well well, just when you think everything is competition between ATI and NVIDIA something like this comes up.....
what a dissapointment

How about anyone who bought a card between those years get some moneies back!

Sweet, does this mean I get 1~3 times as much as I paid for video cards in that timeframe? For me thats over $1000

What usually happens with these class action settlements is that the lawyers get 90% of the settlement, and the end consumers get 10%-off coupons for the next Nvidia and/or ATI purchase. Feh.

Thats All people do is wine and cry, in my opinion the prices are very good and the prices keep falling. We can only benefit from this "price fixing".

I just got a Geforce 9600 GSO for $36 after rebate. Compared to processors, video cards are pretty affordable. This lawsuit is kind of dumb.

Are you stupid or something? "price fixing" is meant to thwart the dropping of prices due to competition. When both sides agree to settling their prices, their is "no" competitive pricing which means you are being screwed over and paying more.

Nice, 1.7 million fines. It means I can get about $0.75 as one of the millions of people who bought a video card during the aforementioned time frame.

this is simply to funny to not comment on someone thinks they paid to much for a video card so they dig up some dirt & file a suit in court. So who gets all this money that they won. If its these 2 guys then they just were in it for the money if they are gonna share the wealth with others involved that's not as bad but still pretty stupid.

I bought 3 cards in that time from 2 ATI's & 1 Nvidia all were in the 650 to $750 range wheres my money I want some back too...lol. No just kidding on that. If these guys were selling or buying cards at those prices then its their fault that they paid what they did & its time for them to suck it up & deal with it like grown adults not whinny badies.

If Nvida & ATI did what they said & tried to prove then have the gov fine them big slap their wrists & go on from there. I do not think these guys deserve this kind of pay back because all this is gonna do is open a big can of worms for more law suits files against Novidia & ATI & all that is gonna do is drive the prices up for everyone else so they can cover all the money lost to stupid people who nothing better to other than whack it & dial some greedy lawyer.

So,what is the deal here?

Hell,I should sue Intel and AMD for price gouging.

>.>

Note in the verbiage that it says (people) who bought products from defendants' websites. How many people have ever bought their card directly from ATI.com or nVidia.com? And how many of those people still have their proof of purchase from way back when. I think the number of people able to get a payout from this just dropped to .00001%.

Why is the title of this article "Nvidia Settles Price Fixing Lawsuit" and not "Nvidia and Ati Settle Price Fixing Lawsuit"? They both paid out the same amount of money.. man I'm getting tired of Tom's acting like there's only one graphics card company...

this is stupid, because if any moron bought a card directly from the mfg website they knew they were getting ripped off, and if they didn't it's not like you can't get the cards from several thousand retailers/e-tailers.... seems fair enough to me... and yes the article specifically says "from the mfg website".

“all individuals and entities who purchased graphics processing card products online from the defendants’ websites in the United States during the period from December 4, 2002 to November 7, 2007.”

one more stupid lawsuit... if it was a real 'rip off' then it would apply to EVERYONE who bought a card from anywhere.

Personally I don't see this "price fixing" their talking about. I know what it is, but it sure doesn't seem like their not competing against each other. Their prices are far from outrageous. Other then the high end cards, but um no duh. Maybe conspiracy to price fix, but it sure don't ever looked like it went into practice.

Now if we could only sue these oil companys for price gouging.. Which while not quite the same princable sure in the hell close enough. lol

^I believe it was the Nvidia lawer teams idea... AMD just agreed to the terms.

What does this mean for me?

Do I get money back for overpaying on Nvidia hardware?

This means that the payout could be quite decent for the 500 or so people who bought cards direct from the manufacturer and still have the receipt.

While that agreement is still subject to court approval, a second settlement agreement has already been agreed to by the remaining individual indirect purchaser plaintiffs in the action. It would seem $112,500 is to be paid "in exchange for a dismissal of all claims and appeals related to the Action raised by the individual indirect purchaser plaintiffs."

**

So does that mean that people who bought directly from ATi/Nvidia get the $1.7 million, while those of us who bought indirectly get only $100K?

**

Also, the lawsuit covers a 5 year span. So how long, and in what ways, did these companies fix prices?

I have a feeling that this price inflating didn't go on the entire time, especially not when one company had an advantage(better GPU) over the other.

The Real question is whether or not they come out on top with this.

It pissed me off with the whole Walmart illegal immigrant deal, because Walmart paid out less then it would have cost to hire as many full time workers, as they used illegals. And the point isn't to get reimbursement, it's supposed to punish the company so they don't have an incentive to do it again.

Does only charging Nvidia and ATI for products that were bought on their site, then allowing them to settle, not only reimburse those effected, but punish both companies?

ur an idiot!
the prices r much better now but previously they charged well over 600$ for a high end cards. right now the top of the line cards from nvidia is 400$ and 549$ ati. they made alot of cash messing with there customers. They should give back like 15% back of the total cost of the graphic card that ppl bought a while back.

Your obviously unfamiliar with how the world works...Allow me to educate you out of sheer pity. First of all Price "Fixing" means Both companies would keep the prices on their graphics cards where they are, or possibly even raise the prices and then keep them at those prices.
long story short, "Price Fixing" means basically to find a way to never lower the price on a certain product regardless of how old and outdated it is. This is a "get rich quick" scam that Nvidia and ATI are most likely guilty of. Both of them should be forced to lower the prices on their graphics cards now that they have been caught with their pants down on this. We computer users/enthusiasts/gamers have been paying too much for graphics cards all along. the thought of both of these companies working together to screw over their customers, whom have kept the companies alive and thriving over the years is downright enraging. and even though an email as revealing as what we have just read is now public knowledge, They still have the balls to deny it.
that alone shows BOTH companies are getting way too much business.

Also on another note, Hopefully no one would go through ATI.com or Nvidia.com to purchase their products whereas you will be charged full price for them. Newegg.com & Zipzoomfly.com are the places u want to go to.

So says the CEO.....

Anti competition is always bad. It they didn't price fix, then the prices would be even more "competitive" and you and I would only benefit.

I think you need to re-read the article. AMD (ATI) has not agreed to anything. The proposed settlement was drafted up by NVIDIA and they are hoping that AMD will follow suit.

From another website: "It is assumed that ATI would pay the remaining sum, though the company has yet to confirm this."

hmmm. every one of us who bought an ati or nvidia card deserve justice.. if only we can line those 2 a-holes who fixed this up and let us throw "intel" boxes with a larrabee watermark on their faces.

maybe the gtx's/3800/4800s couldve been offered at 75% of its current price, or maybe 20$ couldve been slashed off my 9600gt.

corporate greed FTL!

I commented on this when the lawsuit was first announced. This is just Nvidia and ATI paying off the lawyers to keep from spending multi millions or more in attorney fees. Along with escaping the risk of a finding against them is a screwed up San Francisco court. Big deal. 2 lawyers pocket about a million bucks for a few weeks worth of work. No consumer gets squat out of it and ATI and Nvidia raise the prices about a nicjel to recoup the loss. This whole story is only about a couple of shyster lawyers who know how to "work" the system.

and what about the rest of the world? I;m in New Zealand and for me the high end offerings from both AMD and Nvidia are the same price ($1000 to $1200 depending) why should we have to pay so much more, if the Nvidia high end offering is 400 USD then i should only have to pay 597.9 NZD yet i would pay almost double that. Same applies for AMD $549 USD yet i pay 1000 NZ when i should pay 820.

The prices are ridiculous, although at least for me the AMD one is a much smaller increase in price. Perhaps this lawsuit should focus on the rest of the world not America since its the rest of the world that pays so much more than you.

NZ retailers rip you off, pretty simple really. They do the same here in Aus, but to a lesser extent.

Dude, this law suit was about price fixing by two companies during 2002-2005.

LMFAO@Sheeple: "Prices aren't that bad," Ummm HELLO, the goal of the consumer is to get products for the LEAST amount possible Vs the corp, who would like to have us paying as MUCH as possible. Some people here have been fooled into believing a certain price range is "fair," Vs huge profits reaped b/c of this flawed mentality. So I guess by that mentality people wouldn't/shouldn't have a problem paying $150 for a pair of basketball shoes that only cost $~7-10 to make by foreign children, in sweatshops, inhaling toxic poisons? Guess who gets the profit and benefit... certainly not us. I guess the same could be said about a Video card that might cost $15 to make, but since some of you think it's some how worth more, you'll pay the %500 markup huh? Geesh.

These two guys are nothing more than a low life unemployed looking for money. Come on, no one putting a freaking gun to your head and force you to buy anything. No wonder this country is all f**** up. People like these two losers and those CEO who gets paid $100+ millions per year or should be shot. Enough said.