Nvidia Settles GPU Price-Fixing Antitrust Case

arcticstoat writes to report that Nvidia has offered up a settlement for the GPU price-fixing case. As a part of the settlement Nvidia would be required to pay $850,000 into a fund projected to hit $1.7 million (supposedly AMD/ATI would make up the other half). The antitrust case indicated that Nvidia and ATI worked together in order to 'fix, raise, maintain, and stabilize prices of GPUs sold in the US.'"

Comments

Fine, now go after the petroleum companies,

[pecosdave]

The at least once daily "survey" every corporate gas station in the US has to do everyday can't be passed off as anything but price fixing / a trust. As far as I'm concerned they're screwing consumers a lot worse than a couple of GPU manufacturers.

Re:Fine, now go after the petroleum companies,

[Icegryphon]

yeah that would be nice but, government is part of the problem. Because selling gas to cheap is a Crime. No joke.

Re:Fine, now go after the petroleum companies,

[socz]

Maybe not exactly the same thing you're talking about, but check out gas stations on opposing corners. When one raises the price, so does the other. Same happens with price drops. That's not collusion?

Re:Fine, now go after the petroleum companies,

[RightSaidFred99]

You must not understand business. See, if my competitors are charging $8 a gallon and I know my gas costs me $0.80 a gallon, I'm not going to go "gee, I should charge my cost + 50% so I'll just charge $1.20". I'm going to go "shit, this asshole's charging $8 a gallon, I can charge $7.50 a gallon and make a killing". Only an idiot only looks at his prices and then sets the price based on some predetermined margin.

Re:Fine, now go after the petroleum companies,

[coolsnowmen]

but what happens when you run out of gas to sell? then you have to go to the good'ole boys and buy some gas. But they won't sell it to you at a 'fair' price because you've been undercutting their friends.

If the distributors collude, you lose.

It happened in the diamond industry. Which is why de-beers can't operate directly on US soil. Or they would be sued under anti-trust laws. While diamonds and gasoline are completely different, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

Even ram companies got busted just a little bit ago for price-fixing.

Re:Fine, now go after the petroleum companies,

[Feanturi]

No, it's competition.. If I'm charging $1.35/litre, and the guy across the street jumps up to $1.40, I'd be a fool to stay at $1.35. I'll go to $1.39 because I can still sell more gas than the guy across the street and make better profit than I was. If he drops to $1.25 I'd better drop too, otherwise people will get their gas at his place instead of mine. This is just common sense, why does everyone have to scream conspiracy at everything?

Yay more Useless Class Action

[ironwill96]

I say it is useless because the regular blokes who bought the over-priced graphics cards won't see jack squat from this. As is the case with every class action i've ever seen, what ends up happening is whichever litigation-happy person initiated it gets a large settlement (as do their lawyers) and everyone else gets $5 coupons for cracker jacks.

Not Proven Innocent??

[Calibax]

From TFA: "However, it's interesting that neither company has been proved innocent in this case, with the claims being dismissed out of court instead."

Silly me. I thought you had to be proven guilty, at least in the USA. Is the reporter that dumb or is he trying to put a slant on this?

Frankly, it sounds to me like there's no case to answer, and this is just a quick way to make it go away. If there had been any sort of case the settlement costs would have been in the $100+ million range, not $112,000 to the plaintiffs and $1.7 million for the class (which I presume will mostly go to the lawyers).

Did I miss something?

[Sj0]

I must've missed something. Nvidia and ATI GPUs are excellent counterparts, the two most powerful cards available, and if prices are high, it's because nobody else can create a card for less.

Honestly though, I can buy an amazing video card for less than 100 bucks. I can't buy an equivilent video card from Matrox, S3, Via, or Intel at all, let alone for 100 bucks. How are they fixing prices?

Re:You are doing it wrong

[hairyfeet]

It also seems kinda bogus to me. It is ONLY for those that bought their cards from the Nvidia and ATI websites. How many folks actually buy their cards from the Nvidia website? If they and ATI got together to fix the price of GPUs,then everybody who bought a GPU during the time of collusion was affected,not simply those that bought from the GPU manufacturers website. After all,they set the price,which the card makers then simply passed on to the consumers. Or am I missing something here?

Re:chise1

[electrictroy]

I think they should have to refund money back to the customers. Back when the Record Companies were accused of CD price-fixing, that was the punishment they received. My family only got $44 ($22 for me and $22 for my mother), but that's still better than giving it to the politicians where it can be misappropriated on nonsense (like studying butterfly sex).

Paypal received a similar punishment (I got $54 that time), albeit for different reasons.