misrepresented the ROP and L2 cache specs of the card.

Given that this is an architecture issue, it won't be solved by drivers or firmware. The only thing they could really do is prevent the last 0.5 GB of VRAM from being accessed, but at that point it would become a true 3.5 GB card.
 
EdKiefer said:
I don't think its so clear cut .

Ad on box don't lie or on there website for 970 .
It was only tech specs given to reviewers .

I am 970 owner to and don't see any big issue, the card runs like reviews posted .
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Actually for months it was advertised on their website as having 64 rops and the whole shebang, the 4GB is the most prominent feature as it does change the performance of the card in "unexpected" ways, i mean, you wouldn't expect a 4GB card to drop as much in performance as the 970 does in specific scenarios (also, the fake bandwidth showing an addition of the two memory partitions when you can't access them at the same time) add that all the fake specs were even reported at a low lvl and there may be a point for the CAL...
 
dr/owned said:
How was it not advertised properly? It has 4GB. That's what was advertised. They could have gimped it with an 8 bit memory bus for all it matters - still has 4GB.
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They advertised it as ~224GB/s for a memory data transfer rate.
I don't see anywhere on their site about the last 512MB doing a 22GB/s memory data transfer rate.

That is absolutely false advertising.
This would be like Intel releasing a quad-core CPU running at 3GHz, but the fourth core upon using it will only run at 600MHz.

Pretty sleazy if you ask me.
 
That isn't the issue.
Yes, it has 4GB, everyone knows that, but it is the remaining 512MB which operates 80% slower which is the issue, so the GPU was not advertised properly.
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Question: Can the card utilize all 4GB of VRAM?

Answer: Yes

So, what false advertising went on exactly? The reviews showed how the card would perform, the card can utilize all the HW it is advertised for, so what exactly is the problem?

How is this any different then the second core of a BD Module having a ~20% performance penalty? Where's the class action lawsuit from anyone who brought a BD CPU for false advertising?
 
any "nice big fine" that people are hoping for will be passed on to the consumer in higher prices so in effect you are fining yourselves. ironic.
 
UnrealCpu said:
Everyone who bought a 970 will recieve a free upgrade to a GTX 980 giving them a full 4gb of cram ,right before they announce the successor to the GTX 980
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That would be awesome! But I can't really complain with my 970 and if it hadn't been brought to light, I probably would never have known it to be a performance hit.

I felt NCIX explained it to me as a non-interworkingsofcomputers nerd.

http://youtu.be/jPlCIUh_Tp0
 
Red Falcon said:
They advertised it as ~224GB/s for a memory data transfer rate.
I don't see anywhere on their site about the last 512MB doing a 22GB/s memory data transfer rate.

That is absolutely false advertising.
This would be like Intel releasing a quad-core CPU running at 3GHz, but the fourth core upon using it will only run at 600MHz.

Pretty sleazy if you ask me.
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I don't know how the official memory transfer speeds are calculated and whether or not it includes all the VRAM as an average, in which case NV would be free and clear.
 
Haven't most owners of a 970 already had some type of resolution?

I got a full refund from Newegg which was not what I was going for but they wouldn't budge on a % refund, so on principal I returned it.

Class action lawsuits seem like a last option for a 970 owner, Lawyers will get all the $$$. Partial refund or return for a full refund I think would be much better options, and that's already happening....
 
dr/owned said:
I don't know how the official memory transfer speeds are calculated and whether or not it includes all the VRAM as an average, in which case NV would be free and clear.
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Courtesy of GoldenTiger:

6v3hLnz.jpg
 
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