GeForce Partner Program Impacts Consumer Choice

But Kyle and others spelled it out for you. NVidia could simply retaliate against those companies by giving them lower priority in allocating products and engineering resources.

Of course, many including myself have readily acknowledged this. Even if nVidia never were to retaliate this kind of program creates doubt that they might or pull a Darth Vader and alter the terms when it suits them.
 
Then they make Alienware Red and Alienware Green. Whoop.



Sure! And Nvidia could lose their business as well. This works both ways- can Nvidia afford for ASUS to give them the finger?


nV can't lose OEM's or their partners, folks forget what happened to 3DFx when that happened to them, they died.
 
Come on man, we're talking GPUs, I can go pick an Aurora R7 and choose an nVIdia or AMD card.


Yeah I mentioned that its going to be a pain but that is what they want if these companies are going to be part of the program. They want the benefits of the program, they have to do special marketing for those products. The sinister part that is going to hurt AMD, is that no its a force multiplication of marketing with other companies involved. That is not noncompetitive though because its not being forcefully placed on anyone.
 
Then they make Alienware Red and Alienware Green. Whoop.



Sure! And Nvidia could lose their business as well. This works both ways- can Nvidia afford for ASUS to give them the finger?

With NVIDIA's current market share being what it is, no one is going to do that. That's exactly the problem. They're using their current market share advantage to try and get an even larger stranglehold on the market. Is Asus going to give NVIDIA the middle finger and lose 70% of their GPU sales? Doubtful.
 
nV can't lose OEM's or their partners, folks forget what happened to 3DFx when that happened to them, they died.

They got bought by Nvidia :D

[and in the process, one of the better AIBs of the time was lost- STB :( ]
 
With NVIDIA's current market share being what it is, no one is going to do that. That's exactly the problem. They're using their current market share advantage to try and get an even larger stranglehold on the market. Is Asus going to give NVIDIA the middle finger and lose 70% of their GPU sales? Doubtful.


Hello they can if they want to. You have to read up on how many times Dell wanted to break from Intel back in the days. It came down to Intel giving more and more money to stop them from doing so. If this program forces any company to stop selling competitors products, they will never be part of it.

nV doesn't have the chops do what Intel did back in the day lol, no where near. They don't have a few billion dollars to supplement their partners and OEM's to stop them from selling competitors products.
 
nV can't lose OEM's or their partners, folks forget what happened to 3DFx when that happened to them, they died.

When nVidia got into selling FE cards I started to wonder if they might eventually forgo AIBs. The horizon for GPUs and compute power is very bright.
 
With NVIDIA's current market share being what it is, no one is going to do that. That's exactly the problem. They're using their current market share advantage to try and get an even larger stranglehold on the market. Is Asus going to give NVIDIA the middle finger and lose 70% of their GPU sales? Doubtful.

They're trying to control their marketing, which is absolutely understandable. This is a good time to do that.
 
When nVidia got into selling FE cards I started to wonder if they might eventually forgo AIBs. The horizon for GPUs and compute power is very bright.


They can't do that, it just won't work at all. That is exactly what 3Dfx tried, and it doomed them.
 
They're trying to control their marketing, which is absolutely understandable. This is a good time to do that.


I think its a smart move too, but I do see how it can be used for other things, just I feel its unlikely because that would be something these companies are well aware of and how it would hurt them.
 
I haven't read all 5+ pages of responses, but...

This doesn't sound all that sinister to me.

Yeah, it's not a great deal. And you won't have ROG branded nVidia cards ~and~ ROG branded AMD cards.

But it doesn't stop Asus from having ROG branded nVidia cards ~and~ Strix branded AMD cards? (just a for-instance).

I can understand nVidia doesn't want it's cards branded the same as the competition, and that I actually think makes some sense.

The rest of it, sounded like most of it was wrapped up with brand recognition. Doesn't sound like it's a big hurdle to get over, but maybe I'm missing part of it.

Gotta agree. 95% of the posts here is predictable Internet Outrage Bandwagon and AMD fanboys masturbating violently, because Nvidia. And yet everyone swearing to "never give Nvidia another dime!" will in fact give Nvidia many, many more dimes. Because as long as Nvidia GPUs continue to top the benchmark charts, people will continue crawling over broken glass to get one. Let's face it, Jen-Hsun could be caught with an infant in a parked car and still be in the office the next morning.

Having read through everything, a lot of facts are still unknown or TBD, leading to a lot of assumptions and kneejerking here. I see Nvidia's point of view, and while there's definitely smarter ways to go about this, they're basically telling AIB's "In many cases the strength and prominence of our GPU's and our tech put your previously unknown "brandname" on the map. No one had heard of "Gaming X" before the Geforce 7xx. No one had heard of AORUS before everyone wanted their mitts on a Aorus 1080Ti. You got in the Geforce elevator with your unimaginative, weird ass, Taiwanese "branding" ideas, rode with us to the top floor, and now you slap that brand on every product you can get it on, all the way down to the AMD entry level shit. We think that's lame, and we can't make you not do that, but instead we'd like to make it worth your while so you stop commingling our filet mignot with everyone else's dogfood and calling it a work of art".
 
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So while people are here defending this answer something for me:

How come EVERY OEM and AIB Kyle talked to hates this program? If its so great and not at all a problem why would the people that would supposedly benefit from it hate it?

How come Nvidia is being so secretive about their "transparent program"?

How come everyone Kyle talked to was afraid of losing their jobs by talking about this "transparent program"?

How come Nvidia tried to threaten Kyle into not publishing this?

How come Kyle felt that he needed to mentioned being ready to deal with any legal trouble Nvidia might send his way by publishing this article?

How come Nvidia refuses to respond to Kyle's concerns?

How come Kyle, someone who has been involved on the press side of this for nearly two decades now, thinks this is a major concern that could have very negative effects for consumers?
 
NVIDIA is exhibiting Monopolistic behavior in an effort to further control the GPU market to the detriment of EVERYONE else but itself. Stop suckling off the NVIDIA teat and grow a pair. Kyle did.
 
Then they make Alienware Red and Alienware Green. Whoop.

So how does this work, Alienware Green is their "Gaming" brand per GPP requirements and Alienware Red becomes their "PC for rendering highly interactive pictures at high FPS with a GPU" brand?
 
People already associate Geforce with NVIDIA, so when someone buys an Asus ROG Geforce whatever, they know what they're getting. Asus has spent time and money developing the ROG brand and if you look at their product lineup the vast majority fall under that ROG Strix category. This basically seems like NVIDIA trying to strongarm them into shoving AMD products into the "other" category. NVIDIA shouldn't have any control over what brands/names those companies use if they've spent time/money developing the name recognition that goes along with them.

I don't necessarily disagree with that. I also don't see exactly how a voluntary program equates to nVidia accomplishing that.

If Kyle is right, and essentially the only way to remain an AIB partner with nVidia is to join up, then yeah. That's a valid concern. But right now, that's all just "wink and nod" - what's written doesn't say that.
 
Let's be real here though, those benefits could leave the vendors that don't participate in a serious disadvantage. It might come to a point where they really don't have the option of not participating if they want to remain competitive. This program really isn't great if we want the GPU market to have any competition going forward, it's already in a pretty rough spot as we speak.

That is not entirely correct. As it is explained in the article if you participate you get funds, assistance and priority in shipment. I highly doubt, that nV will put their head in the bag by telling a vendor "We will not deliver...what you give us money for" that is highly unlikely. However, having said that there will be certain disadvantage in a timeline. Basically, company A who is on the GPP list will get the gpu's on day 0, assistance from nV's in house tech. specialists and money for marketing the brand. On the other side is company B who is not on the GPP list and they will not get assistance nor money and other perks from the program. They will be delivered gpu's as soon as they are available, because you know...company A has a contract with nV granting them day 0 gpu's on the other hand you don't have that contract so nothing can be done. It's priorities and customers. Business as usual, why for example crApple went with AMD for their new iSomething computers instead of nV?

Plus let's be real people, nVidia is offering better product at this moment of time and AMD is getting what they can in this situation. If I was owner of nV I would have done this long long time ago.
 
So how does this work, Alienware Green is their "Gaming" brand per GPP requirements and Alienware Red becomes their "PC for rendering highly interactive pictures at high FPS with a GPU" brand?

Yup.
 
And if a large AIB decides not to play - that will kill the program. nVidia is ~trying~ to show they don't need AIBs (all that nonsense with FE)... but all the best cards are undoubtedly AIB models.

If someone like EVGA or Asus decides not to play ball, nVidia absolutely won't kneecap them, and it completely kills this as any sort of threat to all the other companies.
 
They can't do that, it just won't work at all. That is exactly what 3Dfx tried, and it doomed them.

3Dfx's problem was technical execution. They were great, others caught up and 3Dfx fell behind. Perhaps partners would have helped them but I don't think they would have solved the basic problem.
 
They're trying to control their marketing, which is absolutely understandable. This is a good time to do that.

To control the marketing, the brand recognition, to further push AMD into the "other", "budget", not the "default" gaming GPU that NVIDIA want's gamers to associate them with. That's a problem. "Oh hey Asus, you want to launch your GTX 2080 ROG Strix at the same time as EVGA's flagship? Ah shit, you're not part of our early tech engagement -- launch partner status program because you didn't play along. We'll help you out once AMD isn't associated with your ROG brand anymore." I find it hard to see for example how vendors could walk away from a situation like that if it's going to result in them losing sales. But obviously at this point the details on the program are rather vague, on the surface it doesn't sound good though.
 
And if a large AIB decides not to play - that will kill the program. nVidia is ~trying~ to show they don't need AIBs (all that nonsense with FE)... but all the best cards are undoubtedly AIB models.

If someone like EVGA or Asus decides not to play ball, nVidia absolutely won't kneecap them, and it completely kills this as any sort of threat to all the other companies.

That's the rub, AIB aren't going to say no. At least not all of them. There is really no financial reason for Nvidia exclusive AIBs to say no. They have nothing to lose by joining. That means it will put pressure on the multi-brand companies to get involved as well.
 
No shock here at all that NV is yet again, being anti-consumer.

GPP is for hardware vendors what GameWorks is to software studios.

Work with NV to implement their middleware binary DLLs into games, at the exclusion of working with other hardware vendors, and receive benefits such as engineering support and marketing funds. It's okay though, cos "no money exchanges hands"... lol

Queue the fanboys jumping on to defend the honor and integrity of NVIDIA..
 
I don't necessarily disagree with that. I also don't see exactly how a voluntary program equates to nVidia accomplishing that.

If Kyle is right, and essentially the only way to remain an AIB partner with nVidia is to join up, then yeah. That's a valid concern. But right now, that's all just "wink and nod" - what's written doesn't say that.

I don't think there's any concern that they wouldn't remain an AIB partner, the concern is that they're essentially being pushed into joining or becoming a second class AIB partner while all the AIB partners in the program get preferential treatment.
 
To control the marketing, the brand recognition, to further push AMD into the "other", "budget", not the "default" gaming GPU that NVIDIA want's gamers to associate them with. That's a problem. "Oh hey Asus, you want to launch your GTX 2080 ROG Strix at the same time as EVGA's flagship? Ah shit, you're not part of our early tech engagement -- launch partner status program because you didn't play along. We'll help you out once AMD isn't associated with your ROG brand anymore." I find it hard to see for example how vendors could walk away from a situation like that if it's going to result in them losing sales. But obviously at this point the details on the program are rather vague, on the surface it doesn't sound good though.


If they have a ROG line up for just AMD and one for just nV then its ok. Kyle used the ROG name as an example, doesn't mean the products within each brand, can't have their own branding. ROG Green or ROG Geforce.

Launch partner preferential has been there for bigger partners in the past ANY WAYS, that doesn't change. The rest of it, does change to some degree, because marketing efforts cost money, and if nV wants to spend more money for their partners that want to do special lines for their products, then that is their choice.
 
That's the rub, AIB aren't going to say no. At least not all of them. There is really no financial reason for Nvidia exclusive AIBs to say no. They have nothing to lose by joining. That means it will put pressure on the multi-brand companies to get involved as well.

Well, if they want to change their branding - yes, they absolutely lose out on that.

For instance. It would mean that Asus would need to re-brand the Strix line - no more Polaris cards, no more Strix motherboards.... or pull all the nVidia products from the Strix line (which they have put a lot of marketing and time into building into a brand), and create a new nVidia-only brand.

For a company like EVGA - they don't have sub-branding. They would have do something about their motherboards at the very least.

Gigabyte, who just started the Aorus branding - would have to gut that and revamp it

There are costs and effort associated with all of that. It's not free. Unless you just happen to be a manufacturer who only produces nVidia GPUs and nothing else (Zotac maybe? Not sure if there are any others)
 
To control the marketing, the brand recognition, to further push AMD into the "other", "budget", not the "default" gaming GPU that NVIDIA want's gamers to associate them with. That's a problem.

It'd be a problem if it weren't true.
 
I don't think there's any concern that they wouldn't remain an AIB partner, the concern is that they're essentially being pushed into joining or becoming a second class AIB partner while all the AIB partners in the program get preferential treatment.

I believe we are saying the same thing about the same concern.
 
If they have a ROG line up for just AMD and one for just nV then its ok. Kyle used the ROG name as an example, doesn't mean the products within each brand, can have their own branding. ROG Green or ROG Geforce.

The program details are pretty vague right now, obviously we're all guessing at how it could be implemented. If it was limited to something along the lines of what your suggesting I could see it not being as big of an issue. But if it was as simple as that, I don't think the AIB partners that Kyle spoke to would have said this:

"They think that it has terms that are likely illegal. 2.) GPP is likely going to tremendously hurt consumers' choices. 3.) It will disrupt business with the companies that they are currently doing business with, namely AMD and Intel."
 
Well, if they want to change their branding - yes, they absolutely lose out on that.

For instance. It would mean that Asus would need to re-brand the Strix line - no more Polaris cards, no more Strix motherboards....

I would lay money that this isn't what Nvidia is actually demanding of AIB's to qualify for a GPP discount. I think everyone's jumping to conclusions.

And while ROG Strix was already an established brand mostly with motherboards, if we're being honest we'd recognize that the main reason Strix branded GPU's - including AMD - are so sought after, is because of the strength of the Nvidia GPU they're built upon. All the overengineering and Quadruple-Phase-VRM bullshit in the world wouldn't amount to much if there was a mediocre GPU at the heart of it.

Ultimately though it should be the AIB's decision if they want to dilute or cheapen their branding by not distinguishing beteween their high end parts and their entry level crap, and likewise Nvidia should recognize people are going to buy their cards no matter what weird/lame "branding" these taiwanese AIB's slap on a Geforce GPU.
 
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The program details are pretty vague right now, obviously we're all guessing at how it could be implemented. If it was limited to something along the lines of that your suggesting I could see it not being as big of an issue. But if it was as simple as that, I don't think the AIB partners that Kyle spoke to would have said -

"They think that it has terms that are likely illegal. 2.) GPP is likely going to tremendously hurt consumers' choices. 3.) It will disrupt business with the companies that they are currently doing business with, namely AMD and Intel."

I'm pretty sure they're pissed that they will probably have to give up some of their marketing freedom for Nvidia's goodies.
 
Marketing is generally protected under the 1st Amendment though government has a lot of power to restrict it compared to other types of speech because of consumer implications. I don't see how nVidia has more power to restrict the marketing rights of AMD than government. There's no way nVidia could have an enforceable agreement that says GPP members can't call an AMD gaming GPU part a gaming part nor use AMD marketing for such parts.

Advertisement do have limited protection under the 1st amendment under commercial speech, but that is usually between an entity and its consumer. But we are talking about one entity creating a disincentive for another entity to advertise their competitor's product, that usually fall under anti-trust laws. Intel did create an environment where it is beneficial for the OEM to buy Intel only during the Pentium 4 days and does not benefitted AMD whatsoever since all advertise PC systems were Intel, granted AMD did made some bonehead decision that ultimately hurt them as well, but it was AMD filing an anti-trust lawsuit against Intel regarding its practice of giving OEM benefits, and I imagine if Nvidia gets sue for GPP, it will be an anti-trust lawsuit.

We both may not agree where it falls under but at least we do seem to agree what Nvidia is doing, stinks.
 
The program details are pretty vague right now, obviously we're all guessing at how it could be implemented. If it was limited to something along the lines of that your suggesting I could see it not being as big of an issue. But if it was as simple as that, I don't think the AIB partners that Kyle spoke to would have said this:


I agree its very vague and we really need to see the rest of it or have it play out before we can say anything more, well I said its disconcerting and it looks like it can be used for something other than what its proposed to, but again, not enough info.
 
Well, if they want to change their branding - yes, they absolutely lose out on that.

For instance. It would mean that Asus would need to re-brand the Strix line - no more Polaris cards, no more Strix motherboards.... or pull all the nVidia products from the Strix line (which they have put a lot of marketing and time into building into a brand), and create a new nVidia-only brand.

For a company like EVGA - they don't have sub-branding. They would have do something about their motherboards at the very least.

Gigabyte, who just started the Aorus branding - would have to gut that and revamp it

There are costs and effort associated with all of that. It's not free. Unless you just happen to be a manufacturer who only produces nVidia GPUs and nothing else (Zotac maybe? Not sure if there are any others)

I said the Nvidia exclusive AIBs have nothing to lose.
 
We don't have the fine print, and we most likely wont until the lawsuits start flowing.

If what I understand is true, Members of the GPP cannot advertise any non-Nvidia product as 'Gaming', and they must include an Nvidia product to advertise it as a 'gaming product'. So it does not talk about having certain brands as AMD and others as Nvidia, its saying "you can't sell an AMD product and mention gaming, gaming performance, games, or show gaming related media relating to the AMD product".
 
We don't have the fine print, and we most likely wont until the lawsuits start flowing.

If what I understand is true, Members of the GPP cannot advertise any non-Nvidia product as 'Gaming', and they must include an Nvidia product to advertise it as a 'gaming product'. So it does not talk about having certain brands as AMD and others as Nvidia, its saying "you can't sell an AMD product and mention gaming, gaming performance, games, or show gaming related media relating to the AMD product".

This is about as egregious as it can get and is the main worry if it is true. I don't think it is, but as others have said, we haven't seen the fine print.
 
We don't have the fine print, and we most likely wont until the lawsuits start flowing.

If what I understand is true, Members of the GPP cannot advertise any non-Nvidia product as 'Gaming', and they must include an Nvidia product to advertise it as a 'gaming product'. So it does not talk about having certain brands as AMD and others as Nvidia, its saying "you can't sell an AMD product and mention gaming, gaming performance, games, or show gaming related media relating to the AMD product".

How are they going to talk about how AMD cards perform in games without it being gaming focused? They can't create a new sub-brand and then fill it with information on AMD gaming performance without it being a gaming focused brand. It would have to a brand the focuses on other things and mentions gaming as an afterthought.

And I'll present you with the same questions I posted earlier:

How come EVERY OEM and AIB Kyle talked to hates this program? If its so great and not at all a problem why would the people that would supposedly benefit from it hate it?

How come Nvidia is being so secretive about their "transparent program"?

How come everyone Kyle talked to was afraid of losing their jobs by talking about this "transparent program"?

How come Nvidia tried to threaten Kyle into not publishing this?

How come Kyle felt that he needed to mentioned being ready to deal with any legal trouble Nvidia might send his way by publishing this article?

How come Nvidia refuses to respond to Kyle's concerns?

How come Kyle, someone who has been involved on the press side of this for nearly two decades now, thinks this is a major concern that could have very negative effects for consumers?

Care to provide answers?
 
Advertisement do have limited protection under the 1st amendment under commercial speech, but that is usually between an entity and its consumer. But we are talking about one entity creating a disincentive for another entity to advertise their competitor's product, that usually fall under anti-trust laws.

Some are calling more than just a disincentive, they are saying that GPP members wouldn't be allowed to call an AMD gaming GPU a gaming GPU. That they wouldn't be allowed to use game benchmarks, make references to FreeSync, Radeon etc. in the marketing and branding of AMD GPUs. That seems to be a speech issue more than an anti-trust issue.
 
Some are calling more than just a disincentive, they are saying that GPP members wouldn't be allowed to call an AMD gaming GPU a gaming GPU. That they wouldn't be allowed to use game benchmarks, make references to FreeSync, Radeon etc. in the marketing and branding of AMD GPUs. That seems to be a speech issue more than an anti-trust issue.


If that is the case that is a major problem. That is forcing a competitors product to not be in the same market, that is anti competitive.
 
If that is the case that is a major problem. That is forcing a competitors product to not be in the same market, that is anti competitive.

Clearly it's anti-competitive because it's restricting the ability for AMD to market its products for their intended purpose which is a speech issue.
 
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