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NVIDIA under fire for anti-competitive and price fixing business practices

Analysts expect a stormy summer as NVIDIA faces not one, but fifty-one pending lawsuits. The 51 civil complaints filed against NVIDIA claim that the company participated in anti-competitive business agreements and price fixing strategies. Some of these civil suits allege that NVIDIA entered into these agreements with graphics rival AMD.

In March 2007, 42 civil suits were filed against NVIDIA for anti-competitive business practices; 14 of those suits alleged that the company colluded with AMD to fix prices. According to NVIDIA, most of the suits were filed in the Northern District of California. NVIDIA states that while there appear to be many civil suits, all of the suits are putative class-actions, indicating that they are from direct or indirect purchasers of NVIDIA graphics products.

Price fixing occurs when a company enters an agreement with its competitor to set a minimum selling price for a particular product or family of products. In this case, many of the suits allege that AMD (then ATI) and NVIDIA artificially inflated the value of high-end and enthusiast components.

Currently there is roughly an even-split in market share between AMD and NVIDIA, with NVIDIA holding 28.5% of the graphics market and AMD picking up another 23%.  AMD saw the biggest loss last year with the introduction of NVIDIA's G80-family GPUs -- the company's high-end GPU.

Late last year AMD and NVIDIA received subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Justice alleging that both companies violated antitrust laws. The suit was sparked after AMD's acquisition of ATI was approved, which lead to the belief that NVIDIA had somehow cooperated with AMD in regards to the acquisition. The fact that AMD and NVIDIA are long time partners also sparked debate, but the U.S. Department of Justice did not reveal any specific allegations against AMD, ATI or NVIDIA.

Along with the U.S. Department of Justice, Intel also issued subpoenas against AMD and ATI, requesting that all documents related to the AMD-ATI merger be reviewed. Intel, also under anti-trust litigation with AMD, was unsuccessful in lobbying for further sanctions. AMD successfully absorbed ATI last year.

AMD senior executives indicated last year that even with ATI under its wing, it will still be cooperating, while simultaneously competing, with NVIDIA for the foreseeable future.

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Can't have it both ways
By James Holden on 5/28/2007 3:52:43 PM , Rating: 5
NVIDIA is a chipset supplier for AMD
AMD is a chipset supplier for AMD
NVIDIA is a chipset supplier for Intel
ATI (well AMD) is a chipset supplier for Intel
Intel is a chipset supplier for Intel

Oh sweet irony. If only Intel supplied chipsets for AMD boards, then the circle would be complete.

Of course they colluded on prices. They have to figure out some way to get us saps to pay $600 for a video card.




RE: Can't have it both ways
By Dactyl on 5/28/2007 4:50:56 PM , Rating: 5
There is no direct collusion. They don't need to meet up and discuss this. Each can see the other's public actions. They can cooperate to set prices without ever meeting or shaking hands.

The government should stay the hell out of this, even if they are jacking up prices. The point of government intervention is to protect consumers. We don't need protection from AMD or NVidia. They are making new and innovative graphics cards on a yearly basis. Allowing them to make extra profits (if that's even what they're doing) is a good thing, because it lets them pump more money into R&D. I think it just makes sense to charge high prices for the cards to support their R&D, and it's not the result of a conspiracy to gouge people.

Businesses are allowed to release limited edition versions of things. The 8800 Ultra is based on entirely new silicon. That's not easy to do. NVidia should be able to charge more for it.

Further, graphics cards are a risky venture. Look at AMD's R600. By all accounts, it's a flop. AMD is going to lose a lot of money because they took a risk and blew it. Making fat profits in the years when everything goes right is natural, because they have to offset potential loser years (remember the FX 5900?)

Even assuming you could drop the price of graphics cards in half, if it meant slowing down R&D, customers would have less value in the long run. It would mean slowing down R&D by at least half. Do you want to wait two years for the 9800 series cards to be released, or do you want them in December '07?

There is already a graphics card company focused on delivering low-priced chipsets: Intel. And we ABSOLUTELY HATE their integrated graphics. Don't tell me you want to make AMD and NVidia more like Intel when it comes to graphics!


RE: Can't have it both ways
By tgc2100 on 5/28/2007 6:22:45 PM , Rating: 3
on adding to that, I'm not an ATI fanboy or anything. Even CPUs I go with where ever the performance is. AMD before, and now the Core2. But as for this generation of graphics cards people are benchmarking them with DX9 games and they are DX10 graphics cards. Yea, they have to play older games, but I'm curious to know how they are handling the DX10 games and compare them that way. Especially since that's where the future of gaming is going.


RE: Can't have it both ways
By XesBOX on 5/29/2007 9:57:43 AM , Rating: 4
Wow.. If I've never seen a devil advocate until now..

There are things called 'laws'. Silly little things that are put in place (in theory) to protect people from themselves. In this case, it's to protect people from saying, 'Hey, I can rationalize this as OK.' much as you have done.

Shady and unfair business practice is just that, shady and unfair. Nvidia's top people already had issues in 2000 and 2001 with insider trading. If you can't grasp the reason these things are illegal in the first place then you have no business adding your rhetoric to the discussion. Regardless of how 'bad-ass' any given graphics card is, fact remains that when competition between business is nullified, the CUSTOMER looses. -ALWAYS-


RE: Can't have it both ways
By masher2 (blog) on 5/29/2007 1:33:27 PM , Rating: 4
> "Shady and unfair business practice is just that..."

One such common practice is the filing of a civil suit intended simply to chase dollars, not justice. And, until or unless any specific evidence arises against Nvidia, I think we should consider these civil suits as no more than that.


RE: Can't have it both ways
By XesBOX on 5/30/2007 2:58:32 PM , Rating: 1
I whole heartedly agree, but when talking about which is darker, the pot or the kettle, I'd have to say that companies in general have been robbing from the consumers since the dawn of commerce.

Greed in and of itself will never go away, but the difference between 'us' and 'them' is that we don't walk away with a couple extra Yatchs and a nice new Ferrari in addition to the 250 thousand dollar bonus I gave myself for a job well done. And considering the not-so-recent happenings with Enron and how it single handedly ruined the lives of about 14 THOUSAND people in one fucked up move.. well.. you'll have to excuse me and all the other people who are a little less trusting of companies' business practices.. because, in the end, it should *absolutely* concern us.

If people, in one way or another, with or without the help of equally shady lawyers, do not keep corperations in check (because we all know the government will over look baby seal clubbing until a dead seal is lying on their porch) then no one will.


RE: Can't have it both ways
By Oregonian2 on 5/29/2007 1:49:06 PM , Rating: 4
Things usually aren't always so clear cut and laws tend to be oxymoronic sometimes. Laws want competition, but its not legal to see what one's competitor prices things at and make decisions on how to react -- because that's collusion. One can only properly compete without knowledge of competitor pricing. Which really isn't competing. Now, I've fudged and simplified things in my comment above, so don't jump on the details, my point is that there's a wide range of what's what in law and in business practice and how things are applied makes a big difference between application of law being justice or stupid-lawyers, it's not all clear cut. Especially when a company's partner (nVidia) is one that a company's livelyhood (AMD) depended upon to make associated chips gets into a awkward position when AMD buys their rival (who I never liked, btw, buying nVidia would have better if it weren't for the cost). There are the dynamics of going from one state of association to another.

As to pricing, one could say they agreed to sell their high end video boards at a high price -- or you could say "the other guy is pricing theirs high, so we can get away with pricing ours high and not get slaughtered". The first is illegal, the second is just competition (you want the highest price you can get and have your goods still be bought). But they're both the same action just looked at differently .


RE: Can't have it both ways
By masher2 (blog) on 5/29/2007 3:44:07 PM , Rating: 6
As Rand once said, we've made it illegal for a company to price their products above their competitors (gouging), illegal for them to price below their competitors (dumping), and illegal for them to price them the same (price fixing).

Doesn't leave much room to avoid breaking the law. At times, no room at all.


RE: Can't have it both ways
By rcc on 5/30/2007 5:56:51 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
One can only properly compete without knowledge of competitor pricing. Which really isn't competing.


Not true. Happens all the time, legally. It's one of the ways you get a price war. You see their price, you lower yours a bit. Everyone's happy. Or, you see their price is 25% higher than yours, so you raise your's 20%. Not so happy, but still legal.

The problem is when you go to the other guy and say "hey! This crap is cutting into my profits, what say we don't drop below $xx amount". That is a problem in law and competition.


RE: Can't have it both ways
By Oregonian2 on 6/4/2007 7:11:24 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Not true. Happens all the time, legally. It's one of the ways you get a price war. You see their price, you lower yours a bit. Everyone's happy. Or, you see their price is 25% higher than yours, so you raise your's 20%. Not so happy, but still legal.


But that's the problem. If you do that and don't undercut the competitor, you're price fixing and in bed with that competitor. That's what they're talking about with Nvidia and ATI.

So you either go into a price war until you go bankrupt and the other guy gets attacked for monopolistic activities (afterwards), or you're both attacked for getting in bed with one another.

Great choice, eh?

P.S. - And no, you can't raise your price by 20% as you say, that'd REALLY get you into trouble for colluding with the enemy and coming up with a fixed price together -- and your joining them in the higher price would be "proof". Mind you, I think this is all silly to some extent because the real competition depends upon what the buyers do (like not buying either) -- but what I say above is what the media powers (and blogs) would be shouting (and there would be "investigations" announced, of course). Results of investigations usually don't get reported though -- unless it's against Microsoft.


By hannibal da mekanikabull on 5/29/2007 9:10:27 PM , Rating: 2
Laws regarding insider trading are good laws, but anything that incriminates a company for charging high prices is pretty rediculous. If you dont think its worth the money dont buy it, its that simple.


RE: Can't have it both ways
By Gneisenau on 5/30/2007 12:39:22 PM , Rating: 2
For there to be price fixing, doesn't there need to be at least 2 companies involved? How can they claim nVidia is guilty of price fixing and not include ATI, Intel, Matrox or whomever they were supposed to have fixed prices with in the suit?


RE: Can't have it both ways
By InsaneGain on 5/29/2007 6:18:21 PM , Rating: 2
Apparently you never took any economics courses. Your arguments that the higher prices resulting from "cooperation" allow more R&D that is beneficial for all are completely invalid. Unimpeded competition is the lifeblood of a free market economy, and anything that hinders it will always result in misallocation of resources and higher costs for society in general.


RE: Can't have it both ways
By masher2 (blog) on 5/29/2007 7:17:45 PM , Rating: 2
> "anything that hinders [competition] will always result in misallocation of resources and higher costs for society in general..."

Quite true. However, there are a large number of economists who believe that anti-trust legislation is actually a hindrance to unimpeded competition.


RE: Can't have it both ways
By nanokompressor on 5/30/2007 2:53:17 PM , Rating: 2
And in your economic courses I'm pretty sure you remember that in the long run firms enter the market when percieved economic profit in addition to normal accounting profit exists. Nvidia's and ATI's profit margins won't last forever. Intel is getting in the graphics business too. The market will work itself out as long as the government stays the hell out.


RE: Can't have it both ways
By Samus on 5/30/2007 1:44:08 AM , Rating: 2
How many OEM Intel PC's have Intel chipsets?

Most of them, with a few nVidia here and there.

How many OEM AMD PC's have AMD chipsets?

Virtually none of them. They're all nVidia.


This is stupid
By Belard on 5/28/2007 8:11:55 PM , Rating: 5
Oh yeah, Nvidia & ATI(AMD) made people spend $600~1200 for graphics cards. What a load of bull!

Everyone KNOW that the TOP END parts are expensive... and if intel wants to join in (making things worse) then *WE* can sue Intel for making $1000 QuadCore CPUs, when they should be introduced to the market for $100! yeah, that sounds fair! What about M$, charging $400 for a super-bloated VISTA, lets sue them for selling an OS! (M$ should be sued for not supporting DX10 on WinXP)

Hell, LETS SUE Ferrai for making their $300,000 cars so expensive! I should be able to get an F40 for $15,000!

Both AMD & Nvidia sell graphic systems/cards for $25~500+ Most people do NOT need a $500 video card... If nobody wants to spend $500 on a card, then we won't see such things.

I support AMD/Nvidia right to design the best they can, and if its $500~600 a card (Remember the junky fx5800!!) - so be it! Because 1-2 years later, that same $500 card is $150.

2004: The ATI 9800XT and GF 5950 Ultra were $500 video cards.
2006: The Smaller & cooler runing GF 7600GT goes for $125 and is 3 times faster.




RE: This is stupid
By iVTec on 5/28/07, Rating: -1
RE: This is stupid
By Treckin on 5/29/2007 1:31:06 AM , Rating: 2
before you post, beneath every post is a WORTH READING/NOT WORTH READING button... the rest is self explanatory.
Once you post, you may not vote any longer.
This is in a effort to make people read the whole comments section before posting something stupid...
Obviously they need more precautions


RE: This is stupid
By iVTec on 5/29/2007 5:24:13 AM , Rating: 2
Thanx m8 :)


RE: This is stupid
By OrSin on 5/29/2007 12:11:03 PM , Rating: 2
I can see how people think graphic cards are over priced compared to what we had in the pass. But remember in the pass the GPU was lsmost nothing compared to CPUs. Now even lowe end GPU run faster the cpus. If AMD and Intel cna charge 600+ for a Cpu then I dont see how a GPU shouuld be looked at as over prices.

Now with that said there isno way in hell I paying 600 for video card any time soon. My limit is $200 and I not some broke student. The fact is things are priced at thier selling piont. NV and ATI (yeah I know it AMD now) price to make a profit, to get market share and to sell volume. I dont see how they did any price to get any of them.


RE: This is stupid
By FITCamaro on 5/29/2007 7:38:02 AM , Rating: 2
So Microsoft should be sued for not implementing a feature that wouldn't work on XP. Could they have designed DX10 to be compatible with XP? Yes. Did they? No.

They don't have to. They wanted to move forward with technology and that meant sacrificing backwards compatibility. A company is not required to make things the way you want them. If you want DX10, get Vista. Otherwise, shut up about it.

While they look similar, Vista and XP share very little code. Hence why it took so long.


RE: This is stupid
By Belard on 5/29/07, Rating: -1
RE: This is stupid
By KernD on 5/29/2007 7:09:32 PM , Rating: 3
They could have added DX10 to XP but that would have required writing so much of XP's code that it would have cost them allot of R&D without earning a thing. Does a car maker call you after a year and offer to upgrade to the new model for free? They only make recall when something is broken in the design, not when they add new feature. So stop whining, at least you get new feature not just bug fix in your OS. This feature was just too big thats all.


RE: This is stupid
By mindless1 on 5/31/2007 5:46:09 PM , Rating: 1
Yes, support isn't cheap... but that's why the product is priced to allow for it and we know they did make the profit to allow for it. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they had actually developed DX10 for XP but then decided not to use it. So they made a decision in what benefitted them the most and the other side of the coin is loss of customers. That is, if people speak with their wallets instead of just encouraging them by continuing to buy the new products no matter what.


RE: This is stupid
By elFarto on 6/1/2007 3:58:44 PM , Rating: 2
If Microsoft needed to rewrite so much code for DirectX 10, why can OpenGL do these same features on Win2k/WinXP (assuming you have a compatible card)?

I very much doubt there is any technical reason DX10 could not be implemented on Win2k/WinXP.

Bundling it with Vista is just a ploy to get people to upgrade, nothing more.

Regards
elFarto


RE: This is stupid
By Proteusza on 6/1/2007 7:18:45 PM , Rating: 2
Because OpenGL is a completely different set of technologies. They both loosely follow the same upgrade path, but OpenGL can be used on more platforms. It doesnt require DirectX to work at all.

DirectX 10 uses fundamental changes in the Vista OS to work. I dont know why Vista is so slow with all these supposed speedups, but nonetheless XP would have to have large parts of its kernal (the very core of the operating system) rewritten to support DX10.


I am confused.
By Schmeh on 5/28/2007 6:05:32 PM , Rating: 4
I am confused on something here. The lawsuits allege that Nvidia was part of a price fixing scheme. The thing that I don't get, is that Nvidia doesn't sell graphics cards. They only sell chips and card designs to third party companies, who then make the cards and sell them to the public. I know Nvidia sets a MSRP on all cards, but noone forces the card manufactures (EVGA, XFX, BFG, etc.) from selling below this. Shouldn't people be filing suit agaist these guys instead?




RE: I am confused.
By Eric2203 on 5/28/2007 9:29:32 PM , Rating: 2
And what do you think cost the most for those other manufacturers to buy ? That's right, the GPUs and the actual reference design. I'm pretty sure these lawsuits are addressing price to other card manufacturers, not public prices set by said manufacturers. For all we know, they're the ones suing Nvidia...


RE: I am confused.
By Schmeh on 5/29/2007 10:24:29 AM , Rating: 2
I realize that the bulk of the cost to card makers is the chip and reference design. My question is whether it is the card makers (EVGA, BFG, XFX, etc.) that are suing Nvidia or if it is users like us. I can understand the card makers suing Nvidia, but it seems to me that end users should be suing the card makers and not Nvidia.


RE: I am confused.
By Haltech on 5/30/2007 1:31:34 AM , Rating: 2
hmmm, perspective time, Hypothetical - lets say I got picked on by a bully at school, ok lets go sue the school, which has money but not a whole lot, for not making it safe for children but why when I can sue the school district,lots of money, and win. nVidia has the stocks,cash,power while eVega/BFG just has some cards for sale that post back to nVidia.


RE: I am confused.
By Schmeh on 5/30/2007 11:54:53 AM , Rating: 2
I am sure that is exactly why they are suing Nvidia and not BFG, EVGA, and others. I was questioning the suit on its legal merits.


RE: I am confused.
By GlassHouse69 on 6/1/2007 2:28:19 AM , Rating: 2
nvidia gives them MSRP and MAP pricing. manufacturer's suggested retail price and minimum advertising pricing. they cannot deviate below a certain amount or these lose kickbacks and privledges. the degree to which they do so is probably heinous. I would be shocked if a brand new 8800gts actually would cost more than 80 dollars with a 20% markup.


Murphy's law of demand
By Justin Case on 5/28/2007 10:37:07 PM , Rating: 5
Murphy's law of supply and demand states that "it's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their own money".

For me, that sums up the high-end gaming cards' market segment.




RE: Murphy's law of demand
By Treckin on 5/29/2007 1:24:49 AM , Rating: 3
Thats pretty good. It should read:
No matter how bad everyone thinks AMD/ATI is doing, you bet Hector Ruiz is not hurting on his 9.05 million dollar salary last year.


RE: Murphy's law of demand
By Gneisenau on 5/30/2007 4:04:22 PM , Rating: 2
His wages may be a tad excessive compaired to how well ATI is doing this year, but if he gave back that 9.05 million dollars and ATI reduced the price of all the chips they made by 9.05 million dollars total, would you even notice the drop in price of your new video card? What if all the top execs did the same thing? I still doubt you would notice. How many millions of chips do they make a year anyway?
If I were a stock holder I would be pretty miffed by his wages, but as a consumer I doubt I would even see it in the decimal point.


Car Companies....
By dude on 5/29/2007 12:08:55 AM , Rating: 2
How come nobody has yet to file a class action lawsuit against the car companies?

Use the same excuses that everyone is using against AMD/Intel/nVidia.

Somehow, the tech sector has some interesting acquisitions against everyone else in the same business.

Of course, I'm all for lower prices. I do think some of these new video cards are highly expensive, but after spending so much on R&D, you'd expect the companies to have a way to address their costs.




RE: Car Companies....
By Justin Case on 5/29/2007 1:11:32 AM , Rating: 3
I think the issue is that price fixing happens to be... what's the word... ah, yes, illegal.

It's not a matter of "excuses". The general idea of open markets is that there should be competition. When companies make deals to keep prices artificially high instead of actually competing, they are operating as cartel. A monopolistic cartel, in this case. Think OPEC.

When a single company has a monopoly (ex., Microsoft), there are anti-trust laws to ensure that it can't do certain things (of course, all those laws will be ignored after a few "campaign contributions" to the right politicians, but nevermind that now). But those laws can't be applied to (supposedly) independent companies.

Instead, there is anti-cartel legislation, saying that competitors must compete and cannot fix prices.

High-end gaming cards will always be expensive, the question is whether or not, without this alleged agreement between ATI and nVidia, the prices wouldn't have dropped faster, as a result of competition.


RE: Car Companies....
By Stablecannon on 5/29/2007 4:32:13 PM , Rating: 2
A high end card from nvidia or amd will cost 500. In about a year new high end card will be out and it too will cost $500. Here's my problem, who says you have to buy the current high end card? Buy the mid range. it'll probably outperform the last gen's high end part. Sure the high end prices never come down, why should they? When BMW releases there 2010 745 sedan, it'll probably cost as much as the 2002 was when it came out. So in that case the car companies also have an alleged agreement , because it doesn't really seem like BMW, Mercedes or Lexus have any plans to start a price war on all of their new cars. So let's sue them! And gas companies!


RE: Car Companies....
By Justin Case on 5/30/2007 1:30:25 PM , Rating: 2
So, are you alleging that BMW, Mercedes and Toyota (Lexus) have a price-fixing agreement? When are you planning to file suit?


Now back to REALTY !
By cornfedone on 5/28/2007 11:08:52 PM , Rating: 1
First of all, ATI and Nvidia would have had to agree verbally or in writing to fix prices in order to be found guilty under law. If they just priced their products at inflated prices like OPEC and the oil companies have done for the last 30 years - that is NOT considered price fixing under law. It may be dirty, slimy, financial greed, but not necessarily illegal.

As far as I am concerned, anyone stupid enough to pay hundreds of dollars for a Vid card, deserves to get it rammed up their butt. Only a complete moron would pay that kind of money for a graphics card. Obviously if people thought the price was too high then they would STOP buying and magically - just like with gasoline and every other product in a free market, the price comes down.

There's a sucker born every second and many of them play video games.




RE: Now back to REALTY !
By Treckin on 5/29/2007 1:47:20 AM , Rating: 3
Absolutely wrong. Price fixing is illegal in any form, written, spoken, or otherwise. It is a class 1 felony. If the US Attorney prosecuting the price-fixing wishes to try it as a civil case, then the spoken agreement is just as illegal - A verbal contract is just as binding as a written contract, and therefor simply viewed as such by the court.


RE: Now back to REALTY !
By zeroslugfm on 5/29/2007 5:22:04 AM , Rating: 3
what interests me is that Nvidia/ATI were having some heated price wars during the last few years, which makes you wonder who exactly filed these lawsuits.

I could possibly understand these being a result of "SLI" brand royalties and other parts of the various Nvidia marketing campaign of 2005-2006 that could've upset more than a few retailers/manufactures.

But no matter how I look at this (from a consumer pov), I see no reason why a consumer should complain about spending too much on the bleeding edge....especially in the GPU market.

Maybe it's over my head~


Who does this truly affect?
By Setsunayaki on 5/29/2007 12:58:57 AM , Rating: 3
I would be more interested in someone suing Nvidia for actually blaming memory manufacturers for faulty memory rather than Nvidia's own chipsets under SLI. I know so many memory manufacturers who jack up their prices by 20 - 50% simply from putting a "Certified for SLI" sticker on their memory. I know many people who ran SLI successfully with no problems using uncertified memory....which makes me wonder....Do the memory companies who give a cut to nvidia get certified while those who hold low prices arent given certification stickers?

From where I am sitting, I am believing more on who would this actually affect? High End Gamers? Currently I run a single Nvidia 8800 GTS with a Core 2 Duo at 400 x 6 as a default since I can operate it at 1.068v. I play Quake 4 with a Framerate of 60 - 70 on the EVGA superclocked card at 2048 x 1536, AF x 8 and Vsync enabled which traditionally isnt good for FPS games, but eliminates tearing.

I stated this paragraph above because the video card's value is $300 and that is never bad. 640MB of memory is for those who play with Uncompressed textures. I play on Very High settings in Q4 with 320MB of Memory. In Oblivion I get great performance throughout the game on Maximum settings and HDR enabled on 1280 x 960.

Just what is high end enthusiast here? A $300 video card gives you great framerate in any game out there....I play Command and Conquer 3 at 2048 x 1536 with x8 AF. You certainly don't mean HIGH END = "I want to set maximum shaders and overload my game with AA and AF and get 60+ FPS" I mean that is the mentality of a power user, not an enthusiast...^_^

I think this effects the Power Gamers a lot more....Memory is what you really are paying for. There is a difference between 320MB of Memory as well as 768MB of Memory when 1024MB of memory is right around the corner.

The high end power gamer who runs windows vista is in for the surprise that if he has 4GB of Memory and Vista takes 512 - 1024MB to Run, along with 2048MB of Video Card Memory......He already is addressing 3GB of memory which means the last 1GB is for the Game he will play....(Nevermind if he had 4GB installed...I have that problem in my computer,where I have 4GB of RAM, but can only use 3.5GB because of Memory Addressing on 32 bit system....yet I keep 32 bit XP because drivers are optimized and if I go SLI for another 320MB card, I can still put out a stick of RAM and run on 3GB...this is an ENTHUSIAST mentality making a sound choice)...

This forces him to actually upgrade to a 64 bit operating system to actually address more than 4GB and all in the same deal with unoptimized drivers and OS performance problems.

A high end gamer or enthusiast today is in a real problem...Taking 20% performance hit from running Vista itself, then taking another 20% performance hit from running horrible SLI drivers...So that he can claim that he got a framerate of 200 in the latest game, when one really needs 60 and some overhead....On Vista....a GTX performs as well as a GTS on XP (I have tested this). Why burn more money?

Remember that the real idea of an enthusiast is to actually use his or her technology to see how much can be got out of it. Overclocking processors, Running many tests on Video Cards, seeing how much memory one needs...Understanding and utilizing technology.

For some reason "Enthusiast" is overlapping "Power-User" and that creates a problem for everyone.

AMD/ATI have been losing a lot of money lately...Their HD card didnt beat out the Nvidia GTX or GTX ultra...My own OVERCLOCKED GTS managed to beat out in the games I love to play that one card as well....Intel has been in a price war with AMD.....In other words, both sides of AMD are being hit pretty hard and everytime a company is hit hard...THEY SUE their competitors....Also...

So many customers have been and feel violated on Windows Vista, it was about time that someone started suing companies.

Finally it should be stated that anyone reading this can understand that if I had my own business in video cards.....that if my model performs similarly to a $500 model...of course I don't want to be ripped off selling it for a lot less and I will price it above or below based on the actual performance....so to any consumer it will look as though the prices are being set in a Cartel type fashion.




RE: Who does this truly affect?
By Treckin on 5/29/2007 1:35:17 AM , Rating: 1
there is nothing illegal about Nvidia certifying certain product 'SLI ready' for a price - Look at THX/DOLBY. If people are suckers for that, than you should just buy a fucking Dell.
These lawsuits wont get laughed out of court... they will be settled out of court. For an undisclosed amount, under an NDA.


RE: Who does this truly affect?
By AlmostExAMD on 5/29/2007 5:15:00 AM , Rating: 1
LOL, Umm don't know what you mean?, My E6600 dual core,2GB ddr2 memory along with 8800GTS runs Vista, And EVERY game currently out there on maximum settings on a HD 24inch widescreen monitor, These so called performance issues in Vista everyone goes on about is bullshit, My eyes only need roughly 30 frames per second and my card is giving me double and sometimes triple that!
SLI is just for bragiing rights, U don't need it just as u don't need 4gb of ram for games to get decent frame rates!

As for other comments from people about prices being to high fo video cards, Stop and think for just one minute about exactly what it is you are getting for your hard earned money, Your talking processing power that is a ten fold increase or more over where your lowly cpu is at present, In my opinion it is a bargain even if the card is $US600-700.
CPU's on the other hand is a different story, Your paying for these so called extreme editions which are double the price but give u jack in performance with no new features!


RE: Who does this truly affect?
By Setsunayaki on 5/31/2007 9:22:46 AM , Rating: 2
Actually 4GB of RAM is not a bad deal...I do the following with Oblivion:

To drop load times, I set it so that I load around 2 - 3GB into memory. I sometimes work on a ram drive. I have a friend of mine who works on Windows XP pro 64 bit version and runs an 8800 GTX along wiht 8GB of RAM, He takes and runs a RAM Drive that is set to around 6GB.

He then loads an Entire Game into the RAM drive and runs the Operating Systems as well.

The result is actually him playing a game on RAM DRIVES that measure latency by Nanoseconds instead of measuring Latency that analog hard drives with moving parts in nano seconds have.

The industry is moving to Solid State drives with the same concept, but when you run on a 4 - 6GB RAM drive you actually load the entire game into memory itself so the game is actually faster than Any SCSI drive out there.

I use A 3GB RAM Drive from time to time myself and I copy all the files to some of my favorite games on there...My registry has around 10 games that depend on the ram drive, so I have an external hard drive with the game files and when I reboot the system, I simply transfer the file structure into the RAM drive to play the game I want to play and start playing it.

If you do that you can actually get a large performance increase because the game is sitting in RAM itself and not on any hard drive and windows is looking at a hard drive made out of Physical Memory.

Why obtain Decent Framerates when you can get maximum framerates? Before I posted the first time on this topic I made sure I ran my gaming performance benchmarks myself on a dual boot XP/Vista system. ^_^


Can't we all just get along?
By Orpheus333 on 5/28/2007 3:44:49 PM , Rating: 2
Its like a messed up love triangle on Springer. The only people winning are the lawyers. This has inspired me to consider changing my major to law...




RE: Can't we all just get along?
By spluurfg on 5/28/2007 3:56:54 PM , Rating: 2
That's what happens when you have overlapping jurisdiction between the DoJ, SEC, and FTC. Why do they subpoena all documents relating to the merger between AMD and ATI now? Shouldn't the appropriate agency been privy to them when they approved the merger in the first place?


How to start a class action lawsuit ?
By crystal clear on 5/29/2007 1:37:44 AM , Rating: 2
Here is an example how these class action lawsuit starts-

quote:
This website gathers information to determine the viability for a class action lawsuit against nVidia (and some of its manufacturing partners) for problems involving "Vista Ready Certified" products on the Microsoft Vista operating system


http://www.nvidiaclassaction.info/




By Gneisenau on 5/30/2007 4:10:08 PM , Rating: 2
Whoever thought it was a good idea to let Lawyers advertise was an idiot IMHO.


Please, get a life
By Domicinator on 5/29/2007 8:35:20 PM , Rating: 2
These are probably all the same people that wanted to sue Nvidia for the bad quality of their first Vista drivers. Sometimes PC gamers are really whiny little bitches.

I'm a pretty hardcore PC gamer. I own a 640MB 8800GTS. I'm not going to sue Nvidia over a driver or a price. That is so completely stupid that I can't even believe it. Yes, the Vista drivers sucked at first. Yes the card was expensive. But guess what. The card was worth it, and the drivers are pretty awesome now.

I can't even believe that I'm reading this. Nvidia, I hope you find a way to drag the cases out for years so that you bankrupt all these whiny little bitches with the court costs.




RE: Please, get a life
By GlassHouse69 on 6/1/2007 2:30:08 AM , Rating: 2
you enjoy sucking off older men who put you down. I dont think you actually like yourself.


By HexiumVII on 5/28/2007 5:22:59 PM , Rating: 2
Nvidia must pay for overcharging us a product that they spend millions R&D on so that we can play gamers faster. And you know games are like air, they can't legally do that. We must play games at HD rez. Please, my insane friend play stalker on his laptop with an x200 integrated and he's happy.




Paid the same
By Viper96720 on 5/28/2007 11:46:54 PM , Rating: 2
I think I paid about $200 for my 8500Pro and my X1950Pro. Don't seem to be much price increase at least for me. Same price for a lot more performance.




By kilkennycat on 5/29/2007 1:21:09 AM , Rating: 2
These suits will be laughed out of court. I doubt if any will be brought to a full trial. The 8xxx family cost $425million and 4 years to develop. Development-cost recovery by pricing premium versions of a product line significantly above manufacturing cost is the norm for ALL high-tech industries. Call this price-fixing if you wish.... A Lexus is just a glorified version of a Toyota with a few extra bells' n whistles and a huge mark-up. A great way for Toyota to make a packet more money. Why not sue Toyota for "price-fixing" the Lexus line? Remember that all the nVidia product lines have low-cost versions. You do not HAVE to buy the premium version... unless of course you want the performance or extra features associated with it.




No Price Fixing has Happened.
By Topweasel on 5/29/2007 5:14:46 PM , Rating: 2
As noted earlier is every gen has had cards that performed quite a bit better then the competitors. Instead of putting the price at the competitors levels the tend to price it above, basically sending the message if your willing to pay XXX for that then you will pay XXX+50 for our card. This happens all of the time in the automotive world Buggati, Ferrari, Astin Martin, Mercedes. It allows them to worry about making less of them and increases the exclusiveness of said cards there for driving value up. This is not Price fixing, nobody can force Nvidia to increase production of these cards and lower prices.

Also keep in mind Nvidia and ATI have made upwards of 10 different configurations for every series creating many price ranges to fit anyones budget. This again lets them sell astronomically expensive cards as there are always 20-30 options under those one or two super cards and the prices fluctuates a lot.

A business is supposed to maximize profits and it is very legal to see where a competitor sits price vs. performance and adjust your pricing based on that. But in a field where performance is doubling ever 18-24 months (not just transistors but actual performance)I just don't see the price fixing going on.

I will take it all back if there is actual some sort of collusion but really I just don't see that happening. I think if anything prices have been going down but the performance spectrum covered in options has allowed the says things you might as well call Prototypes and other small production cards and the cost of them have gone down greatly. I also believe that the 6th month window of releases makes it hard for price to go down before the next series is released. Take the 7800GT-7950GT line, that card went from $450 to $180 in a year and a half.




Stupid
By Alexstarfire on 5/29/2007 9:02:40 PM , Rating: 2
Actually it's very stupid to begin with. How can they have an anti-trust lawsuit against them when neither AMD nor nVidia hold the majority of the market share?

Also, it's a VERY well known fact that AMD and nVidia get most of their money from the mid and low-end range of their cards. High end cards are usually only to show which side is "better" and they don't even make up 5% of the market, if that much.

Overall it seems stupid. nVidia will win all of the lawsuits.




YEA!
By Canadian87 on 6/2/2007 4:20:03 AM , Rating: 2
Let's sue all these bastards to high hell, and then we can all sit around with our amazing computers we have now and post comments about how our computers will be the best forever because nobody is making any video cards anymore.

I can invision a world with no AMD, ATI, Intel, and Nvidia. It'll be filled with 8800GTX, and Intel Core 2 Duo, that is all, because well that's the best we'll ever have.

Hows about we just let them keep making video cards, and if they inflate the prices we won't pay for it. Supply and Demand, it's not a new concept, and definitely not new around the enthusiast video card market. We all know the drill, $1000 for the new cards, $600 for the cards just before that, $250 for the ones before that, and well whatever the stores can get for that fourth previous generation.

I've only got a 7600GT, and I don't plan on getting a better one, I'm just going to get another 7600GT, $200CAD, and I have all the graphics power I want...... for now...

or maybe we could just nuke them all and let god sort them out.




Chipmakers making more profits
By microchip on 6/2/2007 7:08:49 AM , Rating: 2
This is the strategy that chipmakers follow. It doesn't matter which company is it Nvidia, Intel or AMD-ATI they all agree together the prices. For example the High end processors from Intel C2Quad cost $1000 the same can be said for AMD High end CPU, when they release the barcelona core it will be the same speed, the same price.
High end cpu prices usually are $500 - $1000
Mainstream cpu... $250 - $500
Low end cpu... $100 - $250

Now nvidia and AMD-ATI use the same scenario for their GPU.
High end GPU... $400 - $500
Mainstream GPU... $200 - $400
Low end GPU... $100 - $200




The merger is the message
By jipmac on 6/4/2007 3:04:24 PM , Rating: 2
Lets look at the merger(takeover)of ATI-AMD, it stunk then and it still does. It was no secret that AMD was in negotiations with NV prior to the AMD-ATI deal, notwithstanding the very, very close relationship that AMD and NV have shared for years. When the NV merger fell though, ATI was targeted. AMD with the info gained, knew that it could control the market. If they did not have agreements in place with NV I would be shocked.

Look at ATI's GPU performance, for over a decade, leapfrogging with NVidia. They where pushing each other big time, real competition. since the takeover ATI is nowhere close to NV GPUs. NV has dominating the market since the ATI9800 days.

I truly believe that the merger should NOT have been allowed. Side deals between AMD and NV have destroyed competitiveness in the GPU market. AMD has given up on trying to compete with NV, since the merger, AMD bigwigs have allowed the once proud ATI to become a laughingstock. Research money/resources have been diverted away from the GPU division.

I am glad the legal machine is looking at this whole thing closely, but they should have done some do-diligence before they allowed the merger. It's no secret that AMD and NV work closely together, but I hope that it come to light just how close, and that they are truly in-bed with each other. In truth is the 'tail is waging the dog' , of course NVidia is the 'tail' and the big winners.




The story of the enterpreneur
By swizeus on 5/28/2007 7:20:53 PM , Rating: 1
One day nVidia meet AMD
nVidia : Hey, how's business doing ?
AMD : Good, but my marketshare is a bit sliding.
nVidia : We've been in price wars so many times, why should we continue when we can make customers pay for us ? Here, i've prepared document for you to sign...
AMD : Hey, what a great idea, a share of pie for everyone...




I don't see a problem
By Beenthere on 5/29/07, Rating: -1
RE: I don't see a problem
By mindless1 on 5/31/2007 6:00:14 PM , Rating: 2
Actually if looking at high-end gaming video cards you are forced to purchase AMD/ATI or nVidia. The question is then whether you are forced to buy a high-end gaming video card at all and obviously not since it is not a life necessity but nevertheless for better or worse if we have a law it has to be upheld so long is it stands.


nVidia must pay for their crimes!
By Al K Hall on 5/28/07, Rating: -1
RE: nVidia must pay for their crimes!
By povomi1 on 5/28/2007 7:33:19 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly. Wholeheartedly agree, 100%!

On a more serious note, the fact that these companies put millions of money into R&D doesn't excuse anti-competative behaviour. Gamers are pretty much forced to pay up for performance for current games, when 7-8 years ago the prices for computers were $1500-$2000 the graphics cards were $150-$200. Now computers are less and less expensive and graphics cards are rising in prices. If NVIDIA and ATI want to charge $400-$500 for graphics cards, it is fine. But if they conspire to keep prices high then it is illegal.

Currently there is nothing proven illegal, but the lawsuits will put a definite verdict on any assumptions of the legal nature of ATI & NVIDIA actions.

And if it is found that illegal activities did in fact take place, the consumer will only benefit.


RE: nVidia must pay for their crimes!
By Runner3001 on 5/28/2007 10:11:55 PM , Rating: 4
Anti competitive behaviour? Who are they driving out of business?

Gamer's forced to pay up for performance? Sorry, but it's your choice to pay for performance. Read the requirements on the side of game boxes, they're no where near high end. You don't have to have the recommended rig to play games...besides that, graphics companies have little to do with the feature set the developers choose to implement.

7-8 years ago high end cards were 300, very shortly after that the high end rose to around 400 and the competition in the market heated up. There is nothing in your PC that has advanced more in the past decade than the graphics card. The development cycles are also extreme compared to any other component. 1-1.5 years between completely new architecture, product refreshes every 6 months. Add to that constant driver development and the sheer number of products these drivers need to support. Their prices are fair. If you don't like the cost pay for a midrange card and get adequate performance without all the bells and whistles.


RE: nVidia must pay for their crimes!
By deeznuts on 5/28/2007 11:32:44 PM , Rating: 3
Not sure if you get the point of this suit. If ATI and Nvidia, basically the only two high performance gfx makers, conspire to set prices, nobody is driven out of business, but they've taken away competition in the industry, which hurts consumers. With only two players, and no anti-competitive behavior, consumers will get the best prices because if one manufacturer lowers their prices to stimulate demand, the other will be forced to unless they offer something more (performance, features, etc.).

Their prices are fair only if they didn't conspire together. If the prices, as high as they are now, are set by the market, fine. But if they met in a boardroom or alley somewhere and agreed to raise prices, and promise each other they wouldn't drop them, then that is not fair. And don't think this hasn't happened before.


RE: nVidia must pay for their crimes!
By Runner3001 on 5/29/2007 1:07:39 PM , Rating: 2
I agree, if they did meet in a board room and colluded to fix prices, that would would be unfair. Yes, I'm sure it has happened before, do I believe it has happened in the graphics space? No.

I, for one, see price competition going on in the graphics market. Yes, the products launch at fairly predictable price points, but they do drop. So there is a form of price relief going on. While it may not be all out cut throat style, it is good enough for me.

Another thing that I'm not sure anyone has really thought about regarding this issue, could the graphics industry survive vicious price wars? The type of battle we see in the processor space is, to put it mildly, industry destructive. It, in and of its self, is anti competitive. Should one of the graphics companies manage to get the upper hand I don't think we as consumers would end up very happy.


By deeznuts on 5/29/2007 2:15:36 PM , Rating: 2
But that's just the nature of the beast. Intel clearly has the upper hand in the battle with AMD, as evidenced by a constant 80% market share (give or take) even when Intel had a very very crappy product. We don't need even competition, just competition.

The secondary price drops are a result of I believe competion between resellers, not ATI and Nvidia. The initial MSRP is where we would judge if there was price-fixing or not. They may have, they might not have, but the best parties to judge are the ones who buy directly from them, and that is who I believe brought these suits. Not m and you who buy from Newegg.


RE: nVidia must pay for their crimes!
By lumbergeek on 5/28/2007 7:41:48 PM , Rating: 2
Oh please....
If you don't want to pay thru the nose for a bleeding edge card, don't buy it! Quite simple really...


By Al K Hall on 5/28/2007 9:24:11 PM , Rating: 1
Uh, joking, OK?

But seriously, the lawyers win, the courts win, nVidia will undoubtedly pass any losses (fines) on to us (the consumer) with more expensive products (think tobacco companies).

All in all, only the customer will lose.

Life's a bitch, ain't it?


RE: nVidia must pay for their crimes!
By Targon on 5/28/2007 7:54:56 PM , Rating: 4
Is there really any crime to selling top-end products for high prices, while selling the lower end parts for low prices? If you see your competitor selling their top end cards for $600 each, that implies that YOU can sell YOUR top end card for a similar price. That is NOT price fixing.

Price fixing really only comes into play when there is a product that has zero innovation. In this case, if one of NVIDIA's OEM customers purchases every last GPU from NVIDIA that they can, then increases the price, or conspires with the other OEMs to sell the NVIDIA based cards for a certain higher price compared to the price NVIDIA sets on those parts, then you have a case for legal action.

In this case, both ATI/AMD and NVIDIA spend a LOT of money on research and development of their new cards. ATI/AMD just set a lower price on their R600 based Radeon HD 2900XT cards than the usual $500-$600. People still complain about THAT, even though it IS the highest end that ATI/AMD makes at this point. These high end cards also come with a LOT of memory(which isn't cheap to buy). It's like saying a 512 meg video card should cost the same price as a 64 meg card just because people don't want to pay money for all the memory on these cards.

So, shouldn't a company be able to charge very high prices on their top end products to help pay for the R&D that goes into developing the new parts?


By sviola on 5/29/2007 9:12:15 AM , Rating: 2
That's not true. Price fixing can happen anytime. Specially in a market where everyone knows that every 6 months a new product is released and only raises the performance bar by a few %. And both companies seem to change position on who has the best performance by just a slight ammount all the time.

It doesn't matter if R&D costs a lot. If the companies did set the prices (and they might have not), they should be treated accordingly to the laws. Note that this doesn't mean they can't profit on their products, but they have to do it accordingly to the laws, and setting prices are illegal, as they kill competition (they drive smaller companies out of the market) and harm the consumer.

I really don't get why all these posters treat companies as if they are saints and only want the best to the consumer...Companies are not like that, all companies aim only to profit, and they'll do anything to achieve that. The only difference between them is that some do it better than others and do not get caught.


"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer











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