Geforce Partner Program

[Zoraptor]

So, rumours started about 2 weeks ago of nVidia offering a new 'incentive' program to its Add In Board/ 3rd party manufacturers whereby nVidia co-opts their graphic card gaming brands (MSI Gaming X, Gigabyte Aorus, Asus Republic of Gamers etc) as exclusively nVidia in return for, well, basically the manufacturer getting timely stock, preparatory samples, shout outs and support from nVidia etc. With the strong implication being that if you don't sign up then said samples and stock, support etc will go to those who do sign up. This was largely met with a wall of silence and a rather Orwellian blog post response from nVidia that features the word 'transparency' 5 times without actually saying anything, and is so transparent they haven't said anything else and have a strict NDA so nobody else can talk.

 

It should, perhaps, also be noted what happened to XFX when they had the temerity to start making AMD video cards- no more nVidia support for you! And eventually, no more nVidia cards at all. Bit of a Chilling Effect for anyone thinking of resisting the GPP.

 

Anyway, fast forward two weeks and what do we find? No more Aorus AMD cards, no more Gaming X AMD cards, no more ROG AMD cards. Indeed, we have the rather amusing sight of Gigabyte claiming their "Gaming Box" is not branded Aorus because... it isn't for gaming (in german, relevant part as my best attempt "Computerbase has contacted Gigabyte as to why their new 'gaming box' Radeon RX580 lacks the "Aorus" branding. The maker replied that the focus of the product was not on gaming. However their marketing for the product claims "Turn your Ultrabook to gaming platform[sic]" and "Upgrade your game experience".)

 

So, why is that a big deal? Basically, idiots people pay lots of money for the 'Gaming' brand name even if the product is identical, and nVidia is (almost certainly illegally, asterisk equivocation) co-opting their brands for its own use. This is massively anti-competitive since AMD is locked out of gaming brands for discrete graphics cards from most of the big AIB makers and it also targets the new Intel/ AMD processors/ iGPUs* which will not be able to be branded as 'Aorus/ ROG' etc in notebooks. That's a big deal for everyone, since if there's no competition nVidia can and absolutely will gouge worse than RAM manufacturers currently are- and at least there are three of them. And if they're strong arming partners when there is competition it will be orders of magnitude worse when there's literally no alternative.

 

(Note, I freely admit that nVidia is one of the few companies that I outright loathe so I'm far from unbiased, but it is for these sort of reasons. There will be far more 3.5/4 1060 3gb/ 6gb and similar shenanigans when there ain't no competition)

 

*and allegedly there's a 'full' AMD Ryzen 'APU' coming with equivalent to 580 performance based on the xbox1x gpu as well, but it ain't announced. 

[Bartimaeus]

Thanks for the info. Why nvidia and Intel always gotta be pulling underhanded crap like this on poor little AMD? :|

[Malcador]

Thanks for the info. Why nvidia and Intel always gotta be pulling underhanded crap like this on poor little AMD? :|

 

Well, objective of the game is to destroy your competitors, right ?  I guess AMD really can't play likewise. 

 

Certainly seems strange to hear the anonymous sources all say that the agreement is illegal, but then they've gone ahead with it.  I guess these hardware firms are all Kissinger types.

Edited March 21, 2018 by Malcador

[teknoman2]

 

Thanks for the info. Why nvidia and Intel always gotta be pulling underhanded crap like this on poor little AMD? :|

 

Well, objective of the game is to destroy your competitors, right ?  I guess AMD really can't play likewise. 

 

Certainly seems strange to hear the anonymous sources all say that the agreement is illegal, but then they've gone ahead with it.  I guess these hardware firms are all Kissinger types.

 

of course they do illegal things. all is well if you are not caught after all.

intel has been bribing OEMs for 15+ years to not use AMD CPUs and has been even convicted for the practice under anti-trust laws in the US, EU and Japan paying a total fine of $6 billion ... which was pocket change for intel since that's how much they were bribing just Dell every year.

[Zoraptor]

Intel has also iirc never actually paid any fines, they're still tied up in appeals.

 

Certainly seems strange to hear the anonymous sources all say that the agreement is illegal, but then they've gone ahead with it.  I guess these hardware firms are all Kissinger types.

 

 

Really though, what can they do? While they wait for any action to come to court any competitor who signs up is getting the preferential stock, early access to samples, support etc while they aren't- and even if ASUS/ MSI/ GB showed solidarity with each other and refused there are still all the nVidia exclusive brands that wouldn't; EVGA, Zotak etc. That potentially means no day 1 cards for resisters, unreliable cards, all for an indeterminate length of time, and at worst you end up like XFX or BFG and cannot make nVidia cards at all. When that's ~75% of your AIB business that's a massive deal even if you make motherboards and other parts as well. Best they can do is what ASUS's owner is doing- have a separate sibling brand make AMD cards without restrictions, hence ASRock getting into the AIB business; or what GB is doing and use passive aggressive generic gaming 'branding' (which nVidia literally cannot stop, since it is generic; but also isn't actual branding, since it's generic and cannot be trademarked).

 

If there's going to be legal action it has to come from AMD or regulators.

[213374U]

Hey man, they have to cover their bases. You can't very well price gouge unless your "competition" isn't in a position to compete, now can you?

[Azdeus]

It's good to see nVidia launching programs that confirm my position on their ethical buisnessmodels. My heroes.

[Zoraptor]

And the GPP is dead. Due to too much 'misinformation' supposedly. More likely due to Intel threatening to sue Jensen's arse off for trying to get laptop producers to sign up. Intel also has a huge war chest and the means to retaliate effectively, which no one else has- at least in the short term, it was on decidedly dodgy regulatory ground but that action tends to be very slow.

 

May have been in the works a while as well, Asus seem to have instantly reverted all AMD cards back to ROG versions instead of 'Arez' (though their twitter says Arez branding will still be used for some things, so maybe it will be an Armor/ GamingX G1Gaming/ Aorus type situation).

[Keyrock]

Don't worry, they'll do this sort of thing again, they'll just be less overt about it next time.  We are talking about Nvidia here. 

[Zoraptor]

I'm not sure they'll be able to bring it back. They clearly wanted it to apply to laptops as well, and arguably that was the main reason for it. I can't see HP/ Dell deciding that nVidia is more important than Intel pretty much ever if they didn't do so now, and that's what they'd need to get a GPP like through. I don't like nVidia at all but I do suspect they tried this for genuine reasons- though obviously not their publicly stated reasons- and because they're genuinely worried; not just for asterisks and giggles.

 

I presume Jensen and the others at nVidia know the rumours about both AMD and Intel trying to eat his laptop lunch with integrated solutions as well as anyone. Ultimately the advantages of integrating graphics are not something that nVidia can counter except at the very top level since they don't make and can't make x86/64 CPUs. AMD offering an APU with XB1/ PS4 level performance and cost would be horrible for nVidia, Intel doing the same would be nightmare time. And there is the realistic prospect of Ryzen/ Vega (or Navi) 7nm APUs in the next year or so which could be 6 core and have desktop 1060 level performance at a fraction of the cost* of putting an actual 1060 in there, and there are already 'Vega24' Intel integrated solutions.

 

*a bit facetious, but the cheapest way to get a 'Vega56' here would be to buy... 5 2400G APUs, and you get 20 Ryzen cores thrown in as well.

[Malcador]

https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/In-eigener-Sache-Nvidia-NDA-als-Maulkorb-fuer-Journalisten-4091751.html?view=zoom;zoom=1

 

Nvidia continues being evil, or something.

[injurai]

I knew this was going to be about the NDA