GeForce Partner Program Impacts Consumer Choice

If AMD would just go back to damn ATi it would solve half their marketing issues without even saying a word.
 
Bankie said:
Where is the problem with "Ethics" in regards to buying a brand? That's essentially what the GPP is. It's not "Exclusive Dealing" as the AIBs can still sell AMD; this was specifically stated right in the info that Kyle posted.
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They haven't bought a brand they have used their GPP program to buy a market segment.

You can't read Gaming brand must be aligned with as... you can still sell X other companies cards with a different gaming brand. If the new AMD only brands are marketed as a gaming brand they are in violation of their GPP contract. Whatever new AMD only brand you see there will be zero mention of gaming and they will not be sold as such.

If the GPP contract instead said... NV must be marked using NV only brand names. There would be zero legal issue... it would be a massive over step as how their customers market their end product isn't really their business. Still it wouldn't be an illegal take over of a specific market segment. (which is 100% covered by anti comp law everywhere that has such laws)
 
To be fair, Nvidia pretty much carried and popularized these gaming brands the last 6 years. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Nvidia contributed way more to these gaming brands ever since Kepler launched than anything AMD did. GPUs, mobile GPUs especially, GSync, VR tech. Nvidia releases and techs were always splashier than AMD's releases, and had more wow and marketability.

I'd be pretty miffed if my products carried brands, but then these brands get polluted with inferior products from my competitors.
 
For most of these brands graphics cards are only one of many product lines, for instance when I see ROG I think of motherboards first. Not to mention that what sets these game oriented sub-branded cards apart is the upgraded cooling and design as well as the money spent marketing that brand/sub-brand not the GPU that can be bought in a card from any other brand.

Nvidia doesn't own any of these gaming brands they're just acting like it.
 
trandoanhung1991 said:
I'd be pretty miffed if my products carried brands, but then these brands get polluted with inferior products from my competitors.
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When I bought my ASUS-branded Radeon 4890 and ASUS-branded motherboard for my Athlon Thunderbird it had absolutely nothing to do with nVidia or nVidia's reputation. It had everything to do with ASUS being a trusted brand (at least to me and my friends; and, in the case of the video card, [H]ardOCP's 4890 review). The fact that nVidia feels like they have a right to co-opt the brands that ASUS created to further nVidia's branding ambitions is rather infuriating to me.
 
trandoanhung1991 said:
To be fair, Nvidia pretty much carried and popularized these gaming brands the last 6 years. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Nvidia contributed way more to these gaming brands ever since Kepler launched than anything AMD did. GPUs, mobile GPUs especially, GSync, VR tech. Nvidia releases and techs were always splashier than AMD's releases, and had more wow and marketability.

I'd be pretty miffed if my products carried brands, but then these brands get polluted with inferior products from my competitors.
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Well they didn't. If nvidia was so great at this I might have bought their FE editions and I didn't (even while apparently these got better chips than the AIB were sampled). I buy Asus MSI or whatever brand for the added value they provide on top of the basic chip. These AIB's build their gaming brands based on the added value they created themselves.
 
MrXL said:
Well they didn't. If nvidia was so great at this I might have bought their FE editions and I didn't (even while apparently these got better chips than the AIB were sampled). I buy Asus MSI or whatever brand for the added value they provide on top of the basic chip. These AIB's build their gaming brands based on the added value they created themselves.
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Brands are worthless without products, and who were giving them the majority of their products? Nvidia and Intel, with AMD a distant 3rd.

Also, added value is subjective. To certain people, FE has great added value because it will be compatible with full cover water blocks, plus the design doesn't recirculate hot air inside the chassis, which is great especially in a SFF situation.

Oh and I wouldn't trust the "added value" from AIBs. I've seen many instances where factory overclocked cards are unstable at AIB-stock clocks. So it's not like they're very closely tested either.
 
trandoanhung1991 said:
Brands are worthless without products, and who were giving them the majority of their products? Nvidia and Intel, with AMD a distant 3rd.

Also, added value is subjective. To certain people, FE has great added value because it will be compatible with full cover water blocks, plus the design doesn't recirculate hot air inside the chassis, which is great especially in a SFF situation.

Oh and I wouldn't trust the "added value" from AIBs. I've seen many instances where factory overclocked cards are unstable at AIB-stock clocks. So it's not like they're very closely tested either.
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Agreed- the only 'added value' that I really value is in video cards, and that's EVGA's service, not something they put on the card or in the box.

Beyond that choices are largely made based on price and whoever manages to cock up the product the least...

[motherboards are something else, though they all largely do the same crap]
 
Rvenger said:
If AMD would just go back to damn ATi it would solve half their marketing issues without even saying a word.
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Instead they went with RTG which is huh??? and not used and has not picked up. Yes, ATi would have been way more smarter for AMD to use I think as well. Automatically folks see's ATi = gaming!
 
Eshelmen said:
I'm confused by how Nvidia thinks they can get away with this?

To hear this is nothing but disappointment.

Good for you Kyle for reporting this.
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As was said earlier in the thread, they are probably not counting on that they can get away with this completely. They are probably trying to get away with it just long enough that they can bomb their competition back to stone age (which isn't hard since graphics side of AMD is not doing so hot). Just like what Intel did with AMD's cpu side. Intel screwed AMD so hard with dishonest practices that even if Intel was punished for it they still managed to push AMD out of the game for many, many years. It wasn't until Ryzen AMD became relevant again and they are STILL playing catch-up! The fines Intel got were a small puddle in the oceans of profit their dishonest practices produced.
 
variant said:
Now ASUS has an official cryptomining brand.
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I had to like that cause I did laugh. :) Hopefully AMD makes sure companies like Asus that push new brands get a ton of stock. I would really suck to have a bunch of FREEDOM!! PR videos if no stock ever makes it to the shelves.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Wouldn't this be a clear violation of the GPP as presented?
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Tough to say... the wording as I understand it is "PRIMARY" gaming brand aligned with GPP, so ROG is currently the primary gaming brand.

But what would happen if Arez suddenly starts outselling ROG, and Arez becomes the primary gaming brand? Would the GPP agreement then force Asus to move AMD's products back to ROG and Nvidia's to Arez?? o_O
 
rgMekanic said:
Tough to say... the wording as I understand it is "PRIMARY" gaming brand aligned with GPP, so ROG is currently the primary gaming brand.

But what would happen if Arez suddenly starts outselling ROG, and Arez becomes the primary gaming brand? Would the GPP agreement then force Asus to move AMD's products back to ROG and Nvidia's to Arez?? o_O
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Well, most of the 'outrage' has been that AMD GPUs would be stripped of 'gaming' branding. If that's not the case, then there's not much to be mad about here, except AMD having let their product line erode enough to make the GPP feasible in the first place.
 
rgMekanic said:
Tough to say... the wording as I understand it is "PRIMARY" gaming brand aligned with GPP, so ROG is currently the primary gaming brand.

But what would happen if Arez suddenly starts outselling ROG, and Arez becomes the primary gaming brand? Would the GPP agreement then force Asus to move AMD's products back to ROG and Nvidia's to Arez?? o_O
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Kyle said at some point that it was all gaming brands restricted to AMD. Has anyone seen where AREZ is ever labeled as a gaming brand or are any of the cards under the AREZ brand ever called gaming cards?
 
variant said:
Kyle said at some point that it was all gaming brands restricted to AMD. Has anyone seen where AREZ is ever labeled as a gaming brand or are any of the cards under the AREZ brand ever called gaming cards?
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The released product shot has 'STRIX Gaming' on all three visible sides. Are they violating the GPP and/or calling Nvidia's bluff?
 
IdiotInCharge said:
The released product shot has 'STRIX Gaming' on all three visible sides. Are they violating the GPP and/or calling Nvidia's bluff?
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There's nothing illegal with violating the GPP so why not? Good on AMD and ASUS for trying to find out where the line in the sand exists.
 
Algrim said:
There's nothing illegal with violating the GPP so why not? Good on AMD and ASUS for trying to find out where the line in the sand exists.
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Sure- but it brings into question whether that specific line was ever really there.
 
ChadD said:
If it wasn't Nvidia would have gotten all transparent about it. So yes it is very likely in there. Are they stupid enough to try and enforce it... we'll see.
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The box shot really points to that not being the case. I would like to see updated branding from MSI and Gigabyte too.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Well, most of the 'outrage' has been that AMD GPUs would be stripped of 'gaming' branding. If that's not the case, then there's not much to be mad about here, except AMD having let their product line erode enough to make the GPP feasible in the first place.
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There has certainly been some concern about whether some of the wording meant that the AIBs couldn't align a new AMD sub-brand with gaming, however that was mainly a final kick in the teeth type scenario with a few people assuming the worst just like a few were assuming the best.

Most of the concern has been directed at the now well established fact that Nvidia is co-opting the premium gaming brands that these companies have spent a lot of time and money building because they're effective. Any new brand will require the same amount of time and effort put into it to be as effective and that won't happen because the old one will still be marketed as well so the new one will always be playing catch-up.

Market dominance makes it less okay to engage in anti-competitive practices not more. I'm not sure that dominance is quite as severe as some believe though considering how much harder it is to find an AMD card at anywhere near MSRP and that's been a common theme more often than not since bitcoin miners first started mining with the HD 5000 series cards. Obviously AMD hasn't been producing as many GPUs as Nvidia but metrics such as Steam survey are fairly worthless when gamers have been often outbid on AMD cards for years.
 
ChadD said:
If it wasn't Nvidia would have gotten all transparent about it.
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Early morning chuckle thanks :)

So yes it is very likely in there. Are they stupid enough to try and enforce it... we'll see.
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After the backlash and summation of possible legal issues NV may have relaxed their attitude a little to try and swat this away.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Well, most of the 'outrage' has been that AMD GPUs would be stripped of 'gaming' branding. If that's not the case, then there's not much to be mad about here, except AMD having let their product line erode enough to make the GPP feasible in the first place.
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You see, right there, you're blaming one of the victims, AMD, for the injury [that will be] caused to them by nVidia's GPP.

The lack of an AMD direct competitor to the 1080 ti does not mean that the rest of the AMD line up is not equal to or better than the nVidia equivalent. Nor does it negate the fact that AIBs have been quite happy to consider AMD products more than good enough to have a presence in THEIR premium brands. And none of that legally authorises nVidia to extort exclusivity of other companys' brands to the detriment of AMD.

People really, really need to stop blaming AMD for the actions of nVidia. What nVidia does is entirely the decision and responsibilty of nVidia.
 
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fingerbob69 said:
You see, right there, you're blaming one of the victims, AMD, for the injury [that will be] caused to them by nVidia's GPP.

The lack of an AMD direct competitor to the 1080 ti does not mean that the rest of the AMD line up is not equal to or better than the nVidia equivalent. Nor does it negate the fact that AIBs have been quite happy to consider AMD products more than good enough to have a presence in THEIR premium brands. And none of that legally authorises nVidia to extort exclusivity of other companys' brands to the detriment of AMD.

People really, really need to stop blaming AMD for the actions of nVidia. What nVidia does is entirely the decision and responsibilty of nVidia.
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Did Nvidia order ASUS to use ROG exclusively for their products? Is that in the contract, ROG -> Nvidia?

Or did ASUS get a choice, and decide to relegate second tier products to a new, 'second tier' brand?
 
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