NVIDIA GPP: Meet ASUS AREZ Radeon Series

I look at certain naming schemes and correlate them with performance. I do this with ROG for Asus and Classified, for example, with EVGA.

You don't have to think the same way, but this is my perspective.

Not once did I say the others weren't for gaming. Putting words where they weren't will not get your point across.

Bullshit.

You flat out said that nothing but the very highest end cards should be in the Gaming Brand. I put no words in your mouth and quoted exactly what you said. Your statement means that nothing but the highest end cards should be in a gaming brand despite the fact that the highest end cards are the smallest part of the gaming market.

I'll give you an example of how stupid your statement was. Based on your statement, only the Ryzen 1800x and maybe 1800 should be branded Ryzen because everything else is slower and/or fewer cores.
 
Let's list all the huge corporations that don't do shady shit.

1. ...
Why don't you instead list corporations that do shady shit openly and get away with it!

And not this fallacy again, please: "Others did bad things therefore it's OK to do bad things"
 
were it up to me, i probably would've gone with ARES instead of spelling it with a Z.

Crap. I know all about the god of war, Ares. When I saw "Arez", I pronounced it like a pirate: "aaarrzzzz". I thought it was some sort of "talk like a pirate" thing.

Eff 'em. I'm gonna keep calling it "arrrzzz" whenever I see it. Take that!
 
I think it's a crock to take the entire ROG brand, now if they used Strix for nVidia and Arez for AMD i am fine with that but the entire ROG is BS, how much have ASUS invested in the ROG brand over the last 12-13 years????
 
As a matter of fact NVidia IS pretty much forcing them into the GPP program.

From Kyle's original article:



So, if they refuse to join GPP they will lose a lot of funding. They can't afford NOT to join.

And, then there is this:



Sure sounds like an "offer you can't refuse" to me.
Sounds more like blackmail to me.
 
Bullshit.

You flat out said that nothing but the very highest end cards should be in the Gaming Brand. I put no words in your mouth and quoted exactly what you said. Your statement means that nothing but the highest end cards should be in a gaming brand despite the fact that the highest end cards are the smallest part of the gaming market.

I'll give you an example of how stupid your statement was. Based on your statement, only the Ryzen 1800x and maybe 1800 should be branded Ryzen because everything else is slower and/or fewer cores.

There are many cards from ASUS that can be used for gaming (example: all of them), yet not every Nvidia or AMD card had the ROG branding. See where I'm going with this? ROG wasn't on every card even though every card could technically play games.

What dictates what card is a gaming card and what's not? You and me, that's who. I don't think the ROG branding should be on mid-tier cards.
 
Personally I never thought of ROG as being the fastest individual GPU available, but as the best version of said GPU. IE: best cooling hardware, best bins, etc.
 
Personally I never thought of ROG as being the fastest individual GPU available, but as the best version of said GPU. IE: best cooling hardware, best bins, etc.
Thats how i thought of it, as a style, cooling performance, the choice of hardware, i.e custom PCB, chokes, capacitors and assembly. So are we going to get ROG 1030's now??
 
OK I hate to ask this... but come on do you freaking read this site AT ALL ???

https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/03/30/amd_radeon_freesync_2_vs_nvidia_gsync/

https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/02/08/asus_rog_strix_rx_vega_64_o8g_gaming_video_card/
https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/03/05/asus_rog_strix_rx_vega_56_o8g_gaming_review/

I won't bother going to quote conclusions from either of those you should I think just go and read.

Asus already makes ROG Strix Vega cards... Kyle has reviewed them. Now Asus and it seems the entire industry is going to let NV cuckold them and force them to spend real honest to goodness money designing and rolling out completely new brands. Fuck NV frankly. I have went back and forth over the years and to be honest I have rarely been disappointed with AMD or NV I have always gotten what I expected. I was already leaning toward firing NV over their shit support of open standards in terms of Linux (even though their closed source drivers are very solid)... this move makes it very easy for me to just say no to NV for ever more. At this point I will pay more and be fine with 10-20% less performance to be able to run Fully Open driver stacks and support AMD who seems to always be the company comping up with new shit and having the Monopoly players dump on them. (and yes vega is superior on a technical level... in the pro world NV has absolutely no answer at all to Radeon Pro SSG)

I'll wait for the Vega die shrink later this year and assuming the miners don't buy them all before I punch my CC# in I'll swing back to AMD this round.
Do you read this site at all?
https://www.hardocp.com/article/2017/10/09/amd_radeon_rx_vega_64_4k_video_card_review


And to all the people talking about how 4k is a minority... I know. I also know that as far as gaming goes so are the top tier cards (at least according to the steam hardware survey, where 1.51% of gamers use a 1080 and .75% of gamers use a 1080TI, compared to 13.62% using a gtx 1060) but yet nVidia and AMD still fight to have the "best" cards available. It's the same reason Intel makes their "Extreme Edition" cpus - having "the best" product matters despite the fact that only a tiny percentage of people will ever buy them.

And WHY is asus willing to convert a brand they've spent time and money building to nVidia only? Go look at the march 2018 steam hardware survey. I realize that's not ALL of the gamers, but it's pretty telling when the total share of amd gpus (10.75%) is smaller than the share of a single nvidia card.


And honestly I thought all of asus' non "FE" cards were "ROG" - which is why I doubt this bs branding shift will have too much of an impact. The people who know enough to want a particular card aren't going to care if it's branded ROG or AREZ (well maybe the stupid "Z" at the end might sway a few people ;) but still.)
 
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You're basically saying it's OK to kick the downed person, or even virtuous. This is not ancient rome, and this is not a gladiator fight where the caesar shows a thumbs down at the end and tomorrow there'll be two new fighters.
I really don't get it why are people so content with this. A one player market is not good for anyone, even rabid nvidia fanboys will loose on it.

If I was the business with the better products I sure as hell would be kicking them and trying to grind them into the dirt beneath my shoes. That is what a business is supposed to do, try and improve itself and maintain dominance.

As a consumer, it does not do me good that the top dog has no competition - just look at intel in tech arena for evidence that a dominant company isn't driven to make better products *cough* P4 *cough*.

This is one of the areas I feel government is useful in, anti-trust. In the end NV doesn't want AMD to go away they just want them to be a little cowering puppy in the corner.
 
While I get why people are pissed at Nvidia, I don't understand the hate for Asus right now.

The gpp essentially was a way to try to pressure manufacturers into not selling AMD products.

Asus found a clever way around that.

If the Arez brand takes off, Nvidia will suffer the Wrath of the law of unintended consequences.
 
Do you read this site at all?
https://www.hardocp.com/article/2017/10/09/amd_radeon_rx_vega_64_4k_video_card_review

And WHY is asus willing to convert a brand they've spent time and money building to nVidia only?

I know the difference a properly made higher end part, Gaming branded card can make right ? lol NV reference designs are slower as well crazy I know.

As for why Asus and other Oems are playing along... its simple the terms of the contract say do as we say or else. Which is part of what makes it an illegal ask. In general when you word a contract with a Customer that says "you will now only buy from us" and then suggests not doing so means you will show favoritism to your customers competition, possibly effecting their profits or worse. Those types of contracts tend to get smacked by courts when things go there. The argument of but they can still sell AMD branded cards is silly, if brands where worth nothing every card we bought would come in a white box and the cards would all use deep green old school PCBs.
 
Why don't you instead list corporations that do shady shit openly and get away with it!

And not this fallacy again, please: "Others did bad things therefore it's OK to do bad things"
Because that's going way off topic.

When did I say it's OK? I'll get Jen on the horn right now and tell him to stop it. Take a glance at the pharmaceutical industry if you wanna white knight one of them though, that's a bit more noble than GPUs.
 
I know the difference a properly made higher end part, Gaming branded card can make right ? lol NV reference designs are slower as well crazy I know.

As for why Asus and other Oems are playing along... its simple the terms of the contract say do as we say or else. Which is part of what makes it an illegal ask. In general when you word a contract with a Customer that says "you will now only buy from us" and then suggests not doing so means you will show favoritism to your customers competition, possibly effecting their profits or worse. Those types of contracts tend to get smacked by courts when things go there. The argument of but they can still sell AMD branded cards is silly, if brands where worth nothing every card we bought would come in a white box and the cards would all use deep green old school PCBs.
On the one hand I feel like Nvidia *couldn't* be so stupid that they didn't have a whole gaggle of lawyers go over GPP to ensure it was entirely (if only technically) legal. But then again the stick portion is rough enough that they might just be banking on no one having the balls to risk taking them to court. It would really suck to take that risk and be stuck making only AMD cards right now.

Somebody needs to buy xfx and have them challenge GPP in court.
 
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On the one hand I feel like Nvidia *couldn't* be so stupid that they didn't have a whole gaggle of lawyers go over GPP to ensure it was entirely (if only technically) legal. But then again the stick portion is rough enough that they might just be banking on no one having the balls to risk taking them to court. It would really suck to take that risk and be stuck making only AMD cards right now.

Somebody needs to buy xfx and have them challenge GPP in court.

I'm sure its a roll of the dice. I remember hearing the same thing 20 years ago about Intel.... Intels rebate program can't be illegal I mean they have company lawyers. :)

I think the simple truth is the Intel case actually set a really dangerous precedent. Sure they where forced to pay AMD around 1 billion in cash... and they where slapped with another 1-1.5 billion in fines around the world. However in the grand scheme I mean Intel basically bought the industry for years for 2-3 billion in cost. Considering how much that market is worth that is nothing. The courts proved they where not willing to basically rule so hard against a too big to fail type of company to really harm them enough to cost the company in any real way.

I imagine NV figures if we get sued we will be able to continue doing this crap for years and by the time the court slaps us on the fingers the cash we have stuffed under the mattress will cover the annoyance.
 
On the one hand I feel like Nvidia *couldn't* be so stupid that they didn't have a whole gaggle of lawyers go over GPP to ensure it was entirely (if only technically) legal. But then again the stick portion is rough enough that they might just be banking on no one having the balls to risk taking them to court. It would really suck to take that risk and be stuck making only AMD cards right now.

Somebody needs to buy xfx and have them challenge GPP in court.

You think nVidia wouldn't be so "stupid" as to not have lawyers go over it to see if it's legal or not. Someone has already pointed out the Intel example and the aftermath. I'll just point out the RAM manufacturer collusion to keep prices up. Which they have been caught at doing and fined. Multiple times. And they keep doing it even though it's illegal. nVidia doesn't give a damn about how illegal the program is as long as nVidia can reap the benefits of it in the long run. nVidia knows anything which goes through the court will take quite a few years and in that time they have the chance to massively harm AMD for the long term. nVidia knows the program is illegal but has made a cost/benefit analysis which states that nVidia will come out well ahead in the end.

Companies pull illegal stuff all the time especially if they think they'll come out ahead in the long run.
 
You think nVidia wouldn't be so "stupid" as to not have lawyers go over it to see if it's legal or not. Someone has already pointed out the Intel example and the aftermath. I'll just point out the RAM manufacturer collusion to keep prices up. Which they have been caught at doing and fined. Multiple times. And they keep doing it even though it's illegal. nVidia doesn't give a damn about how illegal the program is as long as nVidia can reap the benefits of it in the long run. nVidia knows anything which goes through the court will take quite a few years and in that time they have the chance to massively harm AMD for the long term. nVidia knows the program is illegal but has made a cost/benefit analysis which states that nVidia will come out well ahead in the end.

Companies pull illegal stuff all the time especially if they think they'll come out ahead in the long run.
But they don't really need to hurt Amd - AMD is a LOT closer to Intel than Nvidia in terms of GPU gamer market share. I could understand this if AMD had even 30-40% of the gaming market, but at ~10%?! Why bother? This is just going to piss off consumers and partners like Asus.
 
But they don't really need to hurt Amd - AMD is a LOT closer to Intel than Nvidia in terms of GPU gamer market share. I could understand this if AMD had even 30-40% of the gaming market, but at ~10%?! Why bother? This is just going to piss off consumers and partners like Asus.

It's very simple. nVidia has the marketshare now to make it effective. nVidia is currently able to strongarm the AIBs and OEMs because of the dominant position. "Do what we want or you won't get any more parts or help or advertising or anything else from us." That's exactly what the GPP is. It's extortion to force AIBs and OEMs to turn over their gaming lines to nVidia. nVidia is hoping to knock AMD out with this simply because branding and marketing works and forcing AMD out of the long known brands will hurt AMD. nVidia knows the program is illegal but doesn't care as long as it looks like nVidia will get what they want out of the deal.
 
First, ASUS should change it to Republic Of Nvidia Gamers. RONG. Yeah, that sounds right. Pronounce it WRONG.
"Do you have the RONG video card?" "of course I have the RONG video card".
Bystander: 'Why would anyone buy the wrong video card?'
'Because the rong card is the right card to buy'.
Etc., in Abbot and Costello style.

Oh, crap, brands schmands, just buy what works. This crap is as bad as the Ford vs Chevy or Porsche vs Ferrari morons (Even famous Plymouth driver Richard Petty switched to Ford when Plymouth didn't make a competitive car). Have a game that was designed and works better on a nvidia system? Buy an nvidia card. Want to mine? Buy an ati card. Or whatever is good for whatever purpose at the moment. Top of the line cards are so expensive that if you can truly afford one, you can make a machine for each. Remember, the manufacturers don't give a crap about you; you don't have the $$$$, they aren't about to give you a card. So stop being so damn loyal to THEM.

There's no status in having someone else's brand name on your sig or machine. Make your own decal with your own name on it and be proud and stick that on your case and write it proudly in your sig. After all, even the manufacturers buy some of their parts from someone else. You think ASUS makes their own screws? Or led's?
Manufacturers source their stuff from whoever will sell what works for them, at the cheapest price. So should we. And be damned about what the label on it says.
 
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Oh, crap, brands schmands, just buy what works. This crap is as bad as the Ford vs Chevy or Porsche vs Ferrari morons (Even famous Plymouth driver Richard Petty switched to Ford when Plymouth didn't make a competitive car). Have a game that was designed and works better on a nvidia system? Buy an nvidia card. Want to mine? Buy an ati card. Or whatever is good for whatever purpose at the moment. Top of the line cards are so expensive that if you can truly afford one, you can make a machine for each. Remember, the manufacturers don't give a crap about you; you don't have the $$$$, they aren't about to give you a card. So stop being so damn loyal to THEM.

There's no status in having someone else's brand name on your sig or machine. Make your own decal with your own name on it and be proud and stick that on your case and write it proudly in your sig. After all, even the manufacturers buy some of their parts from someone else. You think ASUS makes their own screws? Or led's?

Yes, yes, we get it. We get it very well. You don't understand a single thing about marketing and branding. You don't need to keep beating that dead horse.
 
Yes, yes, we get it. We get it very well. You don't understand a single thing about marketing and branding. You don't need to keep beating that dead horse.
Oh, I understand it very well; it's all to fool the consumer. Usually, by lying a lot.
 
Do you read this site at all?
https://www.hardocp.com/article/2017/10/09/amd_radeon_rx_vega_64_4k_video_card_review


And to all the people talking about how 4k is a minority... I know. I also know that as far as gaming goes so are the top tier cards (at least according to the steam hardware survey, where 1.51% of gamers use a 1080 and .75% of gamers use a 1080TI, compared to 13.62% using a gtx 1060) but yet nVidia and AMD still fight to have the "best" cards available. It's the same reason Intel makes their "Extreme Edition" cpus - having "the best" product matters despite the fact that only a tiny percentage of people will ever buy them.

And WHY is asus willing to convert a brand they've spent time and money building to nVidia only? Go look at the march 2018 steam hardware survey. I realize that's not ALL of the gamers, but it's pretty telling when the total share of amd gpus (10.75%) is smaller than the share of a single nvidia card.


And honestly I thought all of asus' non "FE" cards were "ROG" - which is why I doubt this bs branding shift will have too much of an impact. The people who know enough to want a particular card aren't going to care if it's branded ROG or AREZ (well maybe the stupid "Z" at the end might sway a few people ;) but still.)

dude, relax it's a freaking video card, nothing else...
 
BULLSHIT!
If you are one of those whose epeen is based on a few FPS difference you are a sad, sad creature.

In any event, I play GAMES, I don't play BENCHMARKS, and I make my decisions on more than just benchmarks. I also consider the corporate ethics, and morals. Guess who fails badly in that?

o7 very well said, I do not support such tactics, I support quality, ethics etc, I worked very hard for my $ I will not give it away to companies that IMO do not deserve it, which has crossed Nv off my list for many many years now because of the way they act
as well as the quality of the given product...at least AMD tries their best to "give it their all" and if a problem happens they will admit to it instead of playing the blame game on everyone but themselves.
AMD IMO is a company built on ethics and giving back what they can where they can.
Nv is a company that is based on $$$$$$$$$$$$$ even if they have to lie, skimp on production quality, not support open source etc etc.

Headline should read: "Asus announces to the world that they are cuckolded by Nvidia"

So BetaAsus has worked hard on the ROG name brand and now only Nvidia can be branded ROG?
Nice.

Not buying another product from them.
Looks like MSI or Gigabyte get my money this year.

ummm MSI and Gigabyte sided with GPP just the same, so, choosing one of those 3 still is an injustice all the same IMO.

sucks because I liked Asus and MSI for being a Canadian buyer as to my knowledge are basically the only ones that have RMA places here in Canada to keep costs in cheque (just in case shit happens) which of course can.
I suppose if prices drop some while the RX 570/80 Gaming X branding is still used I "might" get them, but after that who knows.

I am all in for business being all about $, but, how any company can back such anti-competitive/monopolistic agendas is beyond me.

ROG was made by Asus, Gaming X was MSI, why they would "sell out" to just get a higher priority from Ngreedia is very much beyond my understanding as it was not Nv $ that made their branding, guess they like spending millions of dollars and many years of branding and just
giving it away.
 
o7 very well said, I do not support such tactics, I support quality, ethics etc, I worked very hard for my $ I will not give it away to companies that IMO do not deserve it, which has crossed Nv off my list for many many years now because of the way they act
as well as the quality of the given product...at least AMD tries their best to "give it their all" and if a problem happens they will admit to it instead of playing the blame game on everyone but themselves.
AMD IMO is a company built on ethics and giving back what they can where they can.
Nv is a company that is based on $$$$$$$$$$$$$ even if they have to lie, skimp on production quality, not support open source etc etc.



ummm MSI and Gigabyte sided with GPP just the same, so, choosing one of those 3 still is an injustice all the same IMO.

sucks because I liked Asus and MSI for being a Canadian buyer as to my knowledge are basically the only ones that have RMA places here in Canada to keep costs in cheque (just in case shit happens) which of course can.
I suppose if prices drop some while the RX 570/80 Gaming X branding is still used I "might" get them, but after that who knows.

I am all in for business being all about $, but, how any company can back such anti-competitive/monopolistic agendas is beyond me.

ROG was made by Asus, Gaming X was MSI, why they would "sell out" to just get a higher priority from Ngreedia is very much beyond my understanding as it was not Nv $ that made their branding, guess they like spending millions of dollars and many years of branding and just
giving it away.
So you're only going to buy xfx gpus and supermicro boards? Because you know evga, pny, zotac, and any other mfg who currently makes nvidia and amd cards is going to cave to the gpp pressure. That'll rule out pretty much any graphics card brand other than xfx (who I legitimately thought had gone under years ago) and will put a pretty serious dent in motherboard brands as well.

Lets be realistic - if AMD had enough pull to be able to force something like this... THEY WOULD. Is it scummy? Yes. Will they get a slap on the wrist in 5 - 10 years for this? Probably. Will a handful of people who already support AMD continuing to do so make any difference? Nope.
 
ROG was made by Asus, Gaming X was MSI, why they would "sell out" to just get a higher priority from Ngreedia is very much beyond my understanding as it was not Nv $ that made their branding, guess they like spending millions of dollars and many years of branding and just
giving it away.

Let's not pretend it wasn't Nvidia GPU's that put Gaming X on the map for MSI. Let's not pretend it wasn't very specifically the GTX 1080Ti launch that put the AORUS brand on the map for Gigabyte either -- nobody knew WTF that Taiwanese brainfart was until everyone wanted a AORUS 1080Ti and it was the first available in quantity. ROG/Strix has been around longer, but let's not pretend the primary draw to ASUS's GPU's and specifically the ROG STRIX hasn't primarily been the strength of the NVIDIA GPU on board.

Like a marriage, these AIB's have enjoyed a co-marketing and co-branding relationship with Nvidia for a long time, where Nvidia has done arguably most of the hardware/software engineering and heavy lifting with multi-billion-dollar R&D investments, engineering, software support, and marketing. The AIB's having their GPU product packaging stamped GEFORCE GTX generation after generation was the killer draw - especially the last 5 years, thus those AIB brands leveled up on the strengths of Nvidia's contribution. Therefore it is batshit to me that people don't at least consider Nvidia's point of view on this, that maybe they aren't thrilled with the idea of a business competitor indirectly riding the coat tails of the success of their joint efforts with their AIB's.

Bottom line, if GPP exists exactly like the speculation, then it is an OPT IN for AIB's, and ultimately comes down to internal business politics between corporations. Therefore the back and forth between nervous geeks here is like the annoying group of facebook mommies shrieking disbelief at who the fucking BACHELOR picked last night. And it amounts to little more than typing practice page after page as long as Nvidia continues riding the tops of benchmarks and AIB's want to be along for the ride.
 
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I'll just post what I said on Twitter:




I feel sad about it. I really like the look and performance of MSI's TwinFrozr cooling solution.


Therefore the back and forth between nervous geeks here is like the annoying group of facebook mommies shrieking disbelief at who the fucking BACHELOR picked last night.
Well, no. Which "branding" has better cooling and noise performance?
 
i really fail to see the point of this, most people buying mid-high end gpus know enough to read up and check reviews. the manufacture specific branding or ROG or not means jack shit to most of us, long as Nvidia will allow them to use premium coolers on AMD....that will be next im sure, force them to sell AMD cards with OEM only cooling once they realize theyve changed nothing and look like total scabs in the process.

its not even like AMD provides any competition in the high end market (and i wish they did), they have nothing that competes with a 1080ti. the mobile segment with intel and the R processors looks promising and probably where AMD will shine, suspect Nvidia was butthurt on that deal
 
how can they use STRIX in AREZ STRIX? are they planning on not selling STRIX nvidia cards anymore? or does the STRIX part not matter? odd.

also im pretty sure idiot is just trolling.

I believe ROG is the issue because it states its part of the gaming line, Strix is only the premium cooler part, which im sure Nvidia will try and go after next.
 
Regardless of GPP, I would still but MSI or Gigabyte video cards or Boards. I always buy what I think has the best quality parts and best cooling design. I won't buy Asus though for nothin. hah
 
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ASUS has told VideoCardz that it will be launching a new brand for Radeon cards dubbed “AREZ.” These would not carry the ROG branding, and there is a possibility that the ASUS branding could be dropped, too.

The ROG series simply do not exist under AREZ brand. That said there are no AREZ ROG STRIX series, but AREZ STRIX. Same applies to other sub-series, such as Phoenix, Expedition and so on. These are called AREZ Phoenix or AREZ Expedition respectively.

lol... Arez sounds like the knock-off version you would find in the Pearl Market of a legitimate ASUS card, right next to the Soony DVD players and the Samsing TVs.
 
To expound on the issue, lets remember that ROG doesn't just have value as a brand in terms of advertising, but also in terms of how Asus itself delineates its products from each other.

As I mentioned in the past ROG GPUs (and for that matter, motherboards and even monitors) tend to have certain "best version" hardware (ie PCB build and VRMs, cooling style and fans, RGBs aesthetics) and firmware/software (tons of ROG specific control and tweaking software, especially those interoperable/networked like the ability to control all of the RGBs on all Asus and approved 3rd party products etc ). Simply forcing AMD out of this brand could be a bigger issue than we realize. UNLESS Asus ensures that the "AREZ" branded items are exactly of the quality AND are fully parity/ interoperable with software/firmware of ROG devices, it could mean segregating AMD cards in big ways. Consider "non ROG" GPUs and especially motherboards versus ROG ones. The GPUs have either stock cooling/PCB and do not benefit in any way from the additional ROG elements, or at very least (in the case DUAL and other non-ROG GPUs) typically have lesser cooling and features (Ie 2 fan and no lighting as well as PCB differences). This can even be seen in a bigger way on the Motherboard side. ROG boards have a number of great features and have spread out across the entire mid-high price range (which smashes the notion that only the absolute top tier items get ROG branding. If that was the case, only ROG motherboards with the "extreme" suffix would exist, but even those with "Hero/Ranger/Formula" are a step above other named and especially standard numbered Asus motherboard stock, when it comes to gaming/overclocking/enthusiast feature sets), Software, firmware/BIOS and hardware alike! Consider that even the closest Asus mobo family to ROG, "TUF" , occupies a different space and has different features compared to ROG even at comparable price ranges; most would consider it a step down or to the side at very least. Software wise, it is not part of the ROG family and doesn't offer the same utilities and monitors.

I've not unpacked every minute difference between ROG and non-ROG alternatives, but I think it is clear that no matter what AMD is losing out with this GPP nonsense. The question is "how much?". They are going to lose access to all of the branding benefits of ROG which Asus has built up for years and years, across Intel / AMD / Nvidia products and others alike (Hell, ROG has its own major webpage and e-sports sponsored teams. Go to the standard Asus webpage and what do you find right now? a BIG ROG banner.). The best possible move from a technical standpoint would be to ensure that AREZ has parity and compatibility with ROG in every way - and I hope Asus goes that way (if they're going to put up with GPP at all). However, if they do anything BUT that exact thing, it could mean treating non ROG items as second-class citizens in one way or another.

The other big issue of concern here is how far this will spread and it will affect other peripherals. I can already see that Asus monitors and notebooks will likely be on the chopping block. Right now Asus has ROG monitors that include FreeSync; with this, I can see Nvidia saying "No no no, GSync only thank you" so that whole side of the setup disappears. Asus has some decent notebooks, many of which are ROG (ie Zephyrus) and include Nvidia GPUs and/or GSync. Up until recently AMD had nothing to contend on the mobile space, but with Ryzen+ mobile and Vega powered graphics arriving it means that many potential AMD-powered Asus notebooks won't get the benefit of the ROG branding or design, which will mean even more difficulty to break back into the market which has nothing to do with the technical merits of the product! Nvidia has lit this powderkeg, but imagine if other companies start similar programs - notably Intel. "Sorry, no more ROG motherboards for Ryzen and Threadripper! " It wouldn't be the first shady thing Intel has done either!

This entire anticompetitive practice needs to be stamped out. ROG was built by Asus, building high quality components using chips from a variety of different manufacturers over many years. The same is true for "gaming/high end wings" of other manufacturers like Gigabyte's AORUS , MSI's Gaming/Dragon etc.. Especially in a hardware industry dominated by near-monopolies with many, many times the cash reserves of their nearest competitor, we should not allow them to threaten device manufacturers that they'll take their millions and go home, unless they bend the knee and pledge everlasting devotion to Nvidia (or Intel or anyone else) by giving them the choice cuts and giving the other guys the scraps. The consumer only loses further!
 
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What I see is a lot of people missing a key point, very key IMO - if every AIB joins the GPP, they're all working with the same 'advantage' over the other, so there's no gain to be had over their competitors. They all receive the same marketing development (bribes) funds, they all receive the same engineering support, etc. yadda etc. yadda.

Once that happens, and the scale is even across the board - what else has happened?
Nvidia's true intentions - snatching up AIB's gaming brands to only be applied to Nvidia GPUs.

There's been a lot of discussion on that point, but I think it's their intent that matters the most past all the noise.
Personally, I view that intent as anti-competitive.
I lean in that direction considering this whole program stinks as much as Intel's did and there's a lot of secrecy behind it.

Intentions matter, and if your intent is to ground your competition into dust, the cleanest way to do that is by beating them with a better product, not trying to restrict choice and bully other companies.

Bullies are typically afraid of something...


Is this GPP program "unethical"? Sure, maybe. But that's what happens when your competition is weak.

I've had my 1080 Ti since last July and AMD still does not have anything to compete with it nearly a year later.

Yeah, no.
When your competition is weak, you sit on your laurels, stop innovating, stop pushing the boundaries - which is what Nvidia has done, milking the market and overcharging while doing it.
Consumers haven't felt like they had a choice (even though they have) and the stereotype continues.
It's expected, it's acceptable, it's par for the course.
Nothing strange to see there!

What you don't do, is implement a potentially illegal program against your competitor(s) that is sure to upset a certain subset of consumers, manufacturers and potentially the government.
There's no need when you own the market, literally no need.

Why does AMD need to compete with the 1080Ti?
The VEGA 64 and 56 hold their own vs appropriate Nvidia counter-parts.
I think it's smart of AMD to not waste resources on the extreme high-end.
 
Yeah, no.
When your competition is weak, you sit on your laurels, stop innovating, stop pushing the boundaries - which is what Nvidia has done, milking the market and overcharging while doing it.
Consumers haven't felt like they had a choice (even though they have) and the stereotype continues.
It's expected, it's acceptable, it's par for the course.
Nothing strange to see there!

What you don't do, is implement a potentially illegal program against your competitor(s) that is sure to upset a certain subset of consumers, manufacturers and potentially the government.
There's no need when you own the market, literally no need.

Why does AMD need to compete with the 1080Ti?
The VEGA 64 and 56 hold their own vs appropriate Nvidia counter-parts.
I think it's smart of AMD to not waste resources on the extreme high-end.

I think you're missing my point. Yes, Nvidia is to blame for this anti-consumer program; but AMD is also to blame for their lack of competition that put Nvidia in a spot to be able to implement this type of shit in the first place. Do you think that if AMD had more than the measly 20-30% market share they currently have that these AIBs would bow down to the GPP? Absolutely not.

AMD released Vega 16 MONTHS after the Pascal cards and they can only "hold their own"? That's pathetic. Not to mention the cards pretty much sell for the same price as their counterparts on both sides.

You can label me a Nvidia fanboy all you want for saying this despite that fact I hate any brand loyalty, but I hope that this program finally puts AMD over the edge to sell RTG. I hope they sell it off to an actual competent company that can provide Nvidia the competition they need. It's getting boring waiting for AMD to continuously play catch up and I'd love to see what actual competition would bring in regards to technological advancements and pricing.
 
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