Nvidia settles GTX 970 marketing lawsuits

The GeForce 970 was not quite the card it was made out to be, and Nvidia has agreed to pay out as a result.

While the 970 was legitimately for a time the best bang-for-buck high-end graphics card on the market, the internal specs didn’t quite match up to the marketing.

It was sold as having 4GB of VRAM, for instance, while in reality it only had 3.5GB, with an additional half gig in spillover, lower performance RAM. It also packed fewer output processors and a lower L2 cache than was advertised.

All of which landed Nvidia and its manufacturing partners in legal hot water.

Polygon reports that 15 separate class-action lawsuits were filed against Nvidia, EVGA and Gigabyte as a result. The companies were accused of engaging in a scheme to mislead consumers nationwide about the characteristics, qualities, uses, and benefits of the GTX 970”, with plaintiffs arguing that they "did not receive the full value of the product they paid for”.

Nvidia has now failed in its attempts to have the case dismissed. A proposed settlement, while not admitting to wrongdoing, will see buyers refunded to the tune of $30. If agreed over $1m worth of legal fees will also be paid out.