Nvidia Settles GTX 970 Lawsuit, Will Refund Every Purchaser $30

[RaikuFA]

$30 for a what... $400 graphics card? Then you gotta pay someone to install it unless you were born with a silicon spoon in your mouth. Not worth it.

Literally graphics cards nowdays are plug and play. If your case is open it might take you 15 seconds maybe 30 if you take your time. Snap into PCI slot plug in the powercable, and your done.

Doesn't that break the warranty though? If it breaks a few days later no one will repair it without handing out huge sums of money.

Nope.

Part sellers are typically 30-60 days standard retail return policy.

GPU's are limited warranty for one to three if you register them with the chip manufacturer. These typically require you to pay for shipping, to there place before you get a refurbished version of the same card.

non-factory overclocking dose not even void the warranty on GPUs from any of the major brands, only something along the lines of clear physical abuse(broken in half, falls in a blender, dog ate it) gets the card rejected.

I meant more like it breaks your computer and they go "sorry, you're SOL".

 

[Vern]

I meant more like it breaks your computer and they go "sorry, you're SOL".

You'd have to check your warranty, but unless it's specifically the video card that broke your computer, then I wouldn't imagine it would void the warranty. And just opening your computer won't void it, only if you do something stupid and break it while your tinkering around.

And the only thing I can imagine a video card breaking would be your power supply unit. If it can't handle the wattage your new card needs, it'll brick the PSU, might take a while, but it'll go bad. Although installing a new power supply unit is pretty easy too. Takes a bit longer than a video card, but it's not complicated. But I think most of the PSU's I've seen in pre-built computers are like 400 Watts, and most video cards that I've seen need at least 500 Watts, so there's a good chance you'd have to replace it.

So yeah, long story short, as long as you don't screw your computer up, no it shouldn't void the warranty. So say you put in a new video card, and a week later the hard drive crashes, or your RAM goes bad, or whatever, as long as it's not related to the video card, which it shouldn't be, then you should be fine.

Just make sure to check the wattage of the GPU your looking at against what your PSU can supply, if your PSU doesn't provide enough power you'll have to replace that before installing a new GPU. But yeah, it's not complicated, I installed my first GPU when I was 12 and it went just fine.

Oh, and make sure to ground yourself before tinkering around, don't want to fry anything with static electricity.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I actually have a 970 now... but not going to trouble myself over a refund. It runs all current games, an upgrade from my laughable "220" on my last computer where Assassin's Creed looked like:

So honestly, no complaints.

Yeah same, no complaints from me. It's not like it didn't have 4GB of RAM, it just had 3.5+512. I'm glad that the class action won in the name of proper labelling/marketing, but I don't feel ripped off in the slightest. I just played Doom 2016 with my 970 with my 5-year old i5 with almost everything on high. I never intended to play anything above 1080p anyway so I didn't grab the 980.

I'd be more upset personally if I had just gotten the 980 and found out the new one was just $400 or whatever it was.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Huh. So, my computer apparently has two of the things, but I live in New Zealand. While we have pretty strict laws on false advertising, I bought them as part as a pre-built computer, so it's not like I can ask for my money back on the entire damn thing.

I suppose I'll just sit and wait for any updates.

$30 for a what... $400 graphics card? Then you gotta pay someone to install it unless you were born with a silicon spoon in your mouth. Not worth it.

Literally graphics cards nowdays are plug and play. If your case is open it might take you 15 seconds maybe 30 if you take your time. Snap into PCI slot plug in the powercable, and your done.

Doesn't that break the warranty though? If it breaks a few days later no one will repair it without handing out huge sums of money.

No, it won't break warranty, installing parts yourself never has.

You can only break your warrenty if you intentionally take it apart and fiddle with the card itself, as far as I know.

I meant with the computer itself. Dosent opening the computer void the warranty and you have to pay out of pocket to repair it?

As has been said, until you do something stupid and break even more stuff, then merely opening the computer and swapping parts out shouldn't void the warrenty

That said, I won't agree with those who insist that it's as easy as swapping lego bricks. You don't have to worry about static electricity, overloading your power supply or stuff overheating when building a Bionicle. But it's not like things are gonna explode in your face the instant you pop the hood.

 

[nickpy]

That said, I won't agree with those who insist that it's as easy as swapping lego bricks. You don't have to worry about static electricity, overloading your power supply or stuff overheating when building a Bionicle. But it's not like things are gonna explode in your face the instant you pop the hood.

Not to mention installing drivers.

Also, with all this kerfuffle, I don't personally think its all that justified. They said it hat 4GB of RAM. which it did. The fact some of it was a bit slower is immaterial.

 

[munx13]

They said it hat 4GB of RAM. which it did.

They said it was 4GB, 256-bit. It wasn't.

This also isn't about only the memory amount - Nvidia lied about the amount of cache and ROPS.



That being said, 970 is still a really good card. All Nvidia needed to do is be honest about the product they are selling.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Don't underestimate the level of muppetry that goes into computer sales.

The number of customers I get coming up to me at work and saying "I really like this HP / Acer / Lenovo machine but I want a better graphics card" is ridiculous - as is the number of times I have to say "#1 changing components on a pre-built machine is warranty hell; #2 the PSUs in prebuilt machines are almost universally jank (seriously, I've seen 280W PSUs on i5-spec machines before now) so you'll need to replace that as well; #3 you're probably looking at a stupid slimline computer that won't physically fit a new graphics card, never mind that all the PSUs we sell are for full ATX cases so"...

Grr.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I'd bet $30 that Nividia will make getting that refund as frustrating and complicated as possible so that nobody will actually be willing to bother doing it, refunds always do that.

 

[Cap'nPipsqueak]

Wow. Thirty whole dollars. I could buy two pizzas for that.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

That said, I won't agree with those who insist that it's as easy as swapping lego bricks. You don't have to worry about static electricity, overloading your power supply or stuff overheating when building a Bionicle. But it's not like things are gonna explode in your face the instant you pop the hood.

Not to mention installing drivers.

Also, with all this kerfuffle, I don't personally think its all that justified. They said it hat 4GB of RAM. which it did. The fact some of it was a bit slower is immaterial.

As has been said, false advertising laws state that you're not allowed to tell blatant lies about your product, not even little ones. And anyway, they settled for a minuscule $30 refund for a $400 card (as opposed to a full refund a free upgrade or whatever), so I'd say that's a justified amount of "kerfuffle" for them telling minor fibs about their product.

I'd bet $30 that Nividia will make getting that refund as frustrating and complicated as possible so that nobody will actually be willing to bother doing it, refunds always do that.

To be fair, they'll want to make sure you actually own a GTX 970... but yeah, I have a feeling the process will make a lot of people think "I coulda made triple this cash if I was working at the shift right now".

 

[nickpy]

They said it hat 4GB of RAM. which it did.

They said it was 4GB, 256-bit. It wasn't.

This also isn't about only the memory amount - Nvidia lied about the amount of cache and ROPS.



That being said, 970 is still a really good card. All Nvidia needed to do is be honest about the product they are selling.

Fair enough, I wasn't aware they'd specified the speed of the whole RAM block as one thing, nor the other two bits so much. However, most people i've seen say "it doesn't have 4GB! it only has 3.5GB!" which is not true.

In any case, I was vaguely aware of the issues at the time, but it didn't bother me: still bought one, still have it, great card.

 

[elvor0]

$30 for a what... $400 graphics card? Then you gotta pay someone to install it unless you were born with a silicon spoon in your mouth. Not worth it.

Literally graphics cards nowdays are plug and play. If your case is open it might take you 15 seconds maybe 30 if you take your time. Snap into PCI slot plug in the powercable, and your done.

Doesn't that break the warranty though? If it breaks a few days later no one will repair it without handing out huge sums of money.

No, it won't break warranty, installing parts yourself never has.

You can only break your warrenty if you intentionally take it apart and fiddle with the card itself, as far as I know.

I meant with the computer itself. Dosent opening the computer void the warranty and you have to pay out of pocket to repair it?

Problem with that is that computers need to be dusted once in a while as basic maintenance so they don't eventually overheat from masses of dust.

That would also only apply to a premade machines, of whom I don't think any have a warranty void rule for merely /opening/ the case. And obviously if you've made the PC yourself, then that wouldn't even apply. I'm sure with a prebuilt machine it has overall warranty, but even with a custom rig, each individual component has its own warranty from the seller and the manufacturer. Which like other people have said, is only void if you start breaking the components themselves apart.

 

[Kinitawowi]

That would also only apply to a premade machines, of whom I don't think any have a warranty void rule for merely /opening/ the case.

Not sure if they're still around, but I know I've definitely seen machines with "WARRANTY VOID IF REMOVED" stickers over the side panel edgings.

 

[hentropy]

I got a GTX 980, does that mean I get 40 dollars?

 

[Strazdas]

I really wish the lawsuit went further on. This looks like Nvidia got off way too easy for openly lieing for multiple properties. And thats coming from badge-carrying Nvidia fanboy.

I'd bet $30 that Nividia will make getting that refund as frustrating and complicated as possible so that nobody will actually be willing to bother doing it, refunds always do that.

There was a similar case with a HP laptop and faulty design that lead to it overheating. After they lost the lawsuit they sent every registered user an email and all you had to do is call them up and they would send someone to pick up the laptop and replace the part they were ordered to replace by the court. So yeah they kinda have to make it easy.

Not sure if they're still around, but I know I've definitely seen machines with "WARRANTY VOID IF REMOVED" stickers over the side panel edgings.

These stickers are not legal, thats why they have all but dissapeared. Warranty varies based on country and law (In europe 2 years minimum for example), but the only way to really void it is if you damage it yourself. Opening a PC is not damaging it.

Fair enough, I wasn't aware they'd specified the speed of the whole RAM block as one thing, nor the other two bits so much. However, most people i've seen say "it doesn't have 4GB! it only has 3.5GB!" which is not true.

Well it is true in practice. you DONT WANT it to use the remaining 0.5 GB because it will slow the whole system down to its level. You want to stick to under 3.5GB utilization so you can benefit from fast RAM instead. So effectively, it has 3.5 GB usable one.