NVIDIA have been hit with a class action suit over the GTX 970.

[LAwLz]

I'm in a fucking horrible mood so just reading some of the comments fucking frustrated me.

How can people say they didn't lie? Wtf. Since you guys keep saying everyone's analogy is bad here's one. I sell you a camera with all the bells and whistles and the perf of it is great. Good autofocus good low light perf and support for the fastest sd cards on the market. However later you can only use the SD cards to 87.5% capacity before it starts locking up. You confront me and I tell you its working as intended. NOW DID I LIE OR WAS IT A MISCOMMUNICATION.

Edit : I DON'T own a 970, but have no sort of bias against NVIDIA (almost recommended a friend to get one) About the lawsuit I'm kinda glad? I mean the stupid lawyers win, but if it might prevent such practices again from happening. Also it might generate some form of action on the side of NVIDIA.

What I do take offence is at the people who just gladly soak this crap NVIDIA just did to them/others. Yes companies lie to us, but its also because of inaction like this that they do.

That's not a great analogy but let's go with it for now.

Did the camera manufacturer ever tell you that the camera supports the capacity you put into it (so the product page doesn't claim up to 64GB and you used a 128GB card)? If they specifically claimed to do so on their website, at full speed, then it's a lie. If they didn't claim to support it then it's not a lie. If they just claim "support the latest UHS class 3 standard" and it works fine with everything up to 64GB, but when you put a 128GB card into it everything above 65GB is slow then that's perfectly reasonable and does not deserve a lawsuit.

Want a better analogy? SSDs and eMMCs. Did you know that if you fill your SSD up to over ~80% the performance of it will go down?

With more spare area, write amplification is lower. The controller has more room and thus flexibility with running its defragmentation and garbage collection algorithms. The dreaded read-modify-write scenario is triggered less frequently as there's less space pressure thanks to additional spare area. If you're testing in a full-drive scenario, there's simply less data to keep track of when you've got more NAND set aside as spare area. This keeps internal data structure footprints smaller by default, which also improves performance.

It's because of this relationship between write amplification and spare area that we've always recommended setting aside 10 - 20% of your SSD and not filling it up entirely.

I ran the most data on Samsung's SSD 840 Pro as it's likely going to be the most popular of the drives here. If you click through the various simulated capacities/spare area points you'll see the drive's performance consistency improves tremendously once you hit 25% spare area. The drive's IO consistency goes from a spread out mess to something that resembles a thickly painted line across the graph. At 50% spare area, the 840 Pro begins to lose that initial performance cliff and instead develops a much flatter curve. Compared to the S3700 there's still some obvious variation in IO latency (and thus performance) but it's far more controlled than in the default configuration.

I want to see what @Trik'Stari, @zappian and everyone else with the pitchforks thinks of this because it is exactly the same scenario.

One speed is advertised and one capacity is advertised. The more of the capacity you use, the lower speed you get. The same is true for hard drive speeds as well. The data written near the center of the disk is far slower than the area near the edge.

It's not just Samsung that is affected by this either, it's every single SSD and eMMC.

[marldorthegreat]

I feel the one against Nvidia is warranted, but the one against Gigabyte? Why?

Gigabyte did the same thing.

[jaggysnake57]

I know plenty of people who don't buy based on benchmarks. Frankly that's a bad way to buy things. Hell, i've heard hundreds of people always complaining on youtube videos and forums etc.. saying "well you can't believe this or that because it's a synthetic benchmark it has nothing to do with real performance"  and they're right. How well a card performas on firestrike means nothing in terms of actual fps and overall quality/speed of a card. For example, a GTX 980 and TITAN BLACK are almost equal in many games as far as overall fps, with the 980 getting roughly 4-5 fps more in a good amount of games, but in just as many it only pulls ahead by 1-2 or even loses by 1-2 sometimes. But in 3dmark testing the 980 tears the TITAN apart due to the maxwell architecture doing better in benchmarks. Therefore it isn't an accurate gauge of actual performance.

i got this far then stopped as your talking out your arse. if your not looking at benchmarks, which will be in both synthetic and game based, when buying your GFX...your an idiot.  end of 

 

oh and that page you linked to is hialrious

 

 

Nvidia admits the GTX 970 does not contain the same VRAM, ROPs, and L2 cache capacity as advertised.

 

nvidia have never said that vram capacity was lower than 4gb...

[Puddleuk]

Right, I don't usually get involved with this but I thought I'de share some thoughts and observations.

 

Firstly I agree with users who say the 970 technically has 4GB of VRAM and that for that spec they didn't lie (technically). But at the same the ROP and L2 cache was incorrect at the products launch and as far as i'm aware has not been corrected in the newer packaging coming out of the factories (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

So in that regard Nvidia is guilty of misinformation, misspelling, miscommunication or possible false advertisement. So anyone who purchased the card before that information was/is corrected was mis-sold the product, there is no question about that in my regard.

 

Secondly I'm sick of some users pretending that Nvidia did absolutely nothing wrong, they most definitely 100% made a cock-up of the ROP and L2 cache and now they are paying for it, that information cannot be denied or ignored.

 

Thirdly please stop just saying "well it performs just like the benchmarks" or "it still performs great". No one is saying the card and its benchmarks are not great. The main focus is on the advertised information on the packaging and Nvidia websites. Actual card performance is irrelevant.

 

 

My 2 cents just by looking at the presented facts I've observed.

[Nup]

Yeah, in fairness i thought it would have happened sooner. Poor ol gigabyte though. 

[DarkIdeals]

On the Gigabyte's G1 970 box on the back bottom in the middle under the system requirements and warning in regards to how to properly handle the product in plain text it says and I quote, "specifications and pictures are subject to change without notice." I won't pretend to have a degree in law but to my understanding with that on the box means that Gigabyte can not be held accountable for the specifications of the product. Now you don't sign anything and as far as I know there is no acceptance clause by opening and using the product. That's not to say Nvidia can't be held accountable for false advertising but vendors have this statement on their boxes for this very reason.

That still doesn't exempt them from state and federal law, in parts of europe retailers and some resellers like asus, msi etc.. have been forced to accept refunds due to the laws in those places. For example, when i sell something on ebay and put "no returns" it doesn't mean squat because ebay legally gives the buyer 45 days of protection. Or another example, if a company says that their specifications are subject to change on say...medication, and then add a preservative to make it last longer that people are allergic to and don't post that it has that on it, if they try to say "well we said it was subject to change" when a man that had to have his throat cut open to keep from suffocating from anaphylactic shock suffering permanent damage takes them to court the jury and judge would laugh them out of court because they are responsible. "subject to change" is something that means it may change in the future as well, not the current state of things. But regardless, even if that is true, just having the reseller companies names on the list will put pressure on nvidia because once they face the risk of losing profit they'll turn on nvidia and say "hey this is your doing, help us here" if you see what i mean. I see your point though, but i'm not so sure i agree completely.

i got this far then stopped as your talking out your arse. if your not looking at benchmarks, which will be in both synthetic and game based, when buying your GFX...your an idiot. end of

oh and that page you linked to is hialrious

nvidia have never said that vram capacity was lower than 4gb...

Speaking of talking out of your arse, you either didn't read a word i said or aren't capable of comprehending it because you're straight up misrepresenting what i said. Where the hell did i say i don't "look at" benchmarks? huh? I said that benchmarks alone are not an accurate measurement of a graphic cards performance, as synthetics can be horrendously innacurate, and in-game benchmarks are run on a completely different system than what you most likely have; a different cpu, different ram, possibly a different model of the gpu you have, different operating system, different cooling and airflow creating temperature disparity etc... etc.. etc.. which is why you can go look at a test from guru3d and then watch a linustechtip video and it'll be up to 5-10fps difference sometimes, or even more in some cases.

You have an odd sense of humor, don't know what to say to something so odd honestly.

I never said that nvidia claimed vram was below 4gb, i said that nvidia admitted that it doesn't have 4gb of "GDDR5" vram, it also doesn't have the 223gb/s speed we were promised, the 3.5gb chunk only has 192gb/s and hte 524mb chunk that most programs can't even use operates at under 50gb/s, specifically about 30gb/s. Then they admitted that the 970 only has 56 ROPs instead of 64 like promised, and that it only has 1792kb of L2 cache insteade of 2048kb like promised.

Yeah, in fairness i thought it would have happened sooner. Poor ol gigabyte though.

Gigabyte isn't being singled out, you see. they were just the first one included since the card i bought was the gigabyte model. So someone else would have to be plaintiff that bought an asus, msi, zotac etc.. in order for them to be put on the list, which i imagine will happen eventually. And in the end gigabyte and other companies if they get dragged in will likely just jump on nvidia and possibly throw them to the wolves in exchange for being let out of the suit. (just a guess of course)

[Nup]

Gigabyte isn't being singled out, you see. they were just the first one included since the card i bought was the gigabyte model. So someone else would have to be plaintiff that bought an asus, msi, zotac etc.. in order for them to be put on the list, which i imagine will happen eventually. And in the end gigabyte and other companies if they get dragged in will likely just jump on nvidia and possibly throw them to the wolves in exchange for being let out of the suit. (just a guess of course)

 

That would be an interesting turn of events!

 

although I wish they were left out of it entirely. 

[FakezZ]

I feel the one against Nvidia is warranted, but the one against Gigabyte? Why?

Yeah like the only 970s out there are GigaByte ones... Such stupidity in this world.

[DarkIdeals]

Yeah like the only 970s out there are GigaByte ones... Such stupidity in this world.

Yeah ikr, not even reading the post right above them that explains it, or the 2 others that mention it on the last page. *sarcasm meter: critical mass*

[flibberdipper]

Yeah like the only 970s out there are GigaByte ones... Such stupidity in this world.

The other manufacturers pulled the cards?

 

 

Yeah like the only 970s out there are GigaByte ones... Such stupidity in this world.

 

Yeah ikr, not even reading the post right above them that explains it, or the 2 others that mention it on the last page. *sarcasm meter: critical mass*

 

Please, let me jump off a bridge for not having the opportunity to read other users' posts due to my opening the topic before others could even post.  <_<

[Xsinar]

So when are they going to sue HDD and SSD manufactures (1TB HDD is not acually 1TB). I also don't get why they are suing gigabyte, what did they do that is so horrendous?

[HippY]

just looking at some conformation, I do not want to read all the 11 pages:

 

is it shitloads of pages of "Nvidia give us wrong specs,*insert wrong analogy here*" and "I dont care, I can game, I can be lied to but I want to game"?

 

if yes, I do not want to read these pages as I already quite a few of them

[NumLock21]

gtx 970 has 4gb that is 3.5 + .5gb. They had to show the l2 cache and rop to show why the card vram was designed like that or why it performs this way. Now consumers have other things to pick on.

[Suika]

Can I sue AMD for the R9 295X2 yet?

[bogus]

Finally, and hopefully this wont be a single lawsuit on this shamefull display of arrogance.

To the souls supporting NVIDIA on this, I feel sorry for you - NVIDIA is taking you for granted, you are indeed granted even after they sold you something you didn't pay for.

[Shahnewaz]

Finally, and hopefully this wont be a single lawsuit on this shamefull display of arrogance.

To the souls supporting NVIDIA on this, I feel sorry for you - NVIDIA is taking you for granted, you are indeed granted even after they sold you something you didn't pay for.

OT

Can you read my PM? Thanks.

/OT

[Shahnewaz]

Aren't they already fighting lawsuits against Samsung and Qualcomm? And then this over that?

GG nVidia.

[Lewellyn]

The ONLY people bitching and moaning are obviously AMD. Frankly only people who bought the 970 should be the ones commenting, because there's no need for them to justify their purchasing decisions to anyone else.

[Guest Kloaked]

The ONLY people bitching and moaning are obviously AMD. Frankly only people who bought the 970 should be the ones commenting, because there's no need for them to justify their purchasing decisions to anyone else.

You should actually reply to someone and stay objective instead of going off on a sarcastic tangent.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

Well then... talk about beating a dead horse!

Considering that this thread devolved into the usual 970 back-and-forth bickering in almost no time at all, this thread frankly should have been merged with the primary 970 discussion thread. @Blade of Grass, we kindly ask of your assistance here.

[Lewellyn]

You should actually reply to someone and stay objective instead of going off on a sarcastic tangent.

 

What do you mean sarcastic? The card has 4GB and the lawsuit will fail because the lawyers don't know how specifications work. AMD users seem to be the majority of the people making a ruckus, that's why only 970 users should really be commenting. Doesn't mean they can't, but they probably shouldn't be too concerned.

[Shahnewaz]

What do you mean sarcastic? The card has 4GB and the lawsuit will fail because the lawyers don't know how specifications work. AMD users seem to be the majority of the people making a ruckus, that's why only 970 users should really be commenting. Doesn't mean they can't, but they probably shouldn't be too concerned.

Wait and see, ok? Don't jump onto conclusions yet.

About the useless bickering, there is nothing much you can do unless the mods step up their game.

After all, there is no harm to the customers by a lawsuit, so people should stop arguing how it benefits anybody (oh wait, it's LTT forums; nevermind). The main purpose of the lawsuit is to teach NV a lesson (or so it seems).

[Guest Kloaked]

What do you mean sarcastic? The card has 4GB and the lawsuit will fail because the lawyers don't know how specifications work. AMD users seem to be the majority of the people making a ruckus, that's why only 970 users should really be commenting. Doesn't mean they can't, but they probably shouldn't be too concerned.

Not sure if serious.

The last time this fiasco was brought up you were talking as if Nvidia was literally Satan.

So, are you being sarcastic or not? It sounds like you are.

[Lewellyn]

Not sure if serious.

The last time this fiasco was brought up you were taking as if Nvidia was literally Satan.

So, are you being sarcastic or not? It sounds like you are.

 

Don't think I had ever said anything to the liking of nvidia being devil spawn, but maybe if you skipped over what I actually said.

 

Sarcasm? No, I'd call it mosaic plagiarism. Any class action lawsuit is truly pointless and only serves to benefit the lawyers. The only possible benefit would be more scrutiny over marketing.

[Misanthrope]

Did Nvidia actually do anything illegal. I mean there was actually 4GB on the card you know. It's just 0.5GB of that 4GB was slower then the rest. It's like sueing AMD and Nvidia for saying there is 8GB on a dual GPU card when you can only use 4GB of that memory.

Pay close attention to the quote, in this cases the marketing crap we usually skip over its VERY important

Nvidia markets the chip as having 4GB of performance-boosting video RAM, but some users have complained the chip falters after using 3.5GB of that allocation

That part about the performance-boosting which is usually something you ignore could tip the scale against them since yes it has 4gb but we know that 0.5 does not boosts performance.

Again I'm not starting a big thing here again (You all probably read my sentiments on this: a lie by omission it's still a lie) but if we focus on this type of claims then yes there is a legal case here. Granted there's almost always a legal case (The idiots who where selling the 1k cable for audio come to mind) but on the contrary, I think that even if lost it could end up impacting and reducing the practice of stupid claims and marketing words on products which to me it's positive.