Class Action Lawsuit Filed against NVIDIA over GTX 970 Memory Issue

[GhostRyder]

That would indeed be the impression the world gets, unfortunately.

You'll be happy to know that REALITY IS DIFFERENT from the headline grabbing news stories.

People going to work, going home, raising kids...it's much like anywhere. In fact, I don't think I know one single person ever in my life that sued someone.

Yea, though it is funny how the news here constantly blows the lawsuits out of proportion. Though to be fair there are a few areas of it that get abused consistently.

I still think its ridiculous, that video card has 4gigs of RAM. GPU even can address the entire memory, its just some architectural design choices which limit the addressing to last small section to a slower speed. After going through all the press release I don't think nvidia lied about anything apart from not being clear about design choices. Although thanks to this whole fiasco I have been able to get a 970 at insanely cheap price. In India Msi GTX 970 retails for INR35000(~US$520) and I got the same barely used from US for half the price.

Not the point dude, it has 4gb on the card but that last 512mb is significantly slower which causes a performance reduction when accessed. The card also holds off accessing that last bit unless absolutely necessary which means most of the time your card is a 3.5gb card. That's not what was advertised, I doubt people care about the other parts much but that area is the problem with many people opting for two or more GTX 970's over some GTX 980's. They can get refunds so that is solving their problem, however people were mislead. Whether or not the difference will effect everyone does not change the fact people were mislead into what they were buying and that is not right.

Meh, it will be a long drawn out process, nVidia will likely settle just to finally cut the lawyer's fees, and by the time everyone gets their $10 we'll be 4 GPU generations down the road...

Yep, were all going to be on the R9 990X or GTX 1680's by the time anything is really heard about this most likely. I have a feeling when its finally settled most of us will have forgotten what they are talking about lol.

Honestly returning the cards if your unhappy is the best option, its much simpler and can happen now versus years down the road. Though the OEM's need a little help from NVidia regarding this...

 

[bogami]

Here we are again, people as I have repeatedly mentioned the GTX970 product which is sold failure cut processor. .56 ROP with that it can not take full advantage of the RAM capacity. but in all this because to us sell trash chip donate 500 mb of RAM . Everything becomes even more ridiculous when we look TITAN card which tells us of RAM charged at double the price ,for the card. That the same favor AMD sells much cheaper (8Gb RAM model)do not mentioned nobody.
Nobody thinks that they will do the same to us with the next generation TITAN X. Failure cut processor -tresh chip (Not only the 3000 in processors chip !)
for max payment in Double of RAM will not be free but for double the price.!
A good campaign will not yielded anything unless we asked for lower prices and high quality products. So will all be throwing sand in the customers eyes !

 

[64K]

Not the point dude, it has 4gb on the card but that last 512mb is significantly slower which causes a performance reduction when accessed. The card also holds off accessing that last bit unless absolutely necessary which means most of the time your card is a 3.5gb card. That's not what was advertised, I doubt people care about the other parts much but that area is the problem with many people opting for two or more GTX 970's over some GTX 980's. They can get refunds so that is solving their problem, however people were mislead. Whether or not the difference will effect everyone does not change the fact people were mislead into what they were buying and that is not right.

Yeah, it's not wise to let hardware manufacturers get away with too much.

Spoiler: My Monday Rant

That's what happened to the gaming community. Most just bitched on forums about publisher's abuse and then turned around and pre-ordered the next game from that publisher. That's why we get games like Aliens: Colonial Marines which didn't look as good as the trailers. The broken mess Sim City and EA lying through their teeth at first that it couldn't be made to run in offline mode. EA did give the people that pre-ordered Sim City a free game though. I don't play Battlefield 4 but I've heard that Dice still hasn't fixed part of the issues. We get some games that are chopped down and part of it sold as day one DLC. I could go on but anybody that plays video games already knows the state we are in now.

 

[NTM2003]

Is it still worth buying the gtx 970 for my new build ?

 

[GhostRyder]

Yeah, it's not wise to let hardware manufacturers get away with too much.

Spoiler: My Monday Rant

That's what happened to the gaming community. Most just bitched on forums about publisher's abuse and then turned around and pre-ordered the next game from that publisher. That's why we get games like Aliens: Colonial Marines which didn't look as good as the trailers. The broken mess Sim City and EA lying through their teeth at first that it couldn't be made to run in offline mode. EA did give the people that pre-ordered Sim City a free game though. I don't play Battlefield 4 but I've heard that Dice still hasn't fixed part of the issues. We get some games that are chopped down and part of it sold as day one DLC. I could go on but anybody that plays video games already knows the state we are in now.

Yep, I totally agree because I an under the belief no matter who it is you should not lie to your customers whether it be hardware or a game. Otherwise we will end up with inferior products that makes us all unhappy.

Is it still worth buying the gtx 970 for my new build ?

Its still a good card, but its viability for certain resolutions went a bit down is all. If your going 1440p and below, still one of the best on the market for a single card.

 

[the54thvoid]

I really didn't want to say anymore about this issue but as it's moved to legal matters now, here are some points.

1) The card has 4Gb of accessible memory.
2) Independent reviewers overwhelmingly endorsed it's performance across a wide range of games.
3) The ROPS and L2 cache are not publicly announced on any retail packaging (if I'm wrong, then by all means say).
4) There is precedent for all manners of 'misrepresentation' of hardware and it's usability, which would be relevant - such as HDD/SSD's with unusable space for OS reasons etc.
5) A quote from AMD about R9 290 4k use.

Ultra Resolution Gaming
Leave HD in the dust by gaming on displays much, much larger. Whether using a 4k monitor or combining multiple HD monitors, you’ll get an expansive experience that’s truly out of sight.3

and from Nvidia for GTX 980:

4K revolutionises the way you view your games by adding four times as many pixels as commonly used 1920x1080 screens, opening your eyes to rich, superbly-detailed worlds. If you have a high-end GeForce GTX PC, you’re ready for the revolution. Just plug and play and you’ll immediately receive a flawless, jaw-dropping experience.

A review:

My point? Both camps flogged their cards as good for 4k, no, in fact they said, "truly out of sight" and "flawless". Well, check out those flawless fps scores - Awesome..not.


The fact is... the card performs as expected and tanks as well. So does the 290(X) and 980 at 4k. But AMD (and Nvidia) stated that these cards would be awesome at 4k.

The GTX 970 has 4Gb of usable memory, the retail packaging states nothing else. Nvidia can easily fall back on the countless reviews from web sites (such as this one ffs) that found no problem with it's performance, in fact - it was the contrary - best card ever for it's price.

What they did was dishonest but all manufacturers do it. Check out the fuel consumption figures for cars. The published figures are based on lab condition tests you can never replicate in real life. Conversely, Nvidia granted sample cards to the reviewers who tested it in real gaming situations.

This case was taken by some lawyers who know little about PC gaming. It will get torn to shreds. I can see the jury case now - a bunch of guys playing BF4 at 1600p having a great time. "What's wrong with this card?" they'll be asking.

 

[64K]

I agree there is no single GPU solution for 4K yet. I don't consider the 30 FPS average in that chart to be playable especially in a shooter because you are going to be getting routine drops down to the min FPS which would be in the mid 20s. That's a fail for shooters. For the GPUs averaging mid 20's you will probably get drops to the teens. I still think 4K and a single GPU is in my future 2 or 3 years from now.

 

[Jorge]

What plaintiffs will learn is that no manufacturer is bound under law to provide overclocking abilities on any PC product. In addition any mfg. can prevent the OC'ing ability of their product if they feel it can undermine their products performance or reliability. This should be obvious as CPU makers have done so for decades. The "entitled generation" is not entitled to anything they don't pay for.

 

[GhostRyder]

I really didn't want to say anymore about this issue but as it's moved to legal matters now, here are some points.

1) The card has 4Gb of accessible memory.
2) Independent reviewers overwhelmingly endorsed it's performance across a wide range of games.
3) The ROPS and L2 cache are not publicly announced on any retail packaging (if I'm wrong, then by all means say).
4) There is precedent for all manners of 'misrepresentation' of hardware and it's usability, which would be relevant - such as HDD/SSD's with unusable space for OS reasons etc.
5) A quote from AMD about R9 290 4k use.



and from Nvidia for GTX 980:



A review:

My point? Both camps flogged their cards as good for 4k, no, in fact they said, "truly out of sight" and "flawless". Well, check out those flawless fps scores - Awesome..not.


The fact is... the card performs as expected and tanks as well. So does the 290(X) and 980 at 4k. But AMD (and Nvidia) stated that these cards would be awesome at 4k.

The GTX 970 has 4Gb of usable memory, the retail packaging states nothing else. Nvidia can easily fall back on the countless reviews from web sites (such as this one ffs) that found no problem with it's performance, in fact - it was the contrary - best card ever for it's price.

What they did was dishonest but all manufacturers do it. Check out the fuel consumption figures for cars. The published figures are based on lab condition tests you can never replicate in real life. Conversely, Nvidia granted sample cards to the reviewers who tested it in real gaming situations.

This case was taken by some lawyers who know little about PC gaming. It will get torn to shreds. I can see the jury case now - a bunch of guys playing BF4 at 1600p having a great time. "What's wrong with this card?" they'll be asking.

I think we all agree no single card can handle 4K unless its a dual GPU card but its still able to be done with the right hardware. 2+ cards is needed from the top tier to do so, but the same a few years back was said of 1440p, 1080p, etc so its just about moving forward in time but people generally want to go for the next biggest thing and many are willing to take multiple GPU's to handle it or drop a setting or two.

My point is though that the GTX 970 is not a bad card, just was not advertised right and we should hate that. The card was seen as a great alternative for some people at certain scenarios including buying 2-3 over the GTX 980 or other alternatives like the 290(X) for 4K (or heck maybe some DSR, Skyrim modded stuff just things in general like that). Is it the worst thing ever, no of course not but I still firmly believe that we should stop it before it becomes a consistent thing or at least have some type of disclosure from the beginning. I think if they had just said 3.5 plus .5 "super chache" (Or insert special name here) nothing would be wrong and people would not be complaining and the people who did have a problem with this would either have known what they were buying or made the right choice for themselves. Many might have just opted for a GTX 980 and a second one later down the line or so.

I agree there is no single GPU solution for 4K yet. I don't consider the 30 FPS average in that chart to be playable especially in a shooter because you are going to be getting routine drops down to the min FPS which would be in the mid 20s. That's a fail for shooters. For the GPUs averaging mid 20's you will probably get drops to the teens. I still think 4K and a single GPU is in my future 2 or 3 years from now.

Eh, I agree though 30 FPS can be ok enough for some games and you could make due. Not me personally because even 45 can be a little sluggish for me but I have seen some who do not seem to mind. 4K is still in its infantile state even though based on the way T.V.'s and such are going it going to be the next mainstream resolution most likely so its good to know at least 2 of the top GPU's can run it for people like me who are crazy enough to want to test/play at it. Though its not an ideal situation, I can play it very smoothly with my 3 R9 290X's (Not for everyone of course) BF4, LoL (Though that uses one 290X but its constant with no dips period), Far Cry 4 (And 3 as I just actually finally finished it recently), and a few other games I play in my free time or at LAN events. I think the Titan X and 390X will be the first GPU's we see that can deliver about 40+ average at 4K which is where we will start to see some adoption. Then by the time the R9 490X and GTX 1180 (err whatever its called by that point) we will have it be very feasible for the top GPU's to deliver 60 FPS.

Just a guess/opinion of course.

 

[btarunr]

Is it still worth buying the gtx 970 for my new build ?

Resounding Yes. Louder than the loudest yes to ever come out of a bedroom.

 

[Whilhelm]

What plaintiffs will learn is that no manufacturer is bound under law to provide overclocking abilities on any PC product. In addition any mfg. can prevent the OC'ing ability of their product if they feel it can undermine their products performance or reliability. This should be obvious as CPU makers have done so for decades. The "entitled generation" is not entitled to anything they don't pay for.

Do you even read the articles that you comment on? This lawsuit has nothing to do with anything you are talking about.

Rather than this lawsuit going through endless court proceedings I really hope that they just settle and allow unhappy customers to get their money back. This class action lawsuit will not help any of the people that are stuck with cards that they are unhappy with. It will just waste a ton of time, make law firms richer and ultimately not solve the complaints of those dissatisfied customers.

Also the graphics card manufactures love to exaggerate what they call exceptional 4k performance. I have two GTX 980s and those just barely scrape by at 4k in the most demanding titles.

 

[LiveOrDie]

All i have to say is some people are retarded the card still has 4gb of memory even if its over 2 memory chips its like saying a 8gb ram stick is only 1gb because it has 8 chips.

 

[the54thvoid]

For the record, I think it would be crap if Nvidia didn't get any form of 'punishment' for being "confused" and "technically dishonest".

Although my prior post might be seen as a defence of NV, it's not. It's just slamming the class action as being 'weak'. And lawyers? GTFO.

 

[Lionheart]

Is it still worth buying the gtx 970 for my new build ?

Definitely! I just wouldn't go over 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 resolution

 

[Casecutter]

Ah, the great America, where people sue anyone and everyone for anything. Must be integral part of living there.

Well, I'd rather have that ability... than have corporations and capitalist delivering whatever they "fabricate" and the people have no recourse. (This stance is not about this Nvidia debacle.)

I suppose the right way if you feel you were delivered something that was falsified is to return it. However in this case (in America) the seller is shielded normally after 30 days to a refund, (interestingly even some OEM’s offer rebates on day one). The distributors (OEM’s) cannot supply the product as was specified by the manufacture they're caught in the middle; although they could if they thought it worthwhile to go-up against their corporate partner. Without the ability of arbitration with equal representation the customer has no recourse to such manufacture, and that's what this class-action provides. While it might sound trivial and frivolous, the idea that individual consumers can collectively have a voice is something I value. I for one do know that in many (if not most) countries an individual has no voice, and that's the way such overloads relish it.

I'm glad, Nay proud we Americans have the means to protect our consumers against corporations who may misrepresent products. Many of those same business are the ones who say, laws and regulations get in the way of them making money let us work unfettered. I for one am more than happy to maintain the right to hold someone (or a faceless entity) accountable for their actions. Sure are there lawyers and the people they represent that go too far, perhaps; although to restrict that ability in any amount further would water-down my rights, and I for one believe that is worth safeguarding such check and balances.

If you don't... easy, please stay where you're at as "our right's" perhaps can trickle-down to protect you in due time.

 

[Franzen4Real]

A few have mentioned retailers reselling 970's at half price... Anyone have a link? I'd take one to game on my HTPC.

 

[64K]

A few have mentioned retailers reselling 970's at half price... Anyone have a link? I'd take one to game on my HTPC.

Half price would be $165-$175. A retailer would have to be a fool to charge so little for such a great card. I have seen a couple used 970s for $275 and they get snapped up pretty damn quick.

 

[Sasqui]

I'm just wondering how many people caught that. I LOL'd.

 

[laszlo]

nvidia will settle with all "plantiffs" in a green way: free high-end lifetime gpu's without any further claim if something is wrong further on...peanuts for them

 

[HumanSmoke]

I'm just wondering how many people caught that. I LOL'd.

Yes, truly a mind Bender.

 

[Xzibit]

Resounding Yes. Louder than the loudest yes to ever come out of a bedroom.

Your spending way too much time over at B**z**r doing "research".

 

[Arctucas]

Even if nVIDIA were to lose the case, they will merely increase the price of next years cards a few dollars each and make it back in no time.

Now, if there were to be an actual punishment for the alleged misdeeds, one could imagine that being prohibited from selling their product in any number of lucrative markets for any number of months (or years) would be much more effective.

No, any monetary fines will not dissuade nVIDIA in the least, they will simply make it up on the back end (that means we consumer's pay for it).

 

[rtwjunkie]

Maybe not. Most large corporations have funds set aside for litigations and settlements as part of their operating reserve.

 

[mouacyk]

Maybe not. Most large corporations have funds set aside for litigations and settlements as part of their operating reserve.

Hmm... the more reason to take a bite out of it. Should make the corporations think twice about why they really need it in the first place.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Maybe not. Most large corporations have funds set aside for litigations and settlements as part of their operating reserve.

Aye, and actual costs to the company are usually mitigated by tax claims for write-off's. The company has $US4.6 billion in on-hand cash and short term securities so I doubt they'd need to hike prices to avoid having to eat at a soup kitchen.