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powerarmour
--[papameister]--
Mod Squad
Joined: 13 Oct 2002
Posts: 11154
Location: Surrey, UK 'In Dead Space'
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 Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:56 pm Post subject: ATi (AMD) & Nvidia price fixing...? |
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ATI (AMD) and NVIDIA Fix Prices in the US, Class Action Slapped Against them :-
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Class actions charged against NVIDIA and ATI (now AMD) reveal that the two companies may have staged a competition over the past half-a-decade or so. A judge read out an email which suggested price fixing was rife in the graphics card market. That follows a class action of 51 different plaintiffs, now combined into one, and across different legal jurisdictions, alleging cartel behaviour not only in graphics chips, but flat panels and CRTs too.
In other words, NVIDIA and ATI may have been fixing prices of their products for a while now, it is believed that they held secret meetings to discuss staged competition, chart out prices, timings of product launches among other things. These pseudo-competitions staged provided improved sales among other things. A PDF File available to us at this point shows that the two indulged in conspiracy to mutually benefit from staged competition, so as to:
* Fix, stabilize, and maintain prices of products in the US Market.
* Artificial inflation of product prices.
Provided, are charts that show price-spread between NVIDIA and ATI products. Three major time-scales: Before the 'conspiracy period', during and after a federal grand jury launched an investigation and issued subpoenas to both companies:
Of course, the latest price-cut of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 series products doesn't seem to have been taken into account, the price spread between NVIDIA and ATI with their highest-offerings is zero. |
http://www.techpowerup.com/index.php?65970
Interesting... |
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wonkanoby
Ultra nForced
Joined: 18 Apr 2002
Posts: 8512
Location: sunny south london [catford]
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| Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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makes for some interesting reading
and those charts say it all |
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powerarmour
--[papameister]--
Mod Squad
Joined: 13 Oct 2002
Posts: 11154
Location: Surrey, UK 'In Dead Space'
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| Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:47 pm Post subject: |
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Agreed, and as mentioned in the comments after, Intel's Larrabee will sure shake things up, about time for a proper 3rd player again...  |
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powerarmour
--[papameister]--
Mod Squad
Joined: 13 Oct 2002
Posts: 11154
Location: Surrey, UK 'In Dead Space'
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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Class Action Suit Against NVIDIA & ATi Heats Up :-
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Fireworks were flying in the courtroom last week when the judge fired off a round or two at lawyers for NVIDIA and AMD in their ongoing price-fixing lawsuit. The judge read an e-mail aloud in court that supposedly talked of ways the two companies could keep prices high and, if that wasn’t bad enough, he chastised the defense lawyers saying:
"This court is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of your companies. I am against you hiding information from the public. If we get to summary judgment in this case nothing will be under seal," he said. |
http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MzM3MjYsLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdCwsLDE= |
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UDF2Diablo
nForce Padawan
Joined: 20 May 2003
Posts: 637
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 8:35 am Post subject: |
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AAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaaaaa!
i always wondered to myself if large companies like ATI and nVidia (intel and amd too) might ever work their prices prices like this; but the up and down (performance wise) nature of ATI's products always made me think that they were just struggling to match up to nvidia causing NV to drop prices whenever ATI released a really cheap bang/buck card.
maybe they're just helping each other stay afloat so neither of the two ends up with an insane lead and leaves the other behind? ;p rofl.
would be nice to see one of these companies bring out a chip that completely wipes the floor with the other party's solution and leaves them eating stale cake.. much like the core 2 did to AMD's chips at the time. ;p - but oh my! with all the hand shaking going on i wonder if that'll ever happen... - tbh, it would probably be good/bad for us if that did, prices would be so insanely high because the card wouldn't have any competition what so ever... or would they?.. - Objection! |
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daglesj
nForced²
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 1574
Location: on the cusp of uranus
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 9:39 am Post subject: |
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Well I guess if the market is big enough and there are only two of you in the game then I guess it stands to reason to try to have some level of co-operation.
After all we've seen that you can be way ahead and the biggest but suddenly within a matter of a few weeks you can shrivel up (3Dfx).
A gentlemans agreement to make sure both can pull in a tidy profit and keep some good healthy competition in product types. After all its not a good thing to be seen as the 'only one' in a marketplace. Too exposed to legal and monopoly ramifications. You need a 'competition partner'.
The Beatles and the Rolling Stones had a similar agreement lol. |
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powerarmour
--[papameister]--
Mod Squad
Joined: 13 Oct 2002
Posts: 11154
Location: Surrey, UK 'In Dead Space'
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 9:58 am Post subject: |
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What's funny is that it seems the so called rivalry between Nvidia & ATi is that after work they both go down to the gentlemens club for brandy and cigars... 
I'd hate to be a fanboy of either, I guess it's not much fun when it looks like the joke is on them, and the consumer has been taken for a ride...
Looking from the graphs it looks like that 'competition' picked back up after the Nvidia GeForce 8 release, which is probably why prices have been as low as they have been recently, unless that's all a bit of a staged wind up also...
Last edited by powerarmour on Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:11 am; edited 1 time in total |
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impar
PC Gamer
Moderator
Joined: 21 Mar 2003
Posts: 17805
Location: Portugal
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:21 am Post subject: |
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Greetings!
| powerarmour wrote: |
| Looking from the graphs it looks like that 'competition' picked back up after the Nvidia GeForce 8 release, ... |
About the time AMD bought ATi? |
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daglesj
nForced²
Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 1574
Location: on the cusp of uranus
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:47 am Post subject: |
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| powerarmour wrote: |
What's funny is that it seems the so called rivalry between Nvidia & ATi is that after work they both go down to the gentlemens club for brandy and cigars...
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Happens in most industries. After all most of these folks are mature intelligent folks that have worked in and around/with one another for most of their careers. Most of them are friends or golfing buddies.
The CEO's dont sit all day sending "you suck!" emails to one another.
Well at least I dont imagine they do. 
As for price fixing, other than the latest top of the range (which you need your head seeing to if you buy) most of this tech has been pretty affordable. I dont know many industries where a product can retail for £450 and less than a year later you can buy it for £80. Thats a small window of profitability to work in so you have to exploit it. |
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UDF2Diablo
nForce Padawan
Joined: 20 May 2003
Posts: 637
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:10 am Post subject: |
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| daglesj wrote: |
The CEO's dont sit all day sending "you suck!" emails to one another. |
i would pay to see court evidence of emails like that. lmao!
(ATI CEO) "Dear nVidia's CEO... You Suck!"
Last edited by UDF2Diablo on Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:10 am; edited 2 times in total |
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