Sunday, February 22nd 2015
Class Action Lawsuit Filed against NVIDIA over GTX 970 Memory Issue
We haven't heard the last of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 970 memory allocation controversy, not by a long shot. Owners of the card, after having compiled technical information and details over weeks, filed a class-action lawsuit in a US Court (District Court for the Northern District of California). The lawsuit, titled "Andrew Ostrowsky (and others in similar situation) vs. NVIDIA Corporation and GIGABYTE Global Business Corporation," accuses the defendants of unfair, unlawful, and deceptive business practices, in three separate charges, and misleading advertising, demanding for Jury Trial.
The lawsuit goes on to read that the amount in controversy exceeds US $5 million, and encompasses over 100 Class members, meeting the minimal diversity clause, with the plantiff and numerous Class members being citizens of different states than the defendants. The lawsuit accuses the defendants of misleading buyers of the GeForce GTX 970 graphics cards with memory amount (being 3.5 GB with a 0.5 GB "spillover," and not the advertised 4 GB), ROP count being 56 and not 64 (as communicated to the media at launch, and to buyers through them); and L2 cache amount being 1.75 MB and not 2 MB. If you are eligible to be a Class member, find details of the law firms involved in the lawsuit document.
The lawsuit goes on to read that the amount in controversy exceeds US $5 million, and encompasses over 100 Class members, meeting the minimal diversity clause, with the plantiff and numerous Class members being citizens of different states than the defendants. The lawsuit accuses the defendants of misleading buyers of the GeForce GTX 970 graphics cards with memory amount (being 3.5 GB with a 0.5 GB "spillover," and not the advertised 4 GB), ROP count being 56 and not 64 (as communicated to the media at launch, and to buyers through them); and L2 cache amount being 1.75 MB and not 2 MB. If you are eligible to be a Class member, find details of the law firms involved in the lawsuit document.
63 Comments on Class Action Lawsuit Filed against NVIDIA over GTX 970 Memory Issue
Nobody thinks that they will do the same to us with the next generation TITAN X. Failure cut processor :mad:-tresh chip:banghead: (Not only the 3000 in processors chip !):twitch:
for max payment in Double of RAM will not be free but for double the price.!:shadedshu::wtf:
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 !o_O
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 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.
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.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.
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.
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.
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.
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).