NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) sounds like great news on the surface that it wants to return $1 billion this year to shareholders. After all, its market cap is only $7.76 billion, meaning that the company would be returning all of its value today in less than 8 years if you use simpleton math.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way. NVIDIA already yields close to 2.4% and it is already buying back shares as is. The company said that the $1 billion includes $100 million in stock being repurchased this quarter and this makes a total of $1.2 billion in total capital returned to shareholders since it kicked off its dividend late in 2012.

The company’s press release even said that NVIDIA had previously disclosed the return of $200 million in capital to shareholders since November. One thing that may be different here is the structure of the share buyback as this will result in an additional $100 million being repurchased in the current quarter plus the $50 million or so per quarter in dividend payments. NVIDIA went on to say that additional details of this plan will come in May when it releases first quarter earnings.

Don’t take this the wrong way. We do love dividends, and we like buybacks as a secondary return of capital. That being said, this is just an expansion of something that is already existing.

This stock is down due to weaker than expected (much weaker) PC shipment data shown last night by IDC. Shares are down 1.5% at $12.63 against a 52-week range of $11.15 to $15.22.

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