GeForce Partner Program Impacts Consumer Choice

davethehedgehog said:
So it sounds to me, if the agreement is so onerous and debilitating, that those manufacturers won't want to do it that nVidia are shooting themselves in the foot? AMD should swoop in with a market leading product and take the market by storm!
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The AIBs need Nvidia more than Nvidia needs the AIBs. The exclusive AIBs would be dead without Nvidia. EVGA can't survive without its GPU business, Galax can't, and so on. So they're definitely jumping on. For everyone else its a risk assessment situation. What is better for their financial situation. Go along with the bully that has 70% of the marketshare or risk pissing them off in favor of the company with only 30%. The answer is obvious. Business make decisions based on how it effects them financially. They can hate Nvidia and the program but they're going to go along with it because it makes sense financially.
 
tungt88 said:
This really "seems" like NVIDIA overreaching itself here, in regards to shutting out AMD from the "gaming video card" market. Heck, if NVIDIA had just said nothing and rolled on until releasing in Q4 2018, most of us would probably end up getting Turing/Ampere/whatever at that time (the rumor mills already had me somewhat resigned to that direction).
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It is heavy handed, Ill give you that. It reads to me like they're trying to put paid to this ROG stuff and try to better demark their own product. One ROG graphics card looks much like the others to me and probably most people. In terms of the marketing/packaging and brand identity. I don't see what they could do to make their own product more unique, other than take back the manufacturing or try to impose regulation on their selected partners. This looks to me like the latter

I suspect the reason why nobody will push back is because all the manufacturers are probably pulling together strategy to meet this demand.
 
Derangel said:
The AIBs need Nvidia more than Nvidia needs the AIBs. The exclusive AIBs would be dead without Nvidia. EVGA can't survive without its GPU business, Galax can't, and so on. So they're definitely jumping on. For everyone else its a risk assessment situation. What is better for their financial situation. Go along with the bully that has 70% of the marketshare or risk pissing them off in favor of the company with only 30%. The answer is obvious. Business make decisions based on how it effects them financially. They can hate Nvidia and the program but they're going to go along with it because it makes sense financially.
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True, and it's a shitty thing to do for sure. But also, I think the manufacturers are at least partly to blame for this situation themselves with branding the two different vendor products so closely. They should have made a clearer demarcation than just a number on a box. Just look at the packaging for the strix rx580 vs the 1080ti for example. It's just lazy
 
davethehedgehog said:
It is heavy handed, Ill give you that. It reads to me like they're trying to put paid to this ROG stuff and try to better demark their own product. One ROG graphics card looks much like the others to me and probably most people. In terms of the marketing/packaging and brand identity. I don't see what they could do to make their own product more unique, other than take back the manufacturing or try to impose regulation on their selected partners. This looks to me like the latter

I suspect the reason why nobody will push back is because all the manufacturers are probably pulling together strategy to meet this demand.
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I should add that this (even more than the AMD angle, come to think of it, given that NVIDIA already doesn't take Radeon too seriously) also looks like a pre-emptive "shot across the bow" to Intel as well, with their plans for a discrete GPU (they will undoubtedly replace the Vega part of their "hybrid" with their own part at some point). That way, even if Intel bought out Radeon overnight from AMD, they couldn't gain serious traction in the gaming video card market (or other, more important markets), due to "gaming" being solidly in NVIDIA's purview. It's really interesting to see how this plays out: not just short-term, but long term (decade or so) down the road.

Yep, more popcorn for all of us!
 
Thank you Kyle, very well written. This is a sad state of affairs, although not entirely surprising. Nvidia has had their boot on the throat of the market for a long time, I'll just leave this here.
Dan_D said:
Unfortunately, the crux of Kyle's article rings true. All of this boils down to a lack of consumer choice. NVIDIA produces the best graphics cards for gaming today. Period. At 4K, I need all the power I can get. So long as NVIDIA keeps pulling this shit with both AIB's and game developers, I don't see this changing anytime soon.

However, I can see why NVIDIA would do this. Anti-competitive agreements in the computing industry are more common than you might think. Belkin is famous for doing this. In fact, exclusive contracts with one company that prohibit them from selling competing products can be found in many industries. You rarely see a car dealership that sells more than one brand unless those brands are owned by the same company. You can't just open a car dealership in the middle of the network as there are rules against it. In fact, that industry has specific laws that keep car makers and dealers fucking the consumer hard and have for three quarters of a century. Belkin had an agreement with Comp USA to sell Belkin cables exclusively, and at one time it was the number one seller of computer related cables, despite having the highest prices.

I'm not sure what the logic is that lets this stuff fly under the radar legally, but this isn't all that surprising. Of course, NVIDIA can do it because we the consumer have no real choices. AMD isn't exactly able to offer a serious alternative to gamers at this point.
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So true, there are anti compete clauses in many things I work with. Want a quote for a switch from X reseller? No problem, just don't try and get a competing quote from 2nd X reseller, the first contacted the manufacturer first and got a "discounted" rate, which means they are a "partner" now and there can only be one "partner" at a time. It stops the consumer from bidding it out to 5 different resellers and the price being driven down. I get it. How about a preferred partner with a software vendor? The software vendor directly can do the work, you ask for a quote from them, it comes in super high. You ask for a quote from a preferred partner that has all of the qualifications or more (they probably stole people from the software vendor) and could save you a ton. No compete bid because they signed up with the vendor as a "partner". It's rampant, some makes sense, some is frustrating.
 
tungt88 said:
I should add that this (even more than the AMD angle, come to think of it, given that NVIDIA already doesn't take Radeon too seriously) also looks like a pre-emptive "shot across the bow" to Intel as well, with their plans for a discrete GPU (they will undoubtedly replace the Vega part of their "hybrid" with their own part at some point). That way, even if Intel bought out Radeon overnight from AMD, they couldn't gain serious traction in the gaming video card market (or other, more important markets), due to "gaming" being solidly in NVIDIA's purview. It's really interesting to see how this plays out: not just short-term, but long term (decade or so) down the road.

Yep, more popcorn for all of us!
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Intel is not worried about AMD, I can tell you that for fact. 98.5% of people have no idea what Spectre or Meltdown are, and it really won't affect them anyway. What's the attack surface? Super small, almost no risk. Even educated folks in the industry are saying, wait, the performance impact isn't worth it. Sure, it COULD be a problem, but really, it's a mess. Don't bother with it, swing at lower hanging fruit.
 
Mugato said:
Intel is not worried about AMD, I can tell you that for fact. 98.5% of people have no idea what Spectre or Meltdown are, and it really won't affect them anyway. What's the attack surface? Super small, almost no risk. Even educated folks in the industry are saying, wait, the performance impact isn't worth it. Sure, it COULD be a problem, but really, it's a mess. Don't bother with it, swing at lower hanging fruit.
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Heh, I think you totally lost what I was trying to say there -- it has very little to do with AMD, but everything to do with NVIDIA and Intel.
 
Nvidia has the same problem as Intel, no modular architecture ready for 7nm. The 7nm 'pipe cleaner' Vega Instinct card coming at the end of 2018 will be modular along with Zen 2. That's AMD's ace up the sleeve, the ability to manufacture their CPUs and GPUs on 7nm substantially cheaper than Intel and Nvidia with their monolithic chips.

While 2019 is going to be an extremely bad year for Intel vs AMD, it won't be great for Nvidia either. AMD's 7nm Zen 2 based APUs are going to decimate Nvidia's OEM business, 7nm Threadripper and Vega 20 combo will rule the HEDT space while Zen 2 and 7nm Vega make substantial inroads in the consumer market.

JHH is playing hardball now because he sees what's coming down the pike from AMD.
 
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joyzbuzz said:
Nvidia has the same problem as Intel, no modular architecture ready for 7nm. The 7nm 'pipe cleaner' Vega Instinct card coming at the end of 2018 will be modular along with Zen 2. That's AMD's ace up the sleeve, the ability to manufacture their CPUs and GPUs on 7nm substantially cheaper than Intel and Nvidia with their monolithic chips.

While 2019 is going to be an extremely bad year for Intel vs AMD, it won't be great for Nvidia either. AMD's 7nm Zen 2 based APUs are going to decimate Nvidia's OEM business, 7nm Threadripper and Vega 20 combo will rule the HEDT space while Zen 2 and 7nm Vega make substantial inroads in the consumer market.

JHH is playing hardball now because he sees what's coming down the pike from AMD.
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Man, you reached far enough to get a beer from the couch!

[first wrench: AMD actually has to make enough parts to meet market demand!]
 
heatlesssun said:
AMD makes GPUs for gaming, nVidia can't tell a 3rd party to not use AMDs marketing for AMD products. Clear 1st Amendment violation.
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Are you being serious? Since when are Nvidia, Asus, AMD, Gigabyte, EVGA, or XFX the government? Do you think non-disclosure agreements are 1st Amendment violations? You get A+ for comedy gold though between your comments in this thread so far and in the past Windows 10 threads.
 
"...AMD came to us and presented us with "this story." AMD shopped this story with other websites as well..."

How very nice of them. Lets you know they truly care, LOL.
 
Not the first time NVIDIA has done something similar like this. Years back when "SLI Certified" was a thing for retail PSUs, they asked PSU companies not to place rival certification logo (Crossfire Certified) on the same space as SLI Certified logo on retail boxes, website, and any other promotional medium. ATI (AMD's former GPU self) at the time didn't care if we had rival logos. As we had enough PSU models to spare then, it wasn't a big deal for us to allocate different PSUs for each certification program. So in some way, I guess it wasn't as bad as what they are trying to do now with GPP by requiring entire product line to be exclusive to them.
 
Tony Ou said:
Not the first time NVIDIA has done something similar like this. Years back when "SLI Certified" was a thing for retail PSUs, they asked PSU companies not to place rival certification logo (Crossfire Certified) on the same space as SLI Certified logo on retail boxes, website, and any other promotional medium. ATI (AMD's former GPU self) at the time didn't care if we had rival logos. As we had enough PSU models to spare then, it wasn't a big deal for us to allocate different PSUs for each certification program. So in some way, I guess it wasn't as bad as what they are trying to do now with GPP by requiring entire product line to be exclusive to them.
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I believe they did the same with motherboards for a short time following the death of nForce.
 
DPI said:
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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Kyle needs an editor. This was a poorly-written piece, from both English language and journalistic perspectives. It presents as quite juvenile in tone and delivery. least he alluded to the fact that is essentially an opinion piece.
 
aaronjb said:
Kyle needs an editor. This was a poorly-written piece, from both English language and journalistic perspectives. It presents as quite juvenile in tone and delivery. least he alluded to the fact that is essentially an opinion piece.
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Could you please be more specific so I could make it better next time? You just being general does nothing to help me make HardOCP better.
 
Bankie said:
So it's just like what AMD does now with Sapphire and XFX......

This is how any industry works. The companies that support the vendor the most gets the most benefits.
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Sapphire was an AMD partner for a long time, but too small to get Nvidia to allow them to sell GPUs from both manufacturers.
XFX got the boot from Nvidia after they announced, they want to sell AMd cards as well.

It even was reported here on HardOCP:

https://www.hardocp.com/news/2010/01/09/gpu_news_from_ces


Bankie said:
Because Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo don't force exclusivity agreements or do even more underhanded stuff.
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Erm.. nope... exclusive game deals for consoles are very different.
They hand over quite a bit of money to buy the exclusive release of a game for their specific console - not counting the games from studios, owned by the console maker.
They even got rarer in the recent years.
Square Enix has a long history of releasing Final Fantasy games exclusively for Sony consoles.
That has changed in the recent years.
The games are merely time limited exclusives now.

Nintendo always tries to be innovative on how games are played in the first place. Not everything does work out (see WiiU and 3D functionality of the 3DS). Other details do work out - like the hybrid nature of the switch and the motion controls, first seen in the Wii.
They also have *very* strong brands of their own - Mario Franchise, Zelda, Pokemon...
They don't really need to buy exclusive game rights nowerdays. The difference in philosophy on how the games are played is the key selling point.
 
Sounds like a desperate losing company. They should use money on R&D and compete instead of whining over that people buying the competition because their products stinks.

Easier to due to cheap childish PR than to make products. :D
 
Case in point. Look at these two GPU's, both part of the MSI GAMING X range.

https://imgur.com/a/DwcLu

The top one is a 1080ti, the bottom one an RX580. The story on the boxes is similar. Wouldn't you want a little uniqueness in your product if you were nvidia?

edit:dammit, bloody IMG links won't work
 
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THIS is why I've called [H] my [H]ome for almost twenty years. From the Quake / Quack ATI debacle, to the Phantom console that turned out to be complete fakeware, to these current day issues... Kyle doesn't back away from a damn thing, and is always looking out for us - the consumers and enthusiasts.

Rock on, brother!
 
I commend Mr Bennett's balls of steel, in what is likely to rub a few up the wrong way. I think in any kind of journalistic work integrity is what matters and to stand up for the consumer interest is major kudos. It is time corporate conduct and practice is made aware to the layman and these corporates take responsibility for their impropriety.
 
I’m honestly having a tough time figuring out why this is a big deal? If the GPP offers perks in exchange for brand alignment and is voluntary then so what? AMD and Intel can do the same thing if their products are viewed as valuable by the OEMs in their respective markets.

I don’t think companies like Asus need promotion funds as they are quite flush with money and engineering talent so these concerns seem way overblown to me.
 
DTabakov said:
I'm not sure what you're on about. They will not withhold or stop delivering to the AIB's, they will just prioritize the ones they have GPP contract with. Furthermore, those will also receive bundles and money for marketing. Which makes sense if they're going to push their "gaming brand" with nVidia cards. At the moment they have to push the marketing with their gaming brand with in house money. I may be wrong but it seems pretty Ok. This does not mean that I like it or that it is good practices.



My point indeed. If nVidia wants to basically "buy" the name of your gaming brand, you can create another one for AMD. The only negative will be that the name will still be unknown to the regular customers. However, there are enough people out there that follow up what's what and who's who.
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Well, why not keep the existing, well known brand for AMD and create a new one for nVidia GPU's? No setup cost because nVidia will fund it as 'Marketing'. Trusted existing brands like ROG would stay AMD.
If nVidia want their own brand they should pay for it all and not piggyback on the success of existing ones.
 
Looks like MSI and Gigabyte is already on board the GPP programs, as there were no GamingX or Aorus branding of Vega 56 or 64 video cards atm, only Asus has the ROG vega 56 and 64. No hard feelings here since those gaming brands are overpriced AF anyways. Looking at Steam hardware survey with Nvidia at 85.3% and AMD at 8.9% I say let Nvidia take the Gaming Branding already
 
5150Joker said:
I’m honestly having a tough time figuring out why this is a big deal? If the GPP offers perks in exchange for brand alignment and is voluntary then so what? AMD and Intel can do the same thing if their products are viewed as valuable by the OEMs in their respective markets.

I don’t think companies like Asus need promotion funds as they are quite flush with money and engineering talent so these concerns seem way overblown to me.
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The problem is that this is perceived as "buying" the market from competition, if all OEMs and AIB's sign up it means no AMD cards can be sold under terms of agreement. It is monumentally wrong at every level, Intel did this to AMD when AMD had superior products and AMD lost multi billions in revenue and clients. I hope this is given the serious treatment it deserves. Asus and MSI deserve punishment for colluding to this.
 
Brian_B said:
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.
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Look what happened to XFX.......

They declined to stop selling AMD, they no longer offer nvidia products.

Don't think it did hurt their bottom line.

That and XFX was a pretty big dealer until nvidia dumped them.
 
davethehedgehog said:
Case in point. Look at these two GPU's, both part of the MSI GAMING X range.

https://imgur.com/a/DwcLu

The top one is a 1080ti, the bottom one an RX580. The story on the boxes is similar. Wouldn't you want a little uniqueness in your product if you were nvidia?

edit:dammit, bloody IMG links won't work
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MSI doesn't need to spend extra to make the 1080ti different.

it works as intended it's not broken so why rock the boat?

just because, nvidia has it's panties in a twist, is not a good reason.
 
This was quite enlightening. I want even aware of this editorial until I was checking my Google feed, saw an Nvidia thing on Forbes ,and the[H] was mentioned.

Will be interesting to see how Nvidia teartr today
 
Sith'ari said:
Obviously if the companies feel that they can benefit from being a part on GPProgram, then will create a different brand besides "ROG" (*for the ASUS example), let's say ... "SOG" (*society of gamers or whatever). If the GPP partnership is beneficial to them, then where is the problem ? A different brand-name is totally a company-based decision.
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Others in this thread explained already, so I will keep it brief: One does not simply create a gaming brand. It takes years of effort and millions expended for promoting it. Not participating in GPP would mean a serious disadvantage compared to vendors who do. Ergo AMD is pushed out and consumer choice is reduced.
Sith'ari said:
I Which exactly is the difference if we compare let's say... with MS's market status for Operating Systems (*what is MS's current marketshare at the OS market? 80-90% i believe?) If NVidia can be accused for such a thing for what they are about to do with their GPProgram, then why not to say the same about what MS has already been doing for decades until now ? What exactly is the difference ?
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Microsoft has been hit by antitrust action for their monopoly abuse in the past. Those old enough to remember DR-DOS may recall how Microsoft made bogus warning appear in Windows 3.1 when it detected DR-DOS running. Then the browser wars and Microsoft licensing fees per PC sold, regardless of whether it had Windows installed or not. Latest shenanigans was patent extortion from Android manufacturers, until the Chinese government stepped in and put an end to it (indirectly by forcing reveal and enabling public review).
 
chithanh said:
1)Others in this thread explained already, so I will keep it brief: One does not simply create a gaming brand. It takes years of effort and millions expended for promoting it. Not participating in GPP would mean a serious disadvantage compared to vendors who do. Ergo AMD is pushed out and consumer choice is reduced.
2)Microsoft has been hit by antitrust action for their monopoly abuse in the past. Those old enough to remember DR-DOS may recall how Microsoft made bogus warning appear in Windows 3.1 when it detected DR-DOS running. Then the browser wars and Microsoft licensing fees per PC sold, regardless of whether it had Windows installed or not. Latest shenanigans was patent extortion from Android manufacturers, until the Chinese government stepped in and put an end to it (indirectly by forcing reveal and enabling public review).
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1) If they can make larger profits with a new deal (GPP) compared to the older status, why not creating another brand-name as a side-effect? I can't see anything stopping them.
2) Yet, what is MS marketshare at the current OS market? 80-90% . While NVidia is what ?... 60-70% (*my estimations, not sure if they are accurate)
EDIT: And what about the NForce chipsets that i mentioned before? Wasn't the project abandoned because of the other companies that wanted to stop NVidia from expanding? So, exactly why NVidia not to apply similar practices?:confused:
 
Thank you for the article, Kyle. I can't help but wonder if this may be part of the reason ASRock it's going to get into the video card business business as a supplier of AMD cards. AMD potentially trying to head off damage they might suffer by losing some of the other vendors who have signed this agreement with Nvidia?
 
Sith'ari said:
I can't see anything stopping them.
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If having to expend years of effort and millions of marketing money in order to continue selling AMD products, or alternatively becoming uncompetitive in 70% of their market isn't stopping them, then I don't know what is.

Sith'ari said:
2) Yet, what is MS marketshare at the current OS market? 80-90% . While NVidia is what ?... 60-70% (*my estimations, not sure if they are accurate)
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Microsoft's current actions like Windows 10 S mode for new installs, or resetting your default web browser to Edge on every big update do not get much scrutiny nowadays. Because Microsoft no longer has a dominating position in the market for personal computing devices after smartphones disrupted PCs.

Sith'ari said:
And what about the NForce chipsets that i mentioned before?
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There was a lawsuit between Intel and NVidia about exactly that.
 
I saw this pop up on Forbes of all places.

Kyle, I have been a member here since the Frag-tape days and it's insider reporting like this that makes me feel like I am part of something bigger than a Website or forum.

You and your lawyers have balls of solid Adamantium.
I am really looking forward to the next reviews of Nvidia products.
I just hope you don't get "Seth Riched"
 
I wonder if this will be enough to develop partnerships between NVIDIA's competition. The collective of all the competition should be enough to start a real threat to NVIDIA.
 
DPI said:
Have you ever known anyone that had it too good for too long not "hate" it when there's any change to the gravy train and it comes to an end? A live-in girlfriend I once had "hated" when I told her to start chipping in for utilities after she'd been living at my place free for 6+ months.

Guess who is banking all that extra profit margin,hand over fist, in this current inflated GPU market? Nvidia? Nope. AIB partners. They've been riding the strength and prominence of Nvidia GPU's to glory for years, are making more money than god, and the only question is what took Nvidia so long to start asking for something in return.
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Nope! Nope, nope, nope, nope nope, nope, nope! It doesn't matter who is profiting or even who is providing the GPU. As an example, my AIB company, SuperBBQ, makes the Hotgrill line of cards. Both feature Nv and AMD GPU's. But it's my company. I spent the money to get it going, I also spent, at least some, of my dollars getting the brand going. I may have had help with discounts and marketing materials from Nv, but it's my company. The mining craze has absolutely nothing to do with this. It's the market today. If Nv wants to ride this gravy train, drop the AIB's and make their own damn cards. Then they can do with whatever the hell they want. But don't gag my company that sells your cards. I pushed the Hotgrill line, I hired the employees, I pay rent on my space, I deal with the RMA's and I have to be sure I have stock to sell. The only way I see this is as a bullshit move by Nv. It's their GPU, but now it's in my card branded as the Hotgrill. And if they cut off my GPU supply then it's my fault for basing my company on the laurels of another. See Netscape ft. BFG.
 
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Computerbase.de has picked it up and links directly to Kyle's article as well.
https://www.computerbase.de/2018-03/nvidia-gpp-vorwuerfe/

That is a h-u-g-e site to spread this story. This is going to get very ugly. Kyle, you deserve massive kudos. And Patreon :)
I'm not surprised NV is shitting itself when they see AMD graphics going into Intel CPUs. That's a good way to gain massive amounts of market share.
 
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