Feel free to go to a website called google and lookup the Bulldozer lawsuit. Before you attack someone you should at least know what you are talking about.
The bulldozer lawsuit is stupid. Sharing a FP unit is certainly unconventional, but traditional x86 CPUs didn't even HAVE floating point units. I'm not sure if there's anything else they're complaining about, but that's all i remember from when I originally read about it.
In order to go back to x86 CPUs that don't have a FP unit, you have to go back to the 386, or maybe the 486SX, which had the FP unit disabled. You're stretching.
EVERY x86-64 CPU ever made except bulldozer, has an FP unit per core.
That means nothing. AMD gave right specifications of the architecture so you know what you were buying. BTW I find really stupid for users to make lawsuit for architectural specifications of consumer products. You buy the performances, not how they are obtained. It would have been better to make lawsuits for more real things, like crossfire performances (and stuttering) as these are things users do not expect when buying dual GPU cards advertised as having double performances than single ones that in reality only works on picked up games.
Later 486SXes were actually fabbed without an FPU.
NexGen Nx586 didn't have a FPU until the very last models that shipped right before AMD bought NexGen (for the Nx686, which got rebranded as the AMD K6).
DM&P Vortex86SX is a much later embedded CPU, loosely based on the Rise mP6, with no FPU. (They only claim 486SX compatibility, although IIRC it has all the Pentium instructions except the FPU ones.)
Also, while not x86-64, UltraSPARC T1 was a 64-bit CPU that had one FPU shared across all eight cores. (Yes, it hurt performance incredibly badly, but...) And, ARM Cortex-A35 is an ARMv8 64-bit CPU that can be configured in an FPU-less configuration, I think (I don't see a dedicated VFP unit in the block diagrams, so they're probably just ramming VFP code through the NEON unit, which is optional).
Yes because blowing up a motherboard from a major voltage fail is a lot less an issue to users than .5GB not being directly accessible. You AMD fangirls are a laugh a minute.
Funny thing with that, everyone who got lied to has or had a card that wasn't what they thought they were buying. The set of people who had their motherboards go pop is vastly smaller, although they should be getting a much better settlement per person.
What's with pro-NV posters and not being able to make a proper comparison.
I actually hasn't seen any! There was a comment by someone using a riser for their card for bitmining but his setup was very nusual if not nonsensical. Would be interesting if anyone can provide a creditable link.
For my part I was buying a card based on it's performance numbers. It performed just as the reviews said it does and for the price I was willing to pay.
I still wonder, has there been ANY SINGLE motherboard killed by the 480 before the driver update? Lets remember that Nvidia had 2 series of drivers that actually burned A TON OF CARDS.
How not? They put a PCIe compliant stick on the box while the product inside is not. They are just selling junk with a industry recognized stick telling it is not. They lied on the tests of conformity. Or they even didn't perform them at all. Either way, it is a junk product.
Good thing I checked back. I just so happen to own a GTX 970. It's a blatant marketing lie. I'm still pissed. I own AMD and Intel and Nvidia. I'm no fanboy. I buy what is best for me.
That's from Amazon retail side. This article is about the $30 compensation from nVidia. From what I heard though, this kind of settlement usually takes very long time to reach the consumers.
California's court system would have jurisdiction over the United Kingdom if its judges could access the last 512MB of their authority in the same manner they could with the first 3.5GB.
I hope this settles the "was it false advertising" debate. The card performed as advertised, but didn't have the specs as advertised. We have seen this in the automotive sector quite a bit, previously over HP numbers and more recently over MPG. I would hate to see what the lawyers' cut was on this, but if it helps to keep marketing departments honest then it's a good thing.
Nvidia only after whole debacle released drivers that disabled last 0,5 GB segment of ram for the games that did not needed them (but took account from any available RAM to speed things up).
So Nvidia claimed they will have 4GB of XYZ Hz RAM. They did not had them.
False advertisement.
And if gpu lived up to Nvidia provided benchmarks... It was only because Nvidia did not provided any benchmarks that actually used 4th GB of ram.
* I say 4th because of game used over 3,5GB actually it was 2 last 0,5GB segments of RAM that where slow as they shared the bus in that situation and got 50% of the bandwidth in pessimistic scenario - hence disabling it was actually preferable in some games to just setting is as "slow" buffer.
If you research tech websites dating back to January 2014 when the issue was first reported, you'll see that most of them had to work REAL HARD to find a combination of settings in games to "break" the card. It took specific settings in specific games that few users used. This is why most 970 users never even knew there was a problem with the card until it was reported, and only then did everyone throw their arms up (I was one of them originally).
However, after all the dust settled, it was never a big issue for 99% of the users. None of my games came even close to hitting 3.5GB VRAM allocation at 1440p (allocation only and not even actual use which is almost always lower). There's a reason the 970 is one of Nvidia's top selling GPUs of all time and to this day the most popular GPU used for Steam PC gamers.
The GPU *HAS* 4GB GDDR5 VRAM. FACT. The issue is Nvidia failed to disclose HOW that last .5GB was actually used. That's what this lawsuit is based on...NOT that it did NOT have 4GB which it DOES. Defense lawyers love witnesses like you!
The card shipped with 4GB of physical RAM. There isn't any indication anywhere, on any video product ever sold, that all the memory is addressable.
At the end of the day the card remained the best value, and the Maxwell texture compression engine more than made up for lacking 512MB of RAM. The high resolutions that would have utilized that much memory wouldn't run on the GPU anyway because at that point there were GPU limited before memory limited.
The only people that really got screwed by this are potential SLI adopters, and thus they are the only ones who should be eligible for credit.
They also chopped off and did not advertise the L2/ROPs. I'm not sure if the lawsuit was only focused on the RAM, but as far as I'm concerned, selling 56 ROPs and 1.75MB of L2 while advertising 64/2 isn't cool.
Doesn't change the fact that the 970 is a great card, but I think there was some shady "I hope they don't notice" going on.
I don't care if it only applies in certain situations. I want to know about possible limitations like this before making a buying decision. Not after. Ever.
Drive manufacturers claimed their drives would give me X TB of space, but I ended up with less than that according to Windows.
AMD was telling me 8 cores is better with Bulldozer, but I never really saw that.
Intel and AMD both tell me I can get up to X GHz speed on their processors, but I never seemed to get there.
The RAM I bought was advertised as DDR4-2666 and the motherboard I bought said it would support it, but every time I enable it, the system doesn't boot and I have to live with DDR4-2166 speeds.
I don't seem to be getting the 1.3Gbps on my 802.11ac router even if I'm right next to it.
My ISP claimed I can get 24Mbps down, but I never seem to get more than 16.
There are plenty of half-truths and claims that tech companies make. Maybe I should take on the tech world.
Your comparison is stupid. The drives are actually X TB space, the format mode changes it according to the specifications of said format. That is not the problem of the manufacturers. And almost every drive I've bought in the past 10 years, had both of them on display (capacities in their bags, formatted and unformated.)
AMD and INTEL always said a specified speed for their processors, if it didnt have it.. then the chip was to be replaced or damaged. unless you're really dumb trying to bring overclocking OR turbo modes. The ram stuff is motherboard issue, not ram issue. again, stupid comparison. Your ISP pretty much hides behind the "up to" clause. Which means your line will max at 24mbps. Not that it will offer you 24mbps all the time 24/7 and under all circumstances/connections. NEXT?
I suppose Hypertreading was false advertisement considering your dumb comparison.
The $30 settlement “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.”
GTX 970 owners are basically getting a discount based on the reduction in available high-bandwidth memory and ROP count. Not shabby at all.
I know I'm in the minority here, but the 970 is really a defective 980 being resold partially disabled. I know it's priced lower for those on a budget, but it's hard for me to empathize with those that are annoyed that their crippled product underperforms. For me, it's a fully enabled product or bust. Upgrading my 580 to a 1080 this year. Would never touch a 970 or a 1070.
I will happily buy an x80 model if you pay the difference otherwise I will stick with my x70 series that cost much less and have performance within 10-20%. Best value is rarely the top model but often the one right below it.
People know that it was a slightly disabled 980. The issue is that the impact of the disabling was not clearly illustrated by the specifications NV claimed it had. They claimed a specific memory bandwidth which was not actually available to all of the RAM. Therefore performance was not necessarily going to be as expected and the card was mis-sold.
People knew that ROPs and SMs were disabled, and there is no issue with any of that.
Also you are an idiot. If you can't empathise with people who were sold a partially disabled product which was actually more disabled than claimed because it has a level of disablement anyway, then... yeah...
I like how you wove your comment about this article into a reason to brag about how much you're willing to spend on a graphics card. However, if you were truly among the social elite, you'd not be grubbing around with only a single 1080 like all the other peons. Instead, you'd wave your noble e-peen flag under the shadow of a pair of Titans. By failing to do so, you clearly show us all that you're as un-fully enabled as all the 1070 owners out there. Now get thee back into your parents' basement and work harder at developing a RSI before your 12th birthday.
Cute. I wrote that I still have a 580. Buying a 1080 when they're back in stock.
I make 6 figures, own a half-million dollar house, have a wife and kid, and I'm only in my thirties. How's that for elitism? You must be one of those that believes you're entitled to a supercomputer on a cheap. STFU.
In your response, you attempted to weave in your social status and family situation as brag-worthy. Do you really not have any ability to see yourself from outside your own box?
Your definition of "social elite" is perplexing; as you've stated that owning a pair of Titans makes one "social". No. Going out, meeting people in person, making a family, THAT is being "social".
BTW, I didn't attempt, I SUCCEEDED at making my situation brag-worthy. Time to get away from the computer, I've got a life worth living.
Oh dear. We've got a live one here. Quick, give him a trophy it might distract him long enough, so that we might have an interesting conversation about interesting things.. Like video cards, or how amazing Eidigean is with his stuff and things.
I don't think you're quite as successful and/or happy as you purportedly say you are.
I'd believe that if you were as successful and happy with your life, I don't think you'd be flaunting that to other people online. There's going to be at least one person better off than you are, and at least one person worse off than you are. If I found a $5 bill today, I wouldn't flaunt about it online, as chances are, there's someone who found a $10 or $20 bill today. If I found $20, then there's someone who found a $50 or $100.
I guarantee you there's someone online making 7 figures, owns a multi-million dollar house, and has potentially multiples wives and children, and may only be in their twenties.
The thing is though, he doesn't need to care whether or not there are people better off than he is for the purposes of his bragging. He only needs to believe that the people he is bragging to are worse off than he is, for him to believe that is bragging will have the intended effect.
Apparently he does believe that the other people reading this thread will think that earning 6 figures in your 30's is brag-worthy. Which is kind of cute in its own way I suppose.
The reason is that I want a chip that's free of defects. For instance, the GTX 1070 is a defective 1080 that is partially disabled. To entice folks to buy the defective chip, NVIDIA sells it at a discount, and use cheaper, less performant RAM to lower the price further; so that they can get a return on their money.
Back to your CPU analogy, any Skylake CPU that's slower than an i7-6700 @ 4.0 GHz is a chip that failed to meet Quality Control standards. It may function at slower speeds, perhaps at a higher voltage, but only because the tolerances during manufacturing were out of spec. If the chip cannot reliably support hyper threading, then the i7 is sold as an i5. All defects that I try to avoid.
Memory chips work the same way. Take DDR3 for instance. One can find chips that work at 1.5 volts and some that only work at 1.65 volts. Both may have the same CAS latency timings, and are the same design, but the 1.65v chips required that extra push to function within spec. They'll run hotter, and burn out sooner, and so are sold at a lower price. The 1.5v chips sold at a premium because they were defect free.
Why are you so hung up on the notion of "defect free"? What damn bit of difference would it make if the GTX1070 had 1920 physical processors, versus 2560 where 1920 are active??? You would never know the difference!
You probably don't realize that virtually all DRAM has defective bits, and the only way to get any yield is by having redundant banks of cells that are used to supplement bad cells in the main banks.
We've come full circle. Those with the 970 played that game, and received a product that was defective in other, undisclosed ways, and did notice. I personally don't want the hassle in my purchases.
"hassle"? The 970 has had probably THE BEST performance/price/power of any card on the market for almost 2 years! How is that a hassle? Who cares if it has 3.5GB; it could have 0.1GB for all I care.
Btw you could increase your fps by 60% for almost free, by selling your 580 and getting a 770 on eBay.
That's what it looks like vs. an intentional mislead. It happens more often in industries than people would want to know, when tech report writers (spec sheet editors) get info from engineers and translate it into language we regular people can understand. Most of the time it's caught before the final spec documentation is released. I used to be a technical writer, so I've seen this first hand.
The morons in marketing just didn't understand the architecture.
If you disable 1/8th of the ROPs, you lose 1/8th of the addressable memory. Any remaining memory ends up in another partition.
All they had to do was indicate the card ships with 4GB of PHYSICAL memory but only 3.5GB is addressable. PC manufactures, storage companies and even Microsoft have been careful to define addressable memory since 64-bit was widely adopted, or more specifically, the limitations of a 32-bit environment.
Even after the "issue" was discovered, the 970 wound up being one of Nvidia's top selling GPUs of all time, and it is the most popular card used by Steam PC gamers. A $30 discount for something many never even knew there was an "issue" about, for a GPU that performed at 90% of a 980 for 60% of the cost (now 55% of the cost with this proposed $30 payout) is not bad.
Of course, many 970 owners have already sold their 970s on eBay and whatnot for 1070s, so that $30 in their pocket will make that upgrade purchase a nice little bonus. The bottom line though is Nvidia is forking over many millions in a lessons learned experience to make sure they are 100% accurate in their paper specs.
I believe the GT210 GPU is nVidias top selling GPU in the GeForce lineup since Fermi was introduced. The top shipping performance GPU in recent history was the GTX460.
Last I read, the top selling "GPU" of all time actually goes to the 945G chipset from Intel. The top selling discrete GPU in history for units shipped is hard to narrow down because neither nVidia or AMD release these figures, and neither do their partners, but it's widely believed to be either the G66800 or the Radeon 4870, both of which were incredibly successful and used throughout every tier 1 OEM. Even Dell made a custom GT6600, hundreds of thousands of them.
I always thought the issue was silly. Even if 512 megs was slower, it was still there. Only in about 0.1% of the cases would it have affected performance.
Put a pair in surround or use a game that used all 4 gb and you'd see it real fast. Just because you may not have noticed doesn't make their "mistake" justified. They knew it was wrong and there is no way someone didn't notice the wrong specs before that marketing crap went out. They misrepresented the specs so even if you didn't notice you still deserve the "discount" IMO. They pushed the "marketing" a little too far this time, hopefully they learned a lesson.
I don't get it. Aren't all the benchmarks displaying the GTX970's performance still accurate? Maxwell's compression engine makes having 4GB of VRAM irrelevant, it still performs well at high resolutions and was never meant to be a 4K card, and even with 0.5GB more addressable memory, would it make a difference?
This performance delta needs to be addressed before an accurate award could be issued to those seeking one. NVidia simply needs to demo an engineering sample with all 64 ROPs enabled.
As it is, this is beyond frivolous and opens a whole new category of frivolous litigation against dozens of companies that "don't deliver based on specification" even though the product performs as expected.
It reminds me of people who complained that the Chevy Volt wasn't always 100% battery powered and in certain circumstances, the engine would couple to the drivetrain to add efficiency. People got their panties in a bunch, boo'd, even cancelled preorders and asked for refunds. In the end, after GM showed a whitepaper with the necessary damning statistics that coupling the engine increased reliability, range, performance and even reduced perceived generator noise, everyone had long forgotten about it anyway, that it was, infact, a hybrid vehicle.
"As it is, this is beyond frivolous and opens a whole new category of frivolous litigation against dozens of companies that "don't deliver based on specification" even though the product performs as expected."
"frivolous " ?? really? Yeah it can preform good but it can also stutter like crazy which they didn't show. Bottom line is you can't lie about the specs and specs do matter and they did effect the products performance. Nothing frivolous about it, its about keeping Corroborations honest, COMPLETELY HONEST not half honest. Of course the settlement doesn't even really do that since they can now claim no wrong doing but here's 30 bucks anyways. :)
A big "thank you" to the California court that hit NVIDIA hard.
This is a victory for all consumers all over the world. Disingenuous and dishonest corporations such as NVIDIA should be chased ruthlessly and then mercilessly hit when they dare to con the consumer.
You don't buy a video card for what it has but what it does. If a video card claimed it had 4GiB of memory, but really only had 4MiB, but performed better than 4GiB cards while not negatively impacting my system, I would be excited, not angry. How'd they do that?!
Yeah, makes you wonder if they predicted it, and thats why these are so unbelievably expensive. But as long as people pay it, they deserve all the crap Nvidia does to them.
It's been, what, two years and people still don't understand this issue?
It's not only 3.5GB available. It's 4GB available but the GPU's memory controller has issues addressing the last 512MB x 2 chunk at the same time. Think of how the memory is divvied up like a giant RAID 0 array. It's just that you didn't have enough SATA ports but you can split the last one between two more drives at the cost of a performance hit.
Besides, it was either ship the card with this defect or ship the card with 3GB of RAM. NVIDIA didn't really have much of a positive outlook here to begin with.
Simply not true. When the remaining 512 MB are used, the frames drop, due to the extremely slow connection. Thats why the driver does everything to avoid it, yet it doesnt always work, and then you see massive slowdowns. GTA V up in the hills is a perfect example. It makes the last 512 MB unusable.
Also, that wasnt their only choice. They could have simply labeled it 3.5 GB or even put out a 7 GB version. But they never even allowed that latter options to the resellers. So it was all like they wanted it to be.
Doesn't make sense to award it to everyone. Shouldn't it just be the folks between September (release) and January (acknowledgement?). Folks buying the card in Feb+ onwards knew about the updated specs and still bought it.....
Does this mean I can buy it now and still get the rebate? I see some retailers selling it for <$200...with the rebate I could get it for almost $150 after cashback....very tempting.
From my calculations it looks like owners are getting a 9% discount for a 12.5% reduction in ROPS and memory. They should be getting around $41. But, I guess the lawyers are getting the other $11.
(I don't even know why I am reading this article and comments since I don't even have a gfx card.)
GTX had the same issue back in it's day. It is in some of the old reviews. Stunk even more since the card most came with 2GB memory with only 1.5GB accessible at a useable speed. Nvidia has always been behind the curve when it came to memory. Thank goodness my 1070 comes with 8GB!
Wait if 512MB out of 4GB is worth $30 then that means the entire 4GB must be worth $240!!! Simple math. So the remaining parts of the card, the gpu itself, the pcb, the fan, all the VRMs, caps, connectors, and shrouding, all that stuff must therefore only be worth $90. I love lawyer logic.
I guess I am "entitled" to $30, but I'm not sure if I will bother - mainly because I think this is a load of BS. Wonder how much the lawyers get for every $30 claim filed? I've had no issues with my 970 and strange access to the last .5MB of RAM has not had any real performance impact - just check the benchmarks.
I curious why anybody did same class action in whole eu, im sure that i would be success too.. im envy to all "american fattened pigs" they have always the best prices, sales, debates etc..
I got my Zotac GTX 970 from Amazon within the affected time period. The newly-linked web site (thanks, Ryan) seems to require a claim number in order to file the claim online, but offers no hint as to where that claim number should come from (Amazon? Zotac? Nvidia?). I'd rather not have to print and snail-mail a silly paper claim form...
I hope they pay through the nose for it. Oh, and yeah, AMD should face some lawsuits regarding Bulldozer too. It can't possibly be that you're marketing an 8-core CPU that can only use 4 cores properly at a given time (video rendering is slower on 8 cores than it is on 4 exactly because a core in each module has to wait for the one next to it to do its work). Should've marketed the CPUs as quads + (insert marketing name) from the beginning.
When I purchased my 970 I'd read the reviews, the updates, so knew EXACTLY what I was getting. It never managed to pose any gaming issues at all. Anyway that card is long gone.
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Eden-K121D - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
Ha! They deserved itWreckage - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
AMD is next. Currently for Bulldozer and then for the 480 power issue.Creig - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
Keep dreaming, Wreckage/Prime1.Wreckage - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
Feel free to go to a website called google and lookup the Bulldozer lawsuit. Before you attack someone you should at least know what you are talking about.Drumsticks - Sunday, July 31, 2016 - link
The bulldozer lawsuit is stupid. Sharing a FP unit is certainly unconventional, but traditional x86 CPUs didn't even HAVE floating point units. I'm not sure if there's anything else they're complaining about, but that's all i remember from when I originally read about it.rtho782 - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link
In order to go back to x86 CPUs that don't have a FP unit, you have to go back to the 386, or maybe the 486SX, which had the FP unit disabled. You're stretching.EVERY x86-64 CPU ever made except bulldozer, has an FP unit per core.
CiccioB - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link
That means nothing. AMD gave right specifications of the architecture so you know what you were buying.BTW I find really stupid for users to make lawsuit for architectural specifications of consumer products. You buy the performances, not how they are obtained.
It would have been better to make lawsuits for more real things, like crossfire performances (and stuttering) as these are things users do not expect when buying dual GPU cards advertised as having double performances than single ones that in reality only works on picked up games.
bhtooefr - Monday, September 19, 2016 - link
Later 486SXes were actually fabbed without an FPU.NexGen Nx586 didn't have a FPU until the very last models that shipped right before AMD bought NexGen (for the Nx686, which got rebranded as the AMD K6).
DM&P Vortex86SX is a much later embedded CPU, loosely based on the Rise mP6, with no FPU. (They only claim 486SX compatibility, although IIRC it has all the Pentium instructions except the FPU ones.)
Also, while not x86-64, UltraSPARC T1 was a 64-bit CPU that had one FPU shared across all eight cores. (Yes, it hurt performance incredibly badly, but...) And, ARM Cortex-A35 is an ARMv8 64-bit CPU that can be configured in an FPU-less configuration, I think (I don't see a dedicated VFP unit in the block diagrams, so they're probably just ramming VFP code through the NEON unit, which is optional).
bigboxes - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
Too bad they don't ban trolls on article comments.Michael Bay - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
There would be literally no pro-amd posting then.xthetenth - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
It's a shame they don't ban nazis, you haven't added anything of value to date.powerarmour - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
I'd put a claim in for your corrupt bias chip Michael.Nfarce - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
Yes because blowing up a motherboard from a major voltage fail is a lot less an issue to users than .5GB not being directly accessible. You AMD fangirls are a laugh a minute.xthetenth - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
Funny thing with that, everyone who got lied to has or had a card that wasn't what they thought they were buying. The set of people who had their motherboards go pop is vastly smaller, although they should be getting a much better settlement per person.What's with pro-NV posters and not being able to make a proper comparison.
K_Space - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
I actually hasn't seen any! There was a comment by someone using a riser for their card for bitmining but his setup was very nusual if not nonsensical. Would be interesting if anyone can provide a creditable link.cmdrdredd - Sunday, July 31, 2016 - link
For my part I was buying a card based on it's performance numbers. It performed just as the reviews said it does and for the price I was willing to pay.tamalero - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
I still wonder, has there been ANY SINGLE motherboard killed by the 480 before the driver update?Lets remember that Nvidia had 2 series of drivers that actually burned A TON OF CARDS.
blahblahbob - Sunday, July 31, 2016 - link
All of you fan girls are hilarious. Fact is Nvidia engaged in dodgy business practices and got caught doing it. Amd are no different. Hilarious.tamalero - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
Nope.. NVIDIA outright lied, and has lied in the past.AMD in the other hand didnt put incorrect specifications that proven to be untrue.
CiccioB - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link
How not? They put a PCIe compliant stick on the box while the product inside is not.They are just selling junk with a industry recognized stick telling it is not.
They lied on the tests of conformity. Or they even didn't perform them at all.
Either way, it is a junk product.
bigboxes - Tuesday, September 6, 2016 - link
Good thing I checked back. I just so happen to own a GTX 970. It's a blatant marketing lie. I'm still pissed. I own AMD and Intel and Nvidia. I'm no fanboy. I buy what is best for me.tamalero - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link
You mean how Nvidia cooked up videocards with their botched graphic drivers (2 different driver sets)?Spunjji - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link
Why do you think "girl" is an insult? Fucktool.xthetenth - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
The 480 power issue isn't going to be a literally every single person who bought the card type deal unless something goes really strange.ToTTenTranz - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
Are you sure this is only for the US?I've seen people on reddit claiming they're getting a 20% refund from amazon UK.
antifocus - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
That's from Amazon retail side. This article is about the $30 compensation from nVidia. From what I heard though, this kind of settlement usually takes very long time to reach the consumers.Ryan Smith - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
Until such a day that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has jurisdiction over the UK, yes. =PBrokenCrayons - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
California's court system would have jurisdiction over the United Kingdom if its judges could access the last 512MB of their authority in the same manner they could with the first 3.5GB.C.C. - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
Nice one, BC, I LOL'd!!K_Space - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
+1Kvaern1 - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
+6 this.JoeyJoJo123 - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
Nice B8, I r8 7/8, m8.Yojimbo - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
Wow, $30 a card, even for people who bought the cards after the correction was made. That's a pretty favorable settlement for card buyers.I don't think I could claim my settlement in good conscience if I had bought a card and was never fooled by the initial inaccuracy.
bigboxes - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
Well, I'm just going to have to live with a guilty conscience. Whoa is me.Focher - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
I'll take yours.fanofanand - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
I hope this settles the "was it false advertising" debate. The card performed as advertised, but didn't have the specs as advertised. We have seen this in the automotive sector quite a bit, previously over HP numbers and more recently over MPG. I would hate to see what the lawyers' cut was on this, but if it helps to keep marketing departments honest then it's a good thing.przemo_li - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
GPU was not performing as advertised.Nvidia only after whole debacle released drivers that disabled last 0,5 GB segment of ram for the games that did not needed them (but took account from any available RAM to speed things up).
So Nvidia claimed they will have 4GB of XYZ Hz RAM. They did not had them.
False advertisement.
And if gpu lived up to Nvidia provided benchmarks... It was only because Nvidia did not provided any benchmarks that actually used 4th GB of ram.
* I say 4th because of game used over 3,5GB actually it was 2 last 0,5GB segments of RAM that where slow as they shared the bus in that situation and got 50% of the bandwidth in pessimistic scenario - hence disabling it was actually preferable in some games to just setting is as "slow" buffer.
Nfarce - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
If you research tech websites dating back to January 2014 when the issue was first reported, you'll see that most of them had to work REAL HARD to find a combination of settings in games to "break" the card. It took specific settings in specific games that few users used. This is why most 970 users never even knew there was a problem with the card until it was reported, and only then did everyone throw their arms up (I was one of them originally).However, after all the dust settled, it was never a big issue for 99% of the users. None of my games came even close to hitting 3.5GB VRAM allocation at 1440p (allocation only and not even actual use which is almost always lower). There's a reason the 970 is one of Nvidia's top selling GPUs of all time and to this day the most popular GPU used for Steam PC gamers.
The GPU *HAS* 4GB GDDR5 VRAM. FACT. The issue is Nvidia failed to disclose HOW that last .5GB was actually used. That's what this lawsuit is based on...NOT that it did NOT have 4GB which it DOES. Defense lawyers love witnesses like you!
Nfarce - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
"dating back to January 2014" <-- meant 2015Samus - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
The card shipped with 4GB of physical RAM. There isn't any indication anywhere, on any video product ever sold, that all the memory is addressable.At the end of the day the card remained the best value, and the Maxwell texture compression engine more than made up for lacking 512MB of RAM. The high resolutions that would have utilized that much memory wouldn't run on the GPU anyway because at that point there were GPU limited before memory limited.
The only people that really got screwed by this are potential SLI adopters, and thus they are the only ones who should be eligible for credit.
Drumsticks - Sunday, July 31, 2016 - link
They also chopped off and did not advertise the L2/ROPs. I'm not sure if the lawsuit was only focused on the RAM, but as far as I'm concerned, selling 56 ROPs and 1.75MB of L2 while advertising 64/2 isn't cool.Doesn't change the fact that the 970 is a great card, but I think there was some shady "I hope they don't notice" going on.
Kvaern1 - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
"Doesn't change the fact that the 970 is a great card, but I think there was some shady "I hope they don't notice" going on."Well, that's when you end up with shit like this on your hands. They must know that.
I think someone made an honest mistake and I think it's a reasonable reimbursement.
Kvaern1 - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
I don't care if it only applies in certain situations. I want to know about possible limitations like this before making a buying decision. Not after. Ever.xenol - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
Drive manufacturers claimed their drives would give me X TB of space, but I ended up with less than that according to Windows.AMD was telling me 8 cores is better with Bulldozer, but I never really saw that.
Intel and AMD both tell me I can get up to X GHz speed on their processors, but I never seemed to get there.
The RAM I bought was advertised as DDR4-2666 and the motherboard I bought said it would support it, but every time I enable it, the system doesn't boot and I have to live with DDR4-2166 speeds.
I don't seem to be getting the 1.3Gbps on my 802.11ac router even if I'm right next to it.
My ISP claimed I can get 24Mbps down, but I never seem to get more than 16.
There are plenty of half-truths and claims that tech companies make. Maybe I should take on the tech world.
tamalero - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
Your comparison is stupid.The drives are actually X TB space, the format mode changes it according to the specifications of said format. That is not the problem of the manufacturers.
And almost every drive I've bought in the past 10 years, had both of them on display (capacities in their bags, formatted and unformated.)
AMD and INTEL always said a specified speed for their processors, if it didnt have it.. then the chip was to be replaced or damaged. unless you're really dumb trying to bring overclocking OR turbo modes.
The ram stuff is motherboard issue, not ram issue. again, stupid comparison.
Your ISP pretty much hides behind the "up to" clause. Which means your line will max at 24mbps. Not that it will offer you 24mbps all the time 24/7 and under all circumstances/connections. NEXT?
I suppose Hypertreading was false advertisement considering your dumb comparison.
r3loaded - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
The $30 settlement “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.”GTX 970 owners are basically getting a discount based on the reduction in available high-bandwidth memory and ROP count. Not shabby at all.
Eidigean - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
I know I'm in the minority here, but the 970 is really a defective 980 being resold partially disabled. I know it's priced lower for those on a budget, but it's hard for me to empathize with those that are annoyed that their crippled product underperforms. For me, it's a fully enabled product or bust. Upgrading my 580 to a 1080 this year. Would never touch a 970 or a 1070.Icehawk - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
I will happily buy an x80 model if you pay the difference otherwise I will stick with my x70 series that cost much less and have performance within 10-20%. Best value is rarely the top model but often the one right below it.Lonyo - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
People know that it was a slightly disabled 980. The issue is that the impact of the disabling was not clearly illustrated by the specifications NV claimed it had. They claimed a specific memory bandwidth which was not actually available to all of the RAM. Therefore performance was not necessarily going to be as expected and the card was mis-sold.People knew that ROPs and SMs were disabled, and there is no issue with any of that.
Also you are an idiot. If you can't empathise with people who were sold a partially disabled product which was actually more disabled than claimed because it has a level of disablement anyway, then... yeah...
BrokenCrayons - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
I like how you wove your comment about this article into a reason to brag about how much you're willing to spend on a graphics card. However, if you were truly among the social elite, you'd not be grubbing around with only a single 1080 like all the other peons. Instead, you'd wave your noble e-peen flag under the shadow of a pair of Titans. By failing to do so, you clearly show us all that you're as un-fully enabled as all the 1070 owners out there. Now get thee back into your parents' basement and work harder at developing a RSI before your 12th birthday.Eidigean - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
Cute. I wrote that I still have a 580. Buying a 1080 when they're back in stock.I make 6 figures, own a half-million dollar house, have a wife and kid, and I'm only in my thirties. How's that for elitism? You must be one of those that believes you're entitled to a supercomputer on a cheap. STFU.
BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
In your response, you attempted to weave in your social status and family situation as brag-worthy. Do you really not have any ability to see yourself from outside your own box?Eidigean - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
Your definition of "social elite" is perplexing; as you've stated that owning a pair of Titans makes one "social". No. Going out, meeting people in person, making a family, THAT is being "social".BTW, I didn't attempt, I SUCCEEDED at making my situation brag-worthy. Time to get away from the computer, I've got a life worth living.
doggface - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
Oh dear. We've got a live one here. Quick, give him a trophy it might distract him long enough, so that we might have an interesting conversation about interesting things.. Like video cards, or how amazing Eidigean is with his stuff and things.tamalero - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
WATCH OUT GUYS, WE GOT A BADASS OVER HERE!!!JoeyJoJo123 - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
I don't think you're quite as successful and/or happy as you purportedly say you are.I'd believe that if you were as successful and happy with your life, I don't think you'd be flaunting that to other people online. There's going to be at least one person better off than you are, and at least one person worse off than you are. If I found a $5 bill today, I wouldn't flaunt about it online, as chances are, there's someone who found a $10 or $20 bill today. If I found $20, then there's someone who found a $50 or $100.
I guarantee you there's someone online making 7 figures, owns a multi-million dollar house, and has potentially multiples wives and children, and may only be in their twenties.
bji - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
The thing is though, he doesn't need to care whether or not there are people better off than he is for the purposes of his bragging. He only needs to believe that the people he is bragging to are worse off than he is, for him to believe that is bragging will have the intended effect.Apparently he does believe that the other people reading this thread will think that earning 6 figures in your 30's is brag-worthy. Which is kind of cute in its own way I suppose.
AnnonymousCoward - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
>For me, it's a fully enabled product or bust.Uhh, why?
If you use a recent Intel CPU, you're not using a "fully enabled product" because the iGPU is there in silicon and not being used!
Eidigean - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
I actually have a SandyBridge-E without an iGPU.The reason is that I want a chip that's free of defects. For instance, the GTX 1070 is a defective 1080 that is partially disabled. To entice folks to buy the defective chip, NVIDIA sells it at a discount, and use cheaper, less performant RAM to lower the price further; so that they can get a return on their money.
Back to your CPU analogy, any Skylake CPU that's slower than an i7-6700 @ 4.0 GHz is a chip that failed to meet Quality Control standards. It may function at slower speeds, perhaps at a higher voltage, but only because the tolerances during manufacturing were out of spec. If the chip cannot reliably support hyper threading, then the i7 is sold as an i5. All defects that I try to avoid.
Memory chips work the same way. Take DDR3 for instance. One can find chips that work at 1.5 volts and some that only work at 1.65 volts. Both may have the same CAS latency timings, and are the same design, but the 1.65v chips required that extra push to function within spec. They'll run hotter, and burn out sooner, and so are sold at a lower price. The 1.5v chips sold at a premium because they were defect free.
AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
Why are you so hung up on the notion of "defect free"? What damn bit of difference would it make if the GTX1070 had 1920 physical processors, versus 2560 where 1920 are active??? You would never know the difference!You probably don't realize that virtually all DRAM has defective bits, and the only way to get any yield is by having redundant banks of cells that are used to supplement bad cells in the main banks.
Eidigean - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
We've come full circle. Those with the 970 played that game, and received a product that was defective in other, undisclosed ways, and did notice. I personally don't want the hassle in my purchases.AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
"hassle"? The 970 has had probably THE BEST performance/price/power of any card on the market for almost 2 years! How is that a hassle? Who cares if it has 3.5GB; it could have 0.1GB for all I care.Btw you could increase your fps by 60% for almost free, by selling your 580 and getting a 770 on eBay.
Sheratan - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
I rate this news 3.5/4Wolfpup - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
So was this just someone at Nvidia filling in a spec sheet wrong?Nfarce - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
That's what it looks like vs. an intentional mislead. It happens more often in industries than people would want to know, when tech report writers (spec sheet editors) get info from engineers and translate it into language we regular people can understand. Most of the time it's caught before the final spec documentation is released. I used to be a technical writer, so I've seen this first hand.Samus - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
The morons in marketing just didn't understand the architecture.If you disable 1/8th of the ROPs, you lose 1/8th of the addressable memory. Any remaining memory ends up in another partition.
All they had to do was indicate the card ships with 4GB of PHYSICAL memory but only 3.5GB is addressable. PC manufactures, storage companies and even Microsoft have been careful to define addressable memory since 64-bit was widely adopted, or more specifically, the limitations of a 32-bit environment.
piiman - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
"All they had to do was indicate the card ships with 4GB of PHYSICAL memory but only 3.5GB is addressable."Except that isn't correct. Its all addressable but the last 512 has less bandwidth and has to share a bus, this its slower.
Samus - Sunday, July 31, 2016 - link
Originally, yes, but after a driver update last year nVidia effectively axed the last 512MB from ever being used.AnnonymousCoward - Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - link
So you're saying 4GB was shipped on every card, and it was 100% accessible? (nevermind read/write speeds) Then how is this even a lawsuit.tamalero - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
because you cant access it anymore? perhaps the last 512MB were unstable?Nfarce - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
Even after the "issue" was discovered, the 970 wound up being one of Nvidia's top selling GPUs of all time, and it is the most popular card used by Steam PC gamers. A $30 discount for something many never even knew there was an "issue" about, for a GPU that performed at 90% of a 980 for 60% of the cost (now 55% of the cost with this proposed $30 payout) is not bad.Of course, many 970 owners have already sold their 970s on eBay and whatnot for 1070s, so that $30 in their pocket will make that upgrade purchase a nice little bonus. The bottom line though is Nvidia is forking over many millions in a lessons learned experience to make sure they are 100% accurate in their paper specs.
just4U - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
err.. where do you get it's one of the top selling gpu's of all time? It's.... not even close.Samus - Sunday, July 31, 2016 - link
I believe the GT210 GPU is nVidias top selling GPU in the GeForce lineup since Fermi was introduced. The top shipping performance GPU in recent history was the GTX460.Last I read, the top selling "GPU" of all time actually goes to the 945G chipset from Intel. The top selling discrete GPU in history for units shipped is hard to narrow down because neither nVidia or AMD release these figures, and neither do their partners, but it's widely believed to be either the G66800 or the Radeon 4870, both of which were incredibly successful and used throughout every tier 1 OEM. Even Dell made a custom GT6600, hundreds of thousands of them.
Samus - Sunday, July 31, 2016 - link
Opps, G66800 meant to say GT6600SlyNine - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
I always thought the issue was silly. Even if 512 megs was slower, it was still there. Only in about 0.1% of the cases would it have affected performance.piiman - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
Put a pair in surround or use a game that used all 4 gb and you'd see it real fast.Just because you may not have noticed doesn't make their "mistake" justified. They knew it was wrong and there is no way someone didn't notice the wrong specs before that marketing crap went out. They misrepresented the specs so even if you didn't notice you still deserve the "discount" IMO. They pushed the "marketing" a little too far this time, hopefully they learned a lesson.
Samus - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link
I don't get it. Aren't all the benchmarks displaying the GTX970's performance still accurate? Maxwell's compression engine makes having 4GB of VRAM irrelevant, it still performs well at high resolutions and was never meant to be a 4K card, and even with 0.5GB more addressable memory, would it make a difference?This performance delta needs to be addressed before an accurate award could be issued to those seeking one. NVidia simply needs to demo an engineering sample with all 64 ROPs enabled.
As it is, this is beyond frivolous and opens a whole new category of frivolous litigation against dozens of companies that "don't deliver based on specification" even though the product performs as expected.
It reminds me of people who complained that the Chevy Volt wasn't always 100% battery powered and in certain circumstances, the engine would couple to the drivetrain to add efficiency. People got their panties in a bunch, boo'd, even cancelled preorders and asked for refunds. In the end, after GM showed a whitepaper with the necessary damning statistics that coupling the engine increased reliability, range, performance and even reduced perceived generator noise, everyone had long forgotten about it anyway, that it was, infact, a hybrid vehicle.
piiman - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
"As it is, this is beyond frivolous and opens a whole new category of frivolous litigation against dozens of companies that "don't deliver based on specification" even though the product performs as expected.""frivolous " ?? really? Yeah it can preform good but it can also stutter like crazy which they didn't show. Bottom line is you can't lie about the specs and specs do matter and they did effect the products performance. Nothing frivolous about it, its about keeping Corroborations honest, COMPLETELY HONEST not half honest. Of course the settlement doesn't even really do that since they can now claim no wrong doing but here's 30 bucks anyways. :)
tamalero - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
Agree. if I am being sold a car where the specs and the contract said 4 wheels.. I expect 4 wheels, not 3 full sized wheels and a crippled one.Achaios - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
A big "thank you" to the California court that hit NVIDIA hard.This is a victory for all consumers all over the world. Disingenuous and dishonest corporations such as NVIDIA should be chased ruthlessly and then mercilessly hit when they dare to con the consumer.
just4U - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
This victory for lawyers who will pocket millions is indeed something to celebrate. You and I? meh.. here's your $30. enjoy.xenol - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
And I'm pretty sure in the legalese you won't be able to take part in another NVIDIA class action award again.(speaking from experience with all the other class action awards I was entitled to and the legalese that followed it)
bcronce - Saturday, July 30, 2016 - link
You don't buy a video card for what it has but what it does. If a video card claimed it had 4GiB of memory, but really only had 4MiB, but performed better than 4GiB cards while not negatively impacting my system, I would be excited, not angry. How'd they do that?!Lake Cities - Sunday, July 31, 2016 - link
Don't worry, they are making their $30 back when they jack the price of the reference...errr.... founders edition cards of the 10 series.Beaver M. - Sunday, July 31, 2016 - link
Yeah, makes you wonder if they predicted it, and thats why these are so unbelievably expensive.But as long as people pay it, they deserve all the crap Nvidia does to them.
Huber - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
how do you claim the refund if you have the card?xenol - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
It's been, what, two years and people still don't understand this issue?It's not only 3.5GB available. It's 4GB available but the GPU's memory controller has issues addressing the last 512MB x 2 chunk at the same time. Think of how the memory is divvied up like a giant RAID 0 array. It's just that you didn't have enough SATA ports but you can split the last one between two more drives at the cost of a performance hit.
Besides, it was either ship the card with this defect or ship the card with 3GB of RAM. NVIDIA didn't really have much of a positive outlook here to begin with.
Beaver M. - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
Simply not true. When the remaining 512 MB are used, the frames drop, due to the extremely slow connection. Thats why the driver does everything to avoid it, yet it doesnt always work, and then you see massive slowdowns. GTA V up in the hills is a perfect example. It makes the last 512 MB unusable.Also, that wasnt their only choice. They could have simply labeled it 3.5 GB or even put out a 7 GB version. But they never even allowed that latter options to the resellers. So it was all like they wanted it to be.
webdoctors - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
Doesn't make sense to award it to everyone. Shouldn't it just be the folks between September (release) and January (acknowledgement?). Folks buying the card in Feb+ onwards knew about the updated specs and still bought it.....Does this mean I can buy it now and still get the rebate? I see some retailers selling it for <$200...with the rebate I could get it for almost $150 after cashback....very tempting.
fic2 - Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - link
From my calculations it looks like owners are getting a 9% discount for a 12.5% reduction in ROPS and memory. They should be getting around $41. But, I guess the lawyers are getting the other $11.(I don't even know why I am reading this article and comments since I don't even have a gfx card.)
jas340 - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
GTX had the same issue back in it's day. It is in some of the old reviews. Stunk even more since the card most came with 2GB memory with only 1.5GB accessible at a useable speed. Nvidia has always been behind the curve when it came to memory. Thank goodness my 1070 comes with 8GB!jas340 - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
GTX 660CiccioB - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link
GTX 660Ti to be preciseShadowmaster625 - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
Wait if 512MB out of 4GB is worth $30 then that means the entire 4GB must be worth $240!!! Simple math. So the remaining parts of the card, the gpu itself, the pcb, the fan, all the VRMs, caps, connectors, and shrouding, all that stuff must therefore only be worth $90. I love lawyer logic.rrinker - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
I guess I am "entitled" to $30, but I'm not sure if I will bother - mainly because I think this is a load of BS. Wonder how much the lawyers get for every $30 claim filed? I've had no issues with my 970 and strange access to the last .5MB of RAM has not had any real performance impact - just check the benchmarks.ruthan - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
I curious why anybody did same class action in whole eu, im sure that i would be success too.. im envy to all "american fattened pigs" they have always the best prices, sales, debates etc..jsntech - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
I got my Zotac GTX 970 from Amazon within the affected time period. The newly-linked web site (thanks, Ryan) seems to require a claim number in order to file the claim online, but offers no hint as to where that claim number should come from (Amazon? Zotac? Nvidia?). I'd rather not have to print and snail-mail a silly paper claim form...Icehawk - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
Made my claim, might as well get $30 for "free"AnnonymousCoward - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
I'm gonna not claim my $30, because this lawsuit is stupid.3ogdy - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
I hope they pay through the nose for it.Oh, and yeah, AMD should face some lawsuits regarding Bulldozer too. It can't possibly be that you're marketing an 8-core CPU that can only use 4 cores properly at a given time (video rendering is slower on 8 cores than it is on 4 exactly because a core in each module has to wait for the one next to it to do its work). Should've marketed the CPUs as quads + (insert marketing name) from the beginning.
3ogdy - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
Oh and let's all hope the ones responsible for this bullsh¡t spends the next few years looking for jobs, not working. Here's to Karma's efficiency.Byte - Monday, September 12, 2016 - link
Are you included if you bought a prebuilt HP with a 970?damianrobertjones - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link
When I purchased my 970 I'd read the reviews, the updates, so knew EXACTLY what I was getting. It never managed to pose any gaming issues at all. Anyway that card is long gone.mindless1 - Sunday, September 18, 2016 - link
OH NOES! The last 512MB of my standard 4GB of VRAM can not be accessed in a contiguous manner. lol.Ginpo - Tuesday, March 28, 2017 - link
3.28.2017 and I haven't received my $30x2 yet... has anyone?