Nvidia faces Class Action Lawsuit over GTX 970 Memory Debacle
A while ago we already reported that a legal company was homing in on Nvidia die to the GTX 970 Memory Debacle. Over the weekend it has become clear that in the state of California owners of a GTX 970 have 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," which is accusedof unfair, unlawful, and deceptive business practices, in three separate charges, and misleading advertising, demanding for Jury Trial. 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.
The lawsuit says the remaining half gigabyte runs 80 percent slower than it's supposed to. That can cause images to stutter on a high resolution screen and some games to perform poorly, the suit says.
It was filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California and names as defendants Nvidia and Giga-Byte Technology, which sells the GTX 970 in graphics cards. Nvidia declined to comment on the lawsuit Friday and Giga-Byte couldn't immediately be reached.
Responding to the issue last month, Nvidia acknowledged that the GTX 970 uses a different memory subsystem design than its higher-end GTX 980, but it said that difference has a negligible impact on performance.
Thursday's lawsuit seeks a jury trial and whatever damages apply under California law. It was filed on behalf of all consumers in the U.S. who bought graphics or video cards with the GTX 970. It will be up to the judge to decide whether the lawsuit can proceed as a class action. If you are eligible to be a Class member, find details of the law firms involved in the lawsuit document.
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Senior Member
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Joined: 2014-07-28
Secretly I just hope this gets real big and nVidia loses some money so they learn their lesson.
Senior Member
Posts: 3582
Joined: 2010-01-16
I'm OK with it. It won't hurt their pocket at much at it will, and has, hurt their reputation. Even if NVidia wins the law suite. Doubt we will have incorrect reported specs in the future.
This slap on the wrist is better then simply rolling over and excepting it. You let them get away with something like this once and it easily turns into a slippery slope. The white lies get more and more bold.
Senior Member
Posts: 10126
Joined: 2003-03-25
Lawsuits like this are factored into business for companies as large as Nvidia. It's a non-issue for them, they'll have a budget in place for this sort of thing and I'm pretty damn sure it'll more than cover any costs, even if they lose.
Senior Member
Posts: 22096
Joined: 2008-07-14
lol, more inaccurate reporting. You can NOT, just walk into a court house and file a class-action lawsuit. You file a lawsuit and request "class-action status". Then you have to prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that what you're accusing the defendant of impacts a large number of people (not that it would be hard in this particular case) as well as preliminary evidence to support your claim of wrong-doing on the part of the defendant. Then the judge decides whether or not you've met the burden of proof and either approves or disapproves "class-action status".
California has some pretty strict laws....and they allow insanely high $ figure judgments. Doubt any of us will ever see any of it since the lawyers typically end up with most of the money.
Senior Member
Posts: 15616
Joined: 2010-09-12
California is one of those states where if you fart in public, you can be sued for emotional distress. So I fully expect this lawsuit to go all the way.