GeForce Partner Program Impacts Consumer Choice

lcpiper said:
I did do something that I feel is more effective and appropriate than something silly like joining a boycott. I wrote the FTC and my Senators and my Representative for my district. I told them of my concerns and that I don't think what NVidia is doing is right. You might think that it's a waste of time and effort, but as of right now I am at least certain that they are aware of it if they weren't before. And they know that someone who votes is paying attention.
Click to expand...

This is what people should be doing.
 
Aireoth said:
I dislike the car metaphor, there are not multiple competitors in the GPU arena, there are two. The problem is not in who is the best today, but what happens when there is only one. The GPP is a blatant attempt to insure there is only one, at which point you, I and everyone else will be lucky to get incremental increases, and if that happens the enthusiast community will die.
Click to expand...

I wasn't going for an analogy of two and only two different car brands. Let's say that every car manufacturer had a Camaro in their lineup, that would just add confusion to the mix. Competing manufacturers in things other than GPUs have no trouble differentiating their various products with branding - Ford has the Mustang, Chevy has the Camaro, Dodge has the Challenger. Asus could produce Nvidia Mustangs and AMD Camaros, if you will. Then there would be no troubling talk of monopolies and the like, differentiate the different GPUs with completely different branding.
 
Dullard said:
I wasn't going for an analogy of two and only two different car brands. Let's say that every car manufacturer had a Camaro in their lineup, that would just add confusion to the mix. Competing manufacturers in things other than GPUs have no trouble differentiating their various products with branding - Ford has the Mustang, Chevy has the Camaro, Dodge has the Challenger. Asus could produce Nvidia Mustangs and AMD Camaros, if you will. Then there would be no troubling talk of monopolies and the like, differentiate the different GPUs with completely different branding.
Click to expand...

You guys dont know enough about the car industry to make that analogy work. It would be like Delco deciding since they supply the majority of the parts to GM that all vehicles should be labeled as powered by Delco. If they did not do this then Delco would pull engineering support and no longer give preferred pricing and guaranteed supply. Thus keeping a supplier like Magneti-Marelli from being able to compete with Delco and now the public would think it's really Delco that did the engineering and work on the vehicle instead of GM which would raise the public's awareness of that brand. GM would have no choice as the cost of switching everything over to Magneti would be massive and Magneti would struggle to meet such a ramp up in supply. Thus Delco is sure they keep a strangle hold on GM and now when they advertise a GM product they have to also advertise Delco so it becomes a household name. Didnt cost Delco anything to do this and allowed them to increasing their marketing name without putting the money into it.
 
lcpiper said:
I can't agree more. When ATI released the first Radeon card and I saw higher benchmarks and lower power requirements I knew that it was simply the best engineered card and it dominated sales for years. NVidia couldn't touch the Radeons for awhile. Later it was NVidia's turn to create a better engineered product. This is the mark I look for when I need a new card, it's how I know it's time to buy early instead of waiting for prices to drop.
Click to expand...


What Radeon card are you talking about? What ATI card dominated sales for years?
 
lcpiper said:
Monopolies, contrary to popular belief, are not inherently bad. There have been quit a few monopolies over the years that have actually been quit beneficial for everyone, which is one of the criteria that the FTC uses when determining that a monopoly requires action.

I don't like the GPP and I am not defending it, but if it get's too far off what is acceptable I do trust that the FTC will correct it.

Now to be safe, I did do something that I feel is more effective and appropriate than something silly like joining a boycott. I wrote the FTC and my Senators and my Representative for my district. I told them of my concerns and that I don't think what NVidia is doing is right. You might think that it's a waste of time and effort, but as of right now I am at least certain that they are aware of it if they weren't before. And they know that someone who votes is paying attention.

But I'm not the one willing to sacrifice for the greater good. I'm not as forceful as you are. I mean shit, you must have bought two or three AMD cards in the last week or so since Kyle broke this story to the world.

I applaud you, a real stand up guy. You really know how to put your money where your mouth is.
Click to expand...
I haven't bought shit, my points are in relation to the article and what it can mean to the market, you can keep going off on tangents and tell stories as much as you want though.
 
reaper12 said:
What Radeon card are you talking about? What ATI card dominated sales for years?
Click to expand...


Actually, I will claim that I misspoke ..... ummmm yea, fucked up with that comment. Claiming sales domination wasn't smart of me. I got carried away remembering how I thought so highly of the Radeon DDR card and the engineering behind it. At the higher resolution and color depth settings it beat out NV15 cards at the time of it's release.

The links below should highlight why I thought of the card the way I did given that it was on par with the best from NVidia at the time.



And the best one;



(y)
 
FearTheCow said:
I haven't bought shit, my points are in relation to the article and what it can mean to the market, you can keep going off on tangents and tell stories as much as you want though.
Click to expand...


I actually didn't think you had.

But hey, as long as I have your attention, my point was that while we agree that the GPP isn't good, I don't make an automatic call that all monopolies are bad when they are not. I also have done something, as small or limited as it may seem, I have done something.

Do I really have to drop the other shoe?
 
lcpiper said:
Actually, I will claim that I misspoke ..... ummmm yea, fucked up with that comment. Claiming sales domination wasn't smart of me. I got carried away remembering how I thought so highly of the Radeon DDR card and the engineering behind it. At the higher resolution and color depth settings it beat out NV15 cards at the time of it's release.
Click to expand...

The Radeon DDR card was out 3 years before the FX5800. But, that's not the reason I asked the question. You see, the very time you are referring to disproves the point you were trying to make. People don't always buy the best card, marketing works and Nvidia back then were kings of Marketing, still are I guess, but they don't really need good marketing right now as AMD are barely competing at the moment.

Back at the time of the 9600/9700/9800, ATI had some of the best cards on the market. The 9700 pro, particularly, was the undisputed king. Throughout those years, Nvidia's Marketing kept them in game, not only kept them in the game, but, increased their market share. If you look back, you will find that during the time the 9700 pro was king, Nvidia increased their market share for 6 straight quarters in a row.

That's why Kyle brought the Nvidia GPP to our attention. IT pushes AMD's cards into second best place in the minds of buyers, because the recognisable premium gaming brands will be all Nvidia cards . I get it, at the moment they aren't really competing with Nvidia anyway so who cares, but, if AMD do get their act together and release a family of cards that are awesome, they will still be thought of as second best. IT makes getting back into the game much harder for AMD.

And monopolies are bad in a tech industry. Not just from a pricing point of view, but, lack of competition slows down progress. Leads to a lack of innovation.
 
Dullard said:
This. ^

AMD fans are gonna buy the AMD GPU whether or not Asus puts Strix on it or not. It could be labeled "Asus Dog Turd" and the AMD fans would be F5 F5 F5 until they wore the keys out. I don't like that Nvidia appears to be trying to monopolize the brand names, but it's also like griping that there's not a Ford Camaro as well as a Chevy Camaro - the AIBs should develop different names for the different GPU manufacturers' lines.
Click to expand...
Your are exhibiting your ignorance of brandling across the retail profile.
 
AMD/NVidia isn't making its money from fans and such but from normal people and let's face it, normal people will say "I want to buy a PC for my son so he can play his games" .... "ohh look shiny gaming branding"

You can't build overnight a new gaming brand (needs obviously new engineering of the cooler and such since... GPP)
This GPP thing needs to be killed before it hatch, this is plain cheating/bullying from one company and shouldn't be allowed.

Let's think ahead for once, in 2,3,5... years when GPU are available again at MSRP (small dream here), this is where NVidia fight starts... AMD & Intel partnership scares them... maybe not NOW but in a few years... GPP is for future fights not right now..

Again, thanks Kyle for covering this.
 
reaper12 said:
The Radeon DDR card was out 3 years before the FX5800. But, that's not the reason I asked the question. You see, the very time you are referring to disproves the point you were trying to make. People don't always buy the best card, marketing works and Nvidia back then were kings of Marketing, still are I guess, but they don't really need good marketing right now as AMD are barely competing at the moment.

Back at the time of the 9600/9700/9800, ATI had some of the best cards on the market. The 9700 pro, particularly, was the undisputed king. Throughout those years, Nvidia's Marketing kept them in game, not only kept them in the game, but, increased their market share. If you look back, you will find that during the time the 9700 pro was king, Nvidia increased their market share for 6 straight quarters in a row.

That's why Kyle brought the Nvidia GPP to our attention. IT pushes AMD's cards into second best place in the minds of buyers, because the recognisable premium gaming brands will be all Nvidia cards . I get it, at the moment they aren't really competing with Nvidia anyway so who cares, but, if AMD do get their act together and release a family of cards that are awesome, they will still be thought of as second best. IT makes getting back into the game much harder for AMD.

And monopolies are bad in a tech industry. Not just from a pricing point of view, but, lack of competition slows down progress. Leads to a lack of innovation.
Click to expand...

I'm not disputing your commentary but, what point was I trying to make? I wasn't trying to say that people will buy the best card. When I am shopping for a card, I look for what I believe is the best engineered product. Other things may play a part, like a given technology I want to already have supported. Specific features I don't want to give up, etc. Cost matters, but it's relative to perceived value.

But I don't believe I was trying to make a point about what other's choose, I know better than that. Of course I don't think I am alone, I think other smart people do like me even if they don't make the same choice, the methods are similar, the situations were different.
 
Thank you Kyle sharing this and keeping it real for us...

I'm hearing that Nvidia is ending GPP, have you heard an update from Nvidia?
 
lcpiper said:
I'm not disputing your commentary but, what point was I trying to make? I wasn't trying to say that people will buy the best card. When I am shopping for a card, I look for what I believe is the best engineered product. Other things may play a part, like a given technology I want to already have supported. Specific features I don't want to give up, etc. Cost matters, but it's relative to perceived value.

But I don't believe I was trying to make a point about what other's choose, I know better than that. Of course I don't think I am alone, I think other smart people do like me even if they don't make the same choice, the methods are similar, the situations were different.
Click to expand...

Having worked in computer retail, AMD in other industries I can tell you this isn't how people choose products. For everyone who does, there may be 100 that buy what they know or think they know, or what someone else told them to buy. They will choose based on packaging and other criteria, such as price and how much RAM it has.
 
You could do something like rog and nog (republic of gamers or nation of gamers) but for the average Joe blow that wouldn't clear up confusion as to the difference at all.

Now if some pimply faced kid says to someone "get Nvidia" then they are going to look for Nvidia on the box or ask a sales associate.

The gpp really doesn't benefit anyone except Nvidia because amd is likely to get inferior naming with a new brand.

Nvidia does not own brand names.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Dan_D said:
Having worked in computer retail, AMD in other industries I can tell you this isn't how people choose products. For everyone who does, there may be 100 that buy what they know or think they know, or what someone else told them to buy. They will choose based on packaging and other criteria, such as price and how much RAM it has.
Click to expand...

Again, I wasn't talking about how others choose products or what others do. I don't know why you are falling in behind this other guy to drag things this direction.
 
I really have no problem with nvidia doing whatever it needs to do. AMD / Intel have such a monopoly on APUs because of their x86 situation; until that situation gets broken up, whatever nvidia has to do to compete and survive is only fair.
 
jwcalla said:
I really have no problem with nvidia doing whatever it needs to do. AMD / Intel have such a monopoly on APUs because of their x86 situation; until that situation gets broken up, whatever nvidia has to do to compete and survive is only fair.
Click to expand...
Survive? Nvidia dominates the GPU cards. Even now, if I were to buy a new GPU, it's going to be Nvidia (unless AMD comes out with a comparable card at a comparable price using roughly the same or less power). Sorry, but Nvidia is the bad guy in this story. It's not even a close call, IMNSHO.
 
What? Someone would look at it and think Arez is a separate company and not associated with Asus? If that's the case, that's so fucked up, like worse case scenario for AMD. If this is true, I can't see how anyone can defend the GPP anymore.
 
MMitch said:
AMD/NVidia isn't making its money from fans and such but from normal people and let's face it, normal people will say "I want to buy a PC for my son so he can play his games" .... "ohh look shiny gaming branding"

You can't build overnight a new gaming brand (needs obviously new engineering of the cooler and such since... GPP)
This GPP thing needs to be killed before it hatch, this is plain cheating/bullying from one company and shouldn't be allowed.

Let's think ahead for once, in 2,3,5... years when GPU are available again at MSRP (small dream here), this is where NVidia fight starts... AMD & Intel partnership scares them... maybe not NOW but in a few years... GPP is for future fights not right now..

Again, thanks Kyle for covering this.
Click to expand...

And despite the complaints about AMD not having a 1080 Ti competitor (which negates the problems with this program according to some) those aren't the cards that sell in the greatest numbers.
 
my question is about non GPUs that use the same branding.
Can an nvidia GPU be used in a laptop with an AMD cpu? intel CPU? what if its a ROG laptop? where does it end? Definitely cant have an RX580 ROG laptop anymore I guess, but what other parts cant you use if you want to call it ROG?
 
Aireoth said:
This is what people should be doing.
Click to expand...

In support of this, I have now contacted my MLA, the Competition Bureau of Canada, and the Office of Consumer Affairs with my concerns regarding this program. Being that this is Canada, I wrote my messages in maple syrup and sent them via moose, they should be received by 20XD.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Now AMD can pour marketing money into the Arez brand with no fear of Nvidia benefiting!

half /s
Click to expand...

The brand that is built up for each manufacturer is becoming Nvidia exclusive. Now ROG, wind force and MSI gaming names will be Nvidia exclusives. Meaning the branding that has people’s mindshare will be Nvidia. It doesn’t matter this program is designed to hurt competition. I think eventually Nvidia will likely be in court for this one day.
 
NKD said:
The brand that is built up for each manufacturer is becoming Nvidia exclusive. Now ROG, wind force and MSI gaming names will be Nvidia exclusives. Meaning the branding that has people’s mindshare will be Nvidia. It doesn’t matter this program is designed to hurt competition. I think eventually Nvidia will likely be in court for this one day.
Click to expand...

I see it as Nvidia being them shady selves in controlling their products as much as they can.

I also think that they're going to 'get away with it', whatever it really is in legal terms. Partners were given choices, and they made them, and these choices do not include being forced to not sell Nvidia's competitors products.
 
SighTurtle said:
What? Someone would look at it and think Arez is a separate company and not associated with Asus? If that's the case, that's so fucked up, like worse case scenario for AMD. If this is true, I can't see how anyone can defend the GPP anymore.
Click to expand...
I don't see a problem with AORUS (gigabyte powered new brand).. I don't see a problem with AREZ (ASUS powered New brand) you see? no issues. MSI will do the same, and the rest of AIBs will do exactly the same shit, and no issues will be happening anytime soon. you can build a new brand and still make excellent products (AORUS, the new Galax [Older Galaxy]), and you can have a very known Brand and sell sub-par products forever (XFX, Powercolor) and speaking of powercolor and "high end" red devil series (which lately are just expensive garbage).
 
if you dont see a problem, after kyle responded to people just like you over and over you're never going to get it im afraid.

tldr: Brands, branding, commercials, sales, money, % of market, monopoly.
 
DF-1 said:
if you dont see a problem, after kyle responded to people just like you over and over you're never going to get it im afraid.

tldr: Brands, branding, commercials, sales, % of market, money.
Click to expand...

I don't care what Kyle responds to people like me, honestly, and I not always agree with him, and he is not always right. ;) (this later part specially), I have a right to have my own beliefs and opinions, unlike lot of people who take whatever Kyle say as a GOD words, he doesn't care about what any of us can say, like or dislike, IMO all of this GPP editorial was just made to keep people talking in a dying internet forum, you see? no issues here.
 
Araxie said:
I don't care what Kyle responds to people like me, honestly, and I not always agree with him, and he is not always right. ;) (this later part specially), I have a right to have my own beliefs and opinions, unlike lot of people who take whatever Kyle say as a GOD words, he doesn't care about what any of us can say, like or dislike, IMO all of this GPP editorial was just made to keep people talking in a dying internet forum, you see? no issues here.
Click to expand...

LOL what? Is this you trying to sound clever or something?
 
I don't give a flying fuck about 'kyle the person' or what others think of him. I do care that he has been right about almost all (if not all?) of the things in the past few years. He's also right about this, if you actually take five minutes and think about it, it's just logical.

If joe the hillbilly posted this it might've not been too credible at first, but if it turned out to be true, like it is now, I would care just as much.

but you're right, you do have a right to your own (wrong) beliefs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MrXL
like this
Araxie said:
I don't see a problem with AORUS (gigabyte powered new brand).. I don't see a problem with AREZ (ASUS powered New brand) you see? no issues. MSI will do the same, and the rest of AIBs will do exactly the same shit, and no issues will be happening anytime soon. you can build a new brand and still make excellent products (AORUS, the new Galax [Older Galaxy]), and you can have a very known Brand and sell sub-par products forever (XFX, Powercolor) and speaking of powercolor and "high end" red devil series (which lately are just expensive garbage).
Click to expand...

You don't see a problem with Nvidia potentially forcing manufacturers to remove AMD products from their associated company branding? Cause if Videocardz is completely correct, your suggestion of new brands like ASUS AREZ or MSI (new brand), or Gigabyte (new brand) wouldn't happen. Instead, it would be akin to AREZ (subbrand). Lets move beyond the fact that AIBs are being forced to remove their lucrative, long-standing, well-known subbrands(AORUS, ROG, etc) from AMD and focus that branding like this (Gigabyte AORUS) or this (simply ASUS branding) is being replaced with branding entirety disassociated with current manufacturer branding in favor of something (AREZ) that will basically have no recognition whatsoever with consumers. (Things like warranties, cooler designs, customer service, are things that consumers associate with AIBs (ASUS, Gigabyte, EVGA, not Nvidia), are you really suggesting that throwing all that away won't have a enormous impact on AMD and AIB partners?). Thats the issue I think Videocardz is suggesting may occur, and if thats true, thats a step I think most people would have step back and say, "Thats too far".
 
And with that confirmation of Nvidia forcing AIB's to re-brand I am done with Nvidia video cards, my current 1080 will be the last one. Maybe if a few others do the same and Nvidia bleeds some market share maybe they will reconsider this move, guess my system will be all AMD from now on. Never liked companies that relied on bullying to sell their products, it only ever leads to retaliatory actions from the other side at some point.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top