NVIDIA has agreed to preliminary settlement in class action lawsuit over GTX 970 memory allocation controversy.

NVIDIA falsely advertised GeForce GTX 970 as 4GB graphics card

According to TopClassAction website, NVIDIA has agreed to pay 30 USD to each buyer of GTX 970. Company will also cover additional attorneys’ fees, which are estimated at 1.3 million USD.

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.”

NVIDIA was accused of falsely advertising GM204-200 graphics card, which indeed had 4GB memory installed, but 0.5GB was separated from the main pipeline. This resulted in lower bandwidth when this particular memory pool was used. The lack of communication between marketing and engineering teams at NVIDIA caused a lot of controversy, as wrong specifications were advertised at NVIDIA’s own website and in GTX 970 reviewers guide. As a result, reviewers were also unaware that they were falsely reporting on wrong specifications. It was later discovered that GTX 970 also had less Raster Operating Units (ROPs) and less L2 cache (1.75MB not 2MB).

It is not clear how this settlement will affect buyers around the world. There no instruction on how to file a claim yet, but keep checking the link below.

Source: TopClassAction, Image