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Graphics card manufacturer Nvidia agreed to a preliminary settlement that will resolve claims in a group of proposed class action lawsuits that center around allegations that the company misled consumers about the performance and storage capabilities of its product.
Nvidia says it will pay each buyer of the graphics card $30 and will pay an additional $1.3 million in attorneys’ fees, according to settlement documents.
The overall settlement amount was not publicly disclosed within court papers, however Nvidia agreed to pay all consumers who purchased the GTX 970 graphics card and indicated there would not be a cap on the total amount it would pay consumers.
“The settlement is fair and reasonable and falls within the range of possible approval,” attorneys for the proposed Class said in the filing. “It is the product of extended arms-length negotiations between experienced attorneys familiar with the legal and factual issues of this case and all settlement class members are treated fairly under the terms of the settlement.”
The initial proposed class action lawsuit in a series of lawsuits against Nvidia was filed in February 2015 and alleged that the company engaged in false advertising, deceptive business practice, unlawful is practices and violated California’s business law for unfair business practices.
The initial claim accused Nvidia of having a graphics card that operated on 3.5 GB but was advertised as operating with a full 4 GB of video access memory, plus another .5 GB that was separated from the rest of the memory.
Another proposed class action lawsuit in the series was filed the following month and also alleged similar claims about the gigabyte amounts and separation, saying the product was falsely advertised and negligently represented.
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.
The consumers claimed that overall, Nvidia omitted information that was important for buyers to understand as they made their purchases, causing potential Class Members to purchase products with lower functionality and capabilities than what was advertised.
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.
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.
Instructions on how to file a claim for the Nvidia class action settlement were not immediately available. Keep checking TopClassActions.com or sign up for our free newsletter for the latest updates. You can also “Follow” this case using your free Top Class Actions account to receive notifications when this article is updated.
The consumers are represented by Alan M. Mansfield of Whatley Kallas LLP and L. Timothy Fisher and Neal J. Deckant of Bursor & Fisher LLP.
The Nvidia Graphics Card False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is In re: Nvidia GTX 970 Graphics Chip Litigation, Case No. 4:15-cv-00760, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
UPDATE: The Nvidia GTX 970 graphics card class action settlement is now open! Click here to file a claim!
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74 thoughts onNvidia Settles Graphics Card False Advertising Class Action
Yes! The lawyers are Vindicated and get their 1.3 million! Yea! Oh and also consumers get two free pizzas worth of compensation, good job.
dude, free pizza tho!
Who wrote this article? As another comment pointed out: “accused Nvidia of having 64 render output processors rather than the 56 that were advertised”
Swap those numbers, 64 was the advertised amount but the cards had 56.
And “Graphics card manufacturer Nvidia agreed to a preliminary settlement that will resolve claims in a group of proposed class action lawsuits that center around allegations that the company misled consumers about the performance and storage capabilities of its product.”…. storage? You mean memory? The equivalent to: ‘yeah my computer has 2TB worth of memory’, ‘no way dude! mine only can store 16gb’ *facepalm*
Nvidia encouraged people to buy as many as three cards per computer. I bought multiple cards, do I only get thirty bucks?
Is this going to be in the EU too? Because topclassactions.com is not available in the EU.
Well it said “All consumers who purchased a GTX 970” so i would hope so, either way European classaction lawsuits has this lawsuit to go by, and Nvidia can’t go and sell a false product in USA and also Europe and then only pay the Americans.
So lets see where it leads to.
well if nobody sued in the EU they are not forced by law to pay up.
Class Action Lawsuits aren’t really a thing in the EU; if I understand it correctly, people have to actively join them rather than get added automatically.
The court papers say United States specifically.
They will get this money right back when I turn around and buy a 1070. Bye does the 1070 really have 8gb or is it 7.5gb?? ;)
It would be 6/8 GB
Surely it would be 7/8 GB
yes
I guess they did not procrastinate long. Talking about procrastination, I’ve been struggling with mine for the last 10 years and read countless books and self help methods. Here is what I’m having best results with. First of all, procrastination bulldozer method has worked wonders for me. I highly recommend you apply it. Secondly, whenever you have a task that takes less than 5 minutes to do, do it right away. No delays. I’m really starting to take control of my life now.
Talking about disconnected….!
lol
Her brain was procrastinating. Her fingers were way ahead of her brain.
Oh.
Will us Canadians who were taken in by their 4gb claim be able to claim this 30 dollars?
“Nvidia says it will pay each buyer of the graphics card $30”
More like $60 for us Canadians at the current exchange rate amiright?
$2.5 million in a few months, you should wait to file a claim.
“accused Nvidia of having 64 render output processors rather than the 56 that were advertised”
Swap those numbers, 64 was the advertised amount but the cards had 56.
i want my 30 euro back , how we can reclame them and who are going to pay us back?
This was an law suit in the U.S. I doubt it has any relevance to European countries.
European purchases from Amazon, and NewEgg (amongst other retailers), are being given a 20% refund on their PURCHASE price. However it’s only paid out when customers ask for it.
I knew full well that it had “only” 3.5gb when I got it. It is STILL a great deal for the price I paid. I don’t feel like I need the cash. The card has been everything I was looking for and more. Rock solid, stable, powerful.
but free money
You seem a little angry.
I am happy with mine as well and I didn’t know about the 3.5gb issue, but $30 is $30.
“We won’t let this happen again. We’ll do a better job next time.
Jen-Hsun”
This will milk that much back with upcoming GTX series, maybe they already are with FE.
Just so everyone knows; the false advertisement here isn’t about “970 only has 3.5GB” – the lawsuit attempts to say the 512MB is not “GDDR5”, however that’s simply not true, it is GDDR5 memory, just that Nvidia sliced off the L2 cache to 512MB of that (which is part of what makes a 970 a 970, rather than a 980). It’s akin to plugging your system memory in a configuration that does not take advantage of DDR transfer; your memory isn’t suddenly no longer DDR (the label on the box will still call it DDR4 memory).
The real false-advertisement and the case that Nvidia loses this on is the advertised number of ROPs and the total L2 cache size, which was revealed when Nvidia attempted to explain why their 4GB of memory had a slower 512MB section.
The ROPs were spec’d at 64 but are in reality 56 and the L2 cache capacity was spec’d at 2048KB but in reality is 1792KB.
hate to tell you, but slicing off l2 cache makes it no longer ddr5, as they no longer meet the specifications of it. Its like saying a v8 is still a v8 when there are no spark plugs, or fuel lines going to 2 of the pistons. If i sold that as a v8 without mentioning this, it would be misleading.
$1.3 million in attorneys’ fees, according to settlement documents….. The real winners are the attorneys and NVidia who despites that settlement has already raked in hundreds of millions no doubt from their false advertising . The consumer, the working guy who saved up for the video card lost… TRUMP 2016
Serious question
How?
If a only a few percent of 970 buyers claim the payout, the amount Nvidia has to pay will dwarf the lawyers fees. Less than 44,000 people have to make a claim for the payouts to exceed the lawyers’ fees, and MILLIONS of GTX 970s were sold.
Also, it’s not as if the GTX 970 is a poor product which offers a bad value proposition. Nvidia did mislead their customers and should absolutely be held to account for their deceptive marketing, but it’s not a scam on the level of, say, Trump University.
Be right back guys, deleting my emails like a Clinton supporter.
Clinton’s E-mails didn’t bilk people of of tens of thousands of dollars, It sounds like it is time to indict Donald Trump of “Thrift by deception” and “Mail fraud”. far worst then having e-mails coming up missing.
Wait, deleting emails meant people were swindled of their money? I’m confused. Oh never mind, no confusion, that’s because there is no relevance in your reply.
It’s sad that you honestly believe that Trump will fix this. I hope your ‘entitled’ life turns out to be everything you hoped you would get without having to work for it.
well i bought it before i knew it only had 3.5gb and when i heard of it i felt ripped off and playing skyrim with a shit ton of mods the performance drops off
Heart touching?
I used it for rendering, and can assure you it has 4GB.
It doesn’t. It has 3.5 GB of usable VRAM.