Here's How to Get Your $30 Refund, GTX 970 Owners

The settlement between GTX 970 owners and various Nvidia card manufacturers is moving ahead, and now is the time to submit your request for a refund if you qualify.

As reported back in July, a proposed settlement to a class-action lawsuit would see eligible 970 owners receive $30 each. We now know all the particulars, and some deadline dates have changed. In short: you're eligible for a refund for each 970 you purchased in the US between September 1, 2014 and August 24, 2016. You'll need to submit a claim by November 30.

To do so, you'll complete a form on the settlement website and then either submit it online or mail it in. If you were contacted by email about the settlement already, you should have a claim number you'll need to use. If you weren't, you can still submit a claim, but it will need to include a proof of purchase (like a receipt or email confirmation).

Alternatively, you can choose to exclude yourself from this lawsuit by November 8. That means you won't receive a refund, but you'll be allowed to file your own lawsuit over these claims.

Should you do nothing, you'll neither receive the refund nor be able to sue over this in the future.

The lawsuit centers around false advertising--namely, that the GTX 970 didn't feature the 4 GB of video memory that Nvidia and company claimed it did. (It did have 4 GB, but a portion of it was slower than the rest, which could create performance issues.) It was also later discovered that the 970 had a smaller L2 cache and fewer render output processors than Nvidia had originally said.

These three shortcomings comprised the lawsuit's allegations that 970s were sold "based on misleading representations" and "do not operate as represented." A variety of lawsuits were filed and then combined into a class-action last year, leading to a settlement being agreed upon earlier this summer.