GeForce Partner Program Impacts Consumer Choice

razor1 said:
The problem is there is no alternative right now Digi. This is why AMD went to the press with this and not seeking a court injunction to stop this. 100% they went to their attorneys and asked them what they can do about it. The response probably was, they can't do anything.

They know its going to hurt them, and there is nothing they can do to stop it.
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Or given their experience with Intel, they know that even if Nvidia is doing something illegal, it is going to take years to settle, all the while AMD gets fucked over.
 
Brian_B said:
I thought nForce died because nVidia didn't gain the patent rights to create x86 chipsets with QPI architecture - they only had rights for older CPU architectures that used an AGTL FSB (Conroe-era). It was some settlement between Intel and nVidia, so that Intel could continue licensing necessary patents for IGP.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/4122/intel-settles-with-nvidia-more-money-fewer-problems-no-x86
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What i know is that on 2005, Intel used NVidia's NForce4 SLI chipset, in order not to be annihilated -performance wise- from AMD, since until then, only AMD could use NV's SLI patent (*crossfire wasn't made back then) -
EDIT: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1662/16.
Thus, until then, the performance crown could only go to AMD-based systems, since they were the only ones that could use the SLI technology.
P.S. Performance-wise , the NForce chipsets were among the best, NForce3, NForce4, & NForce590 were among the best chipsets of their time.
 
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digitalwanderer said:
Do you think an OEM having signed on to the GPP would push it? They've already caved.
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They don't all have an issue, in fact some have nothing at all to loose, like I mentioned earlier, EVGA only makes NVidia based boards, anything that makes life hard for EVGA's competition without any downside is all wine and roses for them.
 
FearTheCow said:
Or given their experience with Intel, they know that even if Nvidia is doing something illegal, it is going to take years to settle, all the while AMD gets fucked over.
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Not talking about a settlement, an injunction can happen fast, the purpose of an injunction is to stop all behavior while its investigated.
 
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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Kyle's never been an eloquent writer. None of the [H] team has ever been. But they speak plainly, and you know where they stand.

I appreciate that.
 
Master_shake_ said:
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.
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So, you can't see why nvidia might want their product to have some kind of brand identity and ensure buyers who are less conscientious aren't confused by lazy branding? You can't see they would like to see their ultra-premium highest performance consumer card look different and be marketed differently to a competitor's crappy outdated tech? Those two cards look identical. The marketing looks identical. The packaging looks identical. You seem to be saying that the marketing and image isn't important at all. If that's your belief then why are you so mad about this? Just drop the AMD cards to some kind of of other branding scheme, everyone's smart enough to know the difference... right? This is MSI (in this case) trying to white-label all the products as their own and create their own brand. Not an unknown tactic for eastern companies to use. Nvidia are trying to protect their brand identity and inject a little uniqueness. Personally I think they should do that by manufacturing themselves, but that's never going to happen (or at least not quickly) so this is the next best thing. It's a bullying tactic, sure, it's also totally not unusual.

I'm glad the source was clearly stated and I respect very much that it was. It also makes the motivations clear here. I think, in my opinion, this is a delaying tactic to try to stem the bleeding for them to get something good out. AMD should release a decent product and let that speak. They managed it with Ryzen, but the Radeon stuff just seems to have been starved. Look, I know you love/care about them as a brand, I have a place in my heart for them too, my first 3-4 GPU's were ATI. I want them to come out with a good product and introduce some badly needed competition like they did in the CPU market, but they don't give a shit about you and they'll cut Radeon from their portfolio like a cancerous polyp if it doesn't make them money. Honestly, their tactic of bleating to the press I find more reprehensible than what nvidia are doing. It's like crying to mummy.
 
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AMD just ate a nice big chunk of marketshare (6.5%) directly from Nvidia in a quarter with an increase in overall shipments by the way. Add to that the partnership with Intel and the strenghtening relationship with Apple. The recent JPR report must have gotten Nvidia scared shitless so they are going all out with this monopolistic bullshit.

https://techpinions.com/amd-gains-b...e-last-quarter-thanks-to-cryptocurrency/52361

https://www.jonpeddie.com/press-rel...-in-q4-cryptocurrency-provides-smaller-offset
 
Lorien said:
AMD just ate a nice big chunk of marketshare (6.5%) directly from Nvidia in a quarter with an increase in overall shipments by the way. Add to that the partnership with Intel and the strenghtening relationship with Apple. The recent JPR report must have gotten Nvidia scared shitless so they are going all out with this monopolistic bullshit.

https://techpinions.com/amd-gains-b...e-last-quarter-thanks-to-cryptocurrency/52361

https://www.jonpeddie.com/press-rel...-in-q4-cryptocurrency-provides-smaller-offset
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Lol, bring on that cryptocurrency hate people! It's saving AMD's graphics division, but gotta make sure they keep fair access to that "gaming" branding!
 
davethehedgehog said:
So, you can't see why nvidia might want their product to have some kind of brand identity and ensure buyers who are less conscientious aren't confused by lazy branding? You can't see they would like to see their ultra-premium highest performance consumer card look different and be marketed differently to a competitor's crappy outdated tech? Those two cards look identical. The marketing looks identical. The packaging looks identical.
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Sure. Then again, maybe Nvidia should drop costs a bit so AIB's are more willing to design different coolers etc. to differentiate the products. Not that sloppy lazy and cheap coolers that don't work so well on newer chips hasn't cost AIB's business. Then again maybe customers like a design no matter what who's gpu chip is inside. Maybe I as a customer don't care to pay extra for a new cooler design that just looks different with more or less shiny leds.
 
davethehedgehog said:
So, you can't see why nvidia might want their product to have some kind of brand identity and ensure buyers who are less conscientious aren't confused by lazy branding? You can't see they would like to see their ultra-premium highest performance consumer card look different and be marketed differently to a competitor's crappy outdated tech? Those two cards look identical. The marketing looks identical. The packaging looks identical. You seem to be saying that the marketing and image isn't important at all. If that's your belief then why are you so mad about this? Just drop the AMD cards to some kind of of other branding scheme, everyone's smart enough to know the difference... right? This is MSI (in this case) trying to white-label all the products as their own and create their own brand. Not an unknown tactic for eastern companies to use. Nvidia are trying to protect their brand identity and inject a little uniqueness. Personally I think they should do that by manufacturing themselves, but that's never going to happen (or at least not quickly) so this is the next best thing. It's a bullying tactic, sure, it's also totally not unusual.

I'm glad the source was clearly stated and I respect very much that it was. It also makes the motivations clear here. I think, in my opinion, this is a delaying tactic to try to stem the bleeding for them to get something good out. AMD should release a decent product and let that speak. They managed it with Ryzen, but the Radeon stuff just seems to have been starved. Look, I know you love/care about them as a brand, I have a place in my heart for them too, my first 3-4 GPU's were ATI. I want them to come out with a good product and introduce some badly needed competition like they did in the CPU market, but they don't give a shit about you and they'll cut Radeon from their portfolio like a cancerous polyp if it doesn't make them money. Honestly, their tactic of bleating to the press I find more reprehensible than what nvidia are doing. It's like crying to mummy.
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I hadn't realized "nvidia" wasn't a well known brand.
 
davethehedgehog said:
Your point is?

They're clearly well known, which is probably why they don't want their uber-performance cards marketed alongside and in exactly the same way as a shitty RX580
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The RX 580 is by no means a shitty card, it's more than capable or running games at 1440p, and can pretty much destroy most games at 1080p which, by the way, is the most common gaming resolution.

So Nvidia trying to strong arm OEMs and AIBs out of allowing AMD products to be marketed as 'gaming' is not only deceitful, but grossly inaccurate.
 
pcgeekesq said:
Articles like this are what distinguish [H] from every other gaming-oriented website I'm aware of.
And why the [H] is first on the list of web sites I read daily for PC-related news.

You go, Kyle.
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Been my homepage for 20 years, ever since I switched it from... Blues News... for reasons I've long since forgotten. So yeah, you're obviously an AMD-slanted Nvidia hate site, good job Kyle :p
 
Even if a company can create a separate "gaming brand" for AMD cards, it's still unfair to AMD. Companies spend tons of time and money advertising a gaming brand. If that well established brand now has to be exclusively aligned to Nvidia it puts them at a huge advantage.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Again, for the people in the back: the AIBs don't have to do anything, and Nvidia doesn't owe them anything
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I agree, they don't "have to join" ... wink ... wink.

I'm reading the article right now where Nvidia has came out to clear the air and transparently explains the entire program because they want to stop the spread of misinformation on the Internet that is damaging their reputation.
 
davethehedgehog said:
So, you can't see why nvidia might want their product to have some kind of brand identity and ensure buyers who are less conscientious aren't confused by lazy branding? You can't see they would like to see their ultra-premium highest performance consumer card look different and be marketed differently to a competitor's crappy outdated tech? Those two cards look identical. The marketing looks identical. The packaging looks identical. You seem to be saying that the marketing and image isn't important at all. If that's your belief then why are you so mad about this? Just drop the AMD cards to some kind of of other branding scheme, everyone's smart enough to know the difference... right? This is MSI (in this case) trying to white-label all the products as their own and create their own brand. Not an unknown tactic for eastern companies to use. Nvidia are trying to protect their brand identity and inject a little uniqueness. Personally I think they should do that by manufacturing themselves, but that's never going to happen (or at least not quickly) so this is the next best thing. It's a bullying tactic, sure, it's also totally not unusual.

I'm glad the source was clearly stated and I respect very much that it was. It also makes the motivations clear here. I think, in my opinion, this is a delaying tactic to try to stem the bleeding for them to get something good out. AMD should release a decent product and let that speak. They managed it with Ryzen, but the Radeon stuff just seems to have been starved. Look, I know you love/care about them as a brand, I have a place in my heart for them too, my first 3-4 GPU's were ATI. I want them to come out with a good product and introduce some badly needed competition like they did in the CPU market, but they don't give a shit about you and they'll cut Radeon from their portfolio like a cancerous polyp if it doesn't make them money. Honestly, their tactic of bleating to the press I find more reprehensible than what nvidia are doing. It's like crying to mummy.
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Not disagreeing with the direction of your post, But NVidia is now making their own cards and it started with the 10 Series, all Founder's Addition Cards are made by NVidia even if they are marketed and sold by another company, NVidia made them. It was a new twist on the old reference card concept. Used to, NVidia made a reference card with reference drivers, this was NVidia's solution for the architecture. And company could license the reference solution and go straight to market as is, just stick their own sticker on it and be done. In the day, on launch day, most cards were essentially identical, usually the drivers got a little tweaking and personification, but mostly, they were all the same because they were all essentially reference cards. The other option was to modify the cards, usually by adding features. Non-reference cards might have 3D Glasses, better RAM, modified cooling, etc. But there was risk in buying these "improved" cards. If the manufacturer got out of the video card business and dropped support, sometimes even the reference drivers wouldn't work with them. Early obsolescence.

Now NVidia comes out with a new wrinkle, Founders Cards are supposed to be extremely high-end solid and reliable versions of the cards. That's the marketing behind them. I don't know how they still stack up today or if NVidia will continue with this approach. Maybe someone else has a better read on that.
 
bigdogchris said:
I agree, they don't "have to join" ... wink ... wink.

I'm reading the article right now where Nvidia has came out to clear the air and transparently explains the entire program because they want to stop the spread of misinformation on the Internet that is damaging their reputation.
Click to expand...
Oooh, can I have the link to that? I bet it explains everything and this is all just one big silly misunderstanding that AMD planted/rigged/set-up to try and make nVidia look bad when all they have is the very best of intentions to the gaming community to help it grow and prosper.

Can't WAIT to read it, pls link! :D
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Again, for the people in the back: the AIBs don't have to do anything, and Nvidia doesn't owe them anything
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Is it alright if some of us have a healthy bit of skepticism about if nVidia uses the GPP as a force for good in the gaming community rather than as a cudgel to keep AIBs and OEMs in line with until we see how it pans out?

Sorry, I just have had a bit of experience with nVidia and their PR dept going back to before the turn of the century and I'm a little less than enamored with their track record.
 
davethehedgehog said:
Lol, bring on that cryptocurrency hate people! It's saving AMD's graphics division, but gotta make sure they keep fair access to that "gaming" branding!
Click to expand...

It's rather irrelevant what anyone "thinks", "hopes", "wants", "hates", "loves" regarding cryptocurrencies except for those speaking with their wallets. There is a market and a demand, period.

The interesting thing about it is that both IHV's are on a truly even playing field, so you are seeing pure capitalistic competition in that market. There are no game developers to push lawyered up co-marketing kickbacks ala gameworks that sabotage the competition. There are no websites run by potentially corrupt owners willing to take advertisement kickbacks and free hardware in exchange for favorable reviews. Brands are totally irrelevant as well. The only thing that matters is how good the products offered are for their purpose. There are no neckbeard PC master race gaming fantasies being sold there.

To put it into perspective. When do you expect to see the typical PC video game demographic get organized to the point of chartering a cargo plane full of all the video cards they just bought because shipping by sea would take too long? Because so far all they've done is whine and bitch about it on the internet and that has and always will amount to a fart in the wind.
 
davethehedgehog said:
So, you can't see why nvidia might want their product to have some kind of brand identity and ensure buyers who are less conscientious aren't confused by lazy branding? You can't see they would like to see their ultra-premium highest performance consumer card look different and be marketed differently to a competitor's crappy outdated tech? Those two cards look identical. The marketing looks identical. The packaging looks identical. You seem to be saying that the marketing and image isn't important at all. If that's your belief then why are you so mad about this? Just drop the AMD cards to some kind of of other branding scheme, everyone's smart enough to know the difference... right? This is MSI (in this case) trying to white-label all the products as their own and create their own brand. Not an unknown tactic for eastern companies to use. Nvidia are trying to protect their brand identity and inject a little uniqueness. Personally I think they should do that by manufacturing themselves, but that's never going to happen (or at least not quickly) so this is the next best thing. It's a bullying tactic, sure, it's also totally not unusual.

I'm glad the source was clearly stated and I respect very much that it was. It also makes the motivations clear here. I think, in my opinion, this is a delaying tactic to try to stem the bleeding for them to get something good out. AMD should release a decent product and let that speak. They managed it with Ryzen, but the Radeon stuff just seems to have been starved. Look, I know you love/care about them as a brand, I have a place in my heart for them too, my first 3-4 GPU's were ATI. I want them to come out with a good product and introduce some badly needed competition like they did in the CPU market, but they don't give a shit about you and they'll cut Radeon from their portfolio like a cancerous polyp if it doesn't make them money. Honestly, their tactic of bleating to the press I find more reprehensible than what nvidia are doing. It's like crying to mummy.
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people don't buy the card they buy the box.

one says nvidia one says amd anyone who is confused is beyond help.

600.png

600.png


red is the color of msi's gaming scheme.

see red?

91oqHXTkuiL._SX355_.jpg


91qFvxHW53L._SX355_.jpg


nvidia is just being stupid.

nobody is mistaking nvidia for amd or intel from amd.
 
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bigdogchris said:
I agree, they don't "have to join" ... wink ... wink.

I'm reading the article right now where Nvidia has came out to clear the air and transparently explains the entire program because they want to stop the spread of misinformation on the Internet that is damaging their reputation.
Click to expand...
That is odd because NVIDIA needs to be explaining that to their OEM and AIB partners that were going nuts over this. Had NVIDIA OEMs and AIBs felt the program was working the way NVIDIA explains it, then this story would have never been written.

Just keep in mind that "But we’ve done our own digging," actually means that we sent NV an email and this is exactly what they told us.
 
Master_shake_ said:
and thank goodness really.

nforce chipsets were akin to a blast furnace in terms of heat produced.
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I didnt encounter a heat problem with my NForce boards, they lasted a very long time.
What made me love their boards was they did DD 5.1 over optical, the very first way I could game in 5.1 with my AV amp.
Before that I had to use a crappy PC 5.1 setup.
 
Nenu said:
I didnt encounter a heat problem with my NForce boards, they lasted a very long time.
What made me love their boards was they did DD 5.1 over optical, the very first way I could game in 5.1 with my AV amp.
Before that I had to use a crappy PC 5.1 setup.
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I mean I owned about 6 nforce based boards Intel and AMD in almost every generation of nforce and all of them ran hot like burn your finger hot.
 
I read the terms and conditions posted on page 9 of this thread and these are my thoughts of reading them.
If you are not a member of the program you can not use any nVidia logos on your product even if they contain a nVidia chip.
I am especially fond of the line in there that they're not responsible for updating any software to their AIB's so I guess ASUS MSI and the like better learn how to write drivers because nVidia can stop offering support at any time.
They are not responsible for any defects in hardware or manufacturing ( guess they don't want to be hook for misleading amounts of memory again).
If you are a member of the program you are required to order a minimum qty. as determined by them.
If you are a system builder and a member of the program you must place nVidia's logo on any page you publish for a computer that contains their hardware whether the system is produced for gaming or any use.(free advertising)
Why would anyone want to join this partnership?
 
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MrGreg62 said:
Why would anyone want to join this partnership?
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Because the moment anyone - ANYONE - slaps a Nvidia GPU onto a circuit board with some VRMs and a fan, its a license to print money. And because they have no equal.

And because of that, these poor little engine-that-could megacorp AIBs that everyone's breaking out little violins for are raking in hundreds of millions, record breaking profits especially in this current GPU market.

I tried to churn out a tear but it lacked conviction.
 
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odditory said:
Because Nvidia GPUs are a license to print money and have no equal. And because of that, these poor little engine-that-could AIBs that everyone's breaking out little violins for are experiencing record breaking profits in the hundreds of millions, especially in this current GPU market.
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Therefore, fuck AMD, amirite?
 
So NVidia is loosing market share little by little and now they want their GPU's to be exclusively branded "gaming". while some of their GFF partners are using gaming on the competitors GPU's as well. I just don't see that happening. Not at Asus or MSI.
Is NVidia loosing their shit over the fact that while AMD may not be the fastest in gaming it is still taking market share from them. Maybe Nvidia needs to come up with a better mining GPU .or maybe not try to charge 3K for the Titan V :D

MR. Bennett, Thank you for blowing the lid off of this ...
 
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I will say two things about this. First of all, I can't believe nVidia would do this if it's going to make the board partners unhappy. They are already in a very good position. They don't need to do things like this to be more successful.

The other thing I will say is that I am completely shocked to see Kyle essentially doing exactly what AMD wanted him to do (again). The last time he did this was the Vega side-by-side demonstration before the cards were released. Now he has probably burned the bridge completely with nVidia. After more than 20 years of him running this site, I am shocked to see him do this. My reason for saying this is because it really sounds like a misunderstanding in a lot of ways. All nVidia is saying in this is that they want separate gaming brands for AMD and nVidia cards. This article sums it up nicely:

https://pcgamesn.com/nvidia-geforce-partner-program-amd-impact

But we’ve done our own digging into the story and from what we’ve uncovered the truth of the matter is the transparency Nvidia are chasing is about making it clear which graphics card range from a company is based on GeForce tech and which are running AMD’s GPUs. It's not about stopping a company from having a separate AMD-based gaming brand.

Graphics card companies can then have as many brands as they like, so long as they are separated along green and red boundaries. That means Asus could have a Republic of Gamers Mars brand, which only sells Nvidia, but also a Republic of Gamers Ares brand that is exclusively AMD-based. GPP isn’t going to stop any company from selling AMD GPUs as specifically gaming graphics cards.
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Please don't flame me for saying this. I have a lot of respect for Kyle and this site. I just think that what he did was a big mistake.
 
Imhotep said:
So NVidia is loosing market share little by little and now they want their GPU's to be exclusively branded "gaming". while some of their GFF partners are using gaming on the competitors GPU's as well. I just don't see that happening. Not at Asus or MSI.
Is NVidia loosing their shit over the fact that while AMD may not be the fastest in gaming it is still taking market share from them. Maybe Nvidia needs to come up with a better mining GPU . :D
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I think its already happened with one of the big three multi vendor AIB's there is no way Kyle would have written the article about it if it didn't happen, most likely it happened with ALL three.

And no nV isn't loosing their shit due to marketshare, AMD's GPU's right now don't compete with anything nV has. Lets not turn arguments sides ways when the market is limited by supply of vram.
 
Nenu said:
I didnt encounter a heat problem with my NForce boards, they lasted a very long time.
What made me love their boards was they did DD 5.1 over optical, the very first way I could game in 5.1 with my AV amp.
Before that I had to use a crappy PC 5.1 setup.
Click to expand...

I was a fan of their 5.1 setup at the time, especially as it got me away from soundblaster but lets just say that board led me to using only usb mics for the past 15 years.
 
SickBeast said:
I will say two things about this. First of all, I can't believe nVidia would do this if it's going to make the board partners unhappy. They are already in a very good position. They don't need to do things like this to be more successful.

The other thing I will say is that I am completely shocked to see Kyle essentially doing exactly what AMD wanted him to do (again). The last time he did this was the Vega side-by-side demonstration before the cards were released. Now he has probably burned the bridge completely with nVidia. After more than 20 years of him running this site, I am shocked to see him do this. My reason for saying this is because it really sounds like a misunderstanding in a lot of ways. All nVidia is saying in this is that they want separate gaming brands for AMD and nVidia cards. This article sums it up nicely:

https://pcgamesn.com/nvidia-geforce-partner-program-amd-impact



Please don't flame me for saying this. I have a lot of respect for Kyle and this site. I just think that what he did was a big mistake.
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So the big "GEFORCE" on the box isn't enough to differentiate Nvidia from AMD now?

Edit: I also like how your link just says they did their own "digging" with no other information whatsoever.
 
SickBeast said:
Please don't flame me for saying this. I have a lot of respect for Kyle and this site. I just think that what he did was a big mistake.
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Kyle is doing his readers a service by posting this. Do you honestly think he is doing what AMD wants? Read through articles from the past, he calls a spade a spade, no B.S. Many people called bullshit on his RTG article..
How'd that turn out?
 
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