Nvidia facing price fixing lawsuits

[wayfarer]

This has a lot to do with the AMD aquisistion of ATI. If your thinking of buying

a GPU, it might be a good idea to hold off and see if this affects pricing at all.

 

NVIDIA Facing 51 Pending Lawsuits

[Cujo]

i can't stand this garbage. companies should be able to price things the way they want. whether they conspire to keep prices high or not, who cares. we're still all buying these things...

[wayfarer]

Well, I for one would rather be able to shop around to pay $500 dollars for a GPU than $750 or more. If price

fixing were not a crime, we would be living in a much different society. One without a free market.

[dragonfly]

i can't stand this garbage. companies should be able to price things the way they want. whether they conspire to keep prices high or not, who cares. we're still all buying these things...

 

+1

[VooDooPC]

i can't stand this garbage. companies should be able to price things the way they want. whether they conspire to keep prices high or not, who cares. we're still all buying these things...

This is the reason we are going to be paying over four dollars for a gallon of gas...

[Leveller]

Voodoo, is that price fixing or market fluctuations being magnified. (Advance warning, political analogy coming, could get boring very quickly skip to the graphics card piece at the end if you want).

 

I agree that the rise in gas prices has been dramatic (even over just the last 3 years when I've been in the country), but during that time the global political landscape has been hugely unstable, with most instability being in the middle East and most recently in other locations such as Venezuela. In addition damage done to domestic oil production facitilites by natural disasters such as Karina only go to drive up pricing more.

 

I know that with gas companies reporting record profit after record profit, it's difficult as a consumer to look at the prices and say, oh, it's just global issues not price fixing on the part of the oil producing nations and oil companies. But, with global demand for a resource growing and production/supply of that resource become more unstable and impacted by other factors, is it not just pure economics having an effect on these prices?

 

I don't know that as an example gas is entirely comparable to a company fixing prices on a luxury item which people choose to buy.

 

If you want to buy an 8800 card, you can buy it from XFX, BFG, etc. I know they're all based on a product from NVidia, but are these companies going to process it and sell the product if people are unwilling to pay for it?

 

I'm still running an AGP card on my main rig, primarily because I can't justify spending $500 just on a graphics card for the PC I really want today, if others do want to, that's their choice. Very much the same as me chosing to buy a car that runs on premium instead of regular unleaded, I know it'll cost more, but I can justify it to myself.

 

If I could shop around and buy the card for $350 rather than $500 great, but I can't so I don't buy the $500 card.

Edited May 29, 2007 by Leveller

[Brew]

i can't stand this garbage. companies should be able to price things the way they want. whether they conspire to keep prices high or not, who cares. we're still all buying these things...

 

+1

THE TRUSTBUSTER LAUGHS

[Cujo]

i can't stand this garbage. companies should be able to price things the way they want. whether they conspire to keep prices high or not, who cares. we're still all buying these things...

This is the reason we are going to be paying over four dollars for a gallon of gas...

 

gas is not the future. the sooner we realize that, the sooner things will change. i am an on-site technician for a living which means i drive around a lot and i still welcome higher gas prices. the more cars off the road the better for me as a driver as well as the better it will be for my kids growing up.

 

gas prices will continue to rise, rather than fighting the oil companies, our energy is better spent searching for alternatives and pushing governments to better spend our (gasoline) tax dollars.

 

anyone who hasn't seen "who killed the electric car" should definitely watch it. it's absolutely baffling. i haven't read anything on this but i'm fairly certain the money spent on iraq would have been far better spent building infrastructure for electric and hybrid cars.

 

edit- this topic should probably move to a different section of the forums.

Edited May 30, 2007 by Cujo

[wayfarer]

anyone who hasn't seen "who killed the electric car" should definitely watch it. it's absolutely baffling.

 

I have seen that. It's truly disgusting how the electric car is kept from us. It's all about money.

[NOFX]

American's are just getting greedier and greedier. The few who own the company's who are extremely well off, and those who work for the company are lower-middle class. One company sets the bar, the idiot masses pay way to much for stuff and other companies follow suit and charge just as much. Because hey, it is capitalism after all...

The gas prices are what kills me.. These oil execs are making enough a year to buy jumbo jets for themselves, while their employees and everyone else who drives are struggling. No real wage increases. Oil is cheap now, the price per barrel keeps going down, but the price per gallon is going up. Can't you see the fallacy in your idea to search for alternatives.. As soon as we get a car to run off water, Water will cost 5 a gallon.

Edited May 30, 2007 by NOFX

[NOFX]

So our great grandfather are the ones who built the oil company's. They saw a product they could produce for cheap and make a very good living off of it. Now their grandsons are in control. This generation doesn't look at the company the same way as our ancestor's. They see it as "hey, we have a product that everyone wants and only we can produce". Its a freakin monopoly of a bunch of company's.

 

If GM, Chevy, Toyota and all car manufacturers banded together and said, ok lets make the cheapest car, 50k. Is that a monopoly? Thats basically waht exxon, bp and all those guys are doing.

 

gas is about 6 bucks a gallon in Norway, but you know... the oil company's aren't ripping them off, the majority off that is Tax. Norway is the second largest producer of gas in the world, and instead of removing taxes from everyone and driving the country in debt.. They have huge amounts of money saved up for future generations.

 

eh.. sorry for the rant

[Leveller]

To continue with the topic kind of going off track:

 

Oil Prices

 

Just seen the great gas debate topic in politics and will not derail this topic any further.

Edited May 30, 2007 by Leveller

[Cujo]

anyone who hasn't seen "who killed the electric car" should definitely watch it. it's absolutely baffling.

 

I have seen that. It's truly disgusting how the electric car is kept from us. It's all about money.

 

the part that astounded me was the part where they offered 1.9 million for the cars and gm wouldn't take it. i mean it would have cost them a lot just to destroy them. obviously someone was willing to pay far more than they were worth to keep them from being sold back. i literally almost cried when they were taking them away to destroy them for no apparent reason.

 

i don't understand how the gas companies can't see the money to be made by being the first with an alternative to gas. imagine being the market leader of a highly sought after commodity! it's truely baffling why this is being kept from us.

[ZeroDamage]

American's are just getting greedier and greedier. The few who own the company's who are extremely well off, and those who work for the company are lower-middle class. One company sets the bar, the idiot masses pay way to much for stuff and other companies follow suit and charge just as much. Because hey, it is capitalism after all...

The gas prices are what kills me.. These oil execs are making enough a year to buy jumbo jets for themselves, while their employees and everyone else who drives are struggling. No real wage increases. Oil is cheap now, the price per barrel keeps going down, but the price per gallon is going up. Can't you see the fallacy in your idea to search for alternatives.. As soon as we get a car to run off water, Water will cost 5 a gallon.

 

 

What most people do not understand is that the oil companies make only pennies of profit on each gallon of gas. When you factor in the cost of drilling, refining, etc etc, there is going to be a cost there. So how much does the oil company really make? Not a whole lot when you factor in profit margins. You should be angry with the politicians for taxing the crap out of a product that they do absolutely NOTHING to provide to the consumer. The Oil companies do not set the price of oil; there are a lot of factors involved in the cost of fossil fuels.

 

 

 

As for the cost of video cards and what not. I think it is a bunch of conspiracy bull if you want to know the truth. There have ALWAYS been 500-600 dollar video cards at the top end. Anyone remember the Geforce2 Ultra? I do. And this was before ATI became a true competitor.

 

Now if ATI and Nvidia did do what they are being accused of, then yes, they should be prosecuted or whatever depending on the laws. I am just not seeing where this so called price fixing is taking place.

[[LaW]Maverick]

If that's the case...how do they afford their jumbo jets and keep reporting record profits? Does not compute....

 

 

Back to the original topic, however. Seems to me there is a conflict of interest. Here's a quote:

 

"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."

 

That, boys and girls, is a conflict of interest. Basically, they can continue to work closely with nVIDIA, and say "Hey, we should charge this, and we promise ATi will only charge this; deal?" That's definitely questionable, and have you seen the prices on 8800 Ultra's? It's dumb! (see link for details)

[ZeroDamage]

If that's the case...how do they afford their jumbo jets and keep reporting record profits? Does not compute....

 

 

Back to the original topic, however. Seems to me there is a conflict of interest. Here's a quote:

 

"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."

 

That, boys and girls, is a conflict of interest. Basically, they can continue to work closely with nVIDIA, and say "Hey, we should charge this, and we promise ATi will only charge this; deal?" That's definitely questionable, and have you seen the prices on 8800 Ultra's? It's dumb! (see link for details)

 

 

First, here is a great article on why gas prices are so high. I recommend everyone read it. There is no bias in the article and explains things as they are (like I said above, lots of factors invovled).

 

http://consumerist.com/consumer/features/w...sive-263887.php

 

 

Yeah, the 8800 Ultra is so high cost because Nvidia thought that the new ATI card would be faster than it is. They anticipated a much higher end card than the best ATI had and released a faster at a higher cost. Basically, ATI failed and NV failed as well since the card is nothing more than an overclocked GTX. It does not prove collusion or price fixing. This is normal and after the 10 people buy one, the price will go down or it will get discontinued.

[NOFX]

right now we are being taxed .18 cents on the dollar for gas. Eliminating the tax will just give the dealers more room to raise the price.. back on topic.

 

I would say anyone who spends more for a video card than it cost to buy their

cpu, motherboard, ram and psu. has obviously been taken advantage of by the crooks.

[Leveller]

I actually agree with NOFX, I do believe that if people are spending that kind of money on a video card they're being taken advantage of.

 

But, this all runs back to a freedom of choice, bragging rights etc. If someone is going to pay that kind of money, best of luck to them, personally I'll wait for it to be more affordable.

 

The last I heard the 8800 GTX does a pretty cracking job with most of today's games, I know there's a buying for the future part to it, but, surely there's a limit to that.

[ZeroDamage]

I actually agree with NOFX, I do believe that if people are spending that kind of money on a video card they're being taken advantage of.

 

But, this all runs back to a freedom of choice, bragging rights etc. If someone is going to pay that kind of money, best of luck to them, personally I'll wait for it to be more affordable.

 

The last I heard the 8800 GTX does a pretty cracking job with most of today's games, I know there's a buying for the future part to it, but, surely there's a limit to that.

 

 

Not everyone is playing on a 19-inch CRT monitor. There are those of us using a large 20-inch or greater LCD that require a standard resolution. Mine for example requires 1680 x 1050 resolution. If you want to play new games at that resolution with decent quality settings and playable framerates, you need a higher end video card. I knew what I was doing when I bought my monitor and when I bought my video card. I can assure you that I was never taken advantage of.

[Leveller]

ZD, my post was not meant as a personal slight on anyone.

 

My 21 inch WS Viewsonic has the same native resolution as your monitor and I can play most things quite happily with an AGP 8x graphics card that didn't cost $800.

 

I'll admit, I can't turn up all the prettiness on every game I want to play, but this runs back to my second statement which you seem to missed but quoted. Choice, it's personal choice, I admire your decision to buy a graphics card/monitor combo that shows the best in the latest games and am pleased that you're happy with it.

 

Just the same as someone who has the money choses to buy a Lotus rather than a Mazda. I guess you could say I have taken the Mazda route, because I can't justify spending $60,000 on a car with two seats when I have 2 kids, and what I have does a perfectly adequate job of everything else (I don't actually own a Mazda this was for analogy purposes only).

 

I'm all for freedom of choice, if people are willing to pay, then people will sell, it's pure economics.

 

I guess where my issue is with these "top of the line" graphics cards and processors etc. is that they cannot say it's an economics driven model. Demand for an $800 graphics card is highly unlikely to outstrip supply, I believe the "sweet spot" for higher end cards is between $350 and $500, I cannot believe for one second that an economic model has driven the price of the Ultra to be that high, it's purely a means of making the 8800 GTX a more midrange price/option and not meaning people have to justify getting the ultimate model anymore as it is now midrange.

 

I apologize if you took my previous post personally it was not intended that way, it is my opinion, that a graphics card priced at $800 is priced there for a reason that is not wholly driven my a true economic model, but more marketing related.

[Cujo]

i say, price them how you want. collude all you want. if people pay for it then people are stupid. if there really was a conspiracy going on then so be it. who cares. given the market and given my moto "you get what you pay for" i think all their prices are fair. yes the high end will always be inflated but that's normal and the fact is people still pay that much. graphics cards are not a necessity. heck, neither is gasoline. things like food, water, shelter, clothing, should be regulated. things like gas, gfx cards, telephones, should not. if companies want to band together to charge more who cares. if people are paying the prices then it's their own stupid fault.

[Brew]

i say, price them how you want. collude all you want. if people pay for it then people are stupid. if there really was a conspiracy going on then so be it. who cares. given the market and given my moto "you get what you pay for" i think all their prices are fair. yes the high end will always be inflated but that's normal and the fact is people still pay that much. graphics cards are not a necessity. heck, neither is gasoline. things like food, water, shelter, clothing, should be regulated. things like gas, gfx cards, telephones, should not. if companies want to band together to charge more who cares. if people are paying the prices then it's their own stupid fault.

read American history from 1890 to 1920 and you'll know that price fixing and trusts (monopolies) do not work

 

In the late 1900's, Rockefeller was compared to the President as the most powerful person in the United States... The fact that his company controlled the flow of oil, made him gain control of the railroads, thus the entire economy... When his company "Standard Oil" was finally broken up, these are the names that came out of it:

Continental Oil, which became Conoco; Standard of Indiana, which became Amoco; Standard of California, which became Chevron; Standard of New Jersey, which became Esso (and later, Exxon); Standard of New York, which became Mobil

[ZeroDamage]

You can't forget about the famous AT&T breakup either.

[Cujo]

our hydro and telephone was a monopoly up here until as recently as the 90s. they only changed it due to pressure from other companies wanting in on the action. if anything, prices have gone up.

 

anyway, as i said. i'm fine with monopolies as long as they're not on necessities. creative has virtually no competition in the add-on sound card market and they put out fairly solid product. same with microsoft with windows and office.

[shep48]

oil companies see the future, BP has spent billions in hydrogen.