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llien · Mar 21, 2018

It felt as unconfirmed thought in the beginning, when HardOCP's Kyle Bennet sounded the alarm:

A report from HardOCP's Kyle Bennet aims to shake NVIDIA's foundations, with allegations of anti-competitive business practices under its new GeForce Partner Program (GPP). In his report, which started with an AMD approach that pushed him to look a little closer into GPP, Bennet says that he has found evidence that NVIDIA's new program aims to push partners towards shunning products from other hardware manufacturers - mainly AMD, with a shoot across the bow for Intel.

After following the breadcrumb trail and speaking with NVIDIA AIBs and OEM partners ("The ones that did speak to us have done so anonymously, in fear of losing their jobs, or having retribution placed upon them or their companies by NVIDIA," Bennett says), the picture is painted of an industry behemoth that aims to abuse its currently dominant market position. NVIDIA controls around 70% of the discrete GPU market share, and its industrious size is apparently being put to use to outmuscle its competitors' offerings by, essentially, putting partners between the proverbial rock and a hard place. According to Bennet, industry players unanimously brought about three consequences from Nvidia's GPP, saying that "They think that it has terms that are likely illegal; GPP is likely going to tremendously hurt consumers' choices; It will disrupt business with the companies that they are currently doing business with, namely AMD and Intel."
The crux of the issue seems to be in that NVIDIA, while publicly touting transparency, is hiding some not so transparent clauses from the public's view. Namely, the fact that in order to become a part of NVIDIA's GPP program, partners must have its "Gaming Brand Aligned Exclusively With GeForce." Bennet says that he has read NVIDIA papers, and these very words, in internal documents meant for NVIDIA's partners only; however, none of these have been made available as of time of writing, though that may be an effort to protect sources.

But what does this "exclusivity" mean? That partners would have to forego products from other brands (case in point, AMD) in order to be granted the GeForce partner status. And what do companies who achieve GPP status receive? Well, enough that it would make competition from other NVIDIA AIBs that didn't make the partner program extremely difficult - if not unfeasible. This is because GPP-branded companies would receive perks such as: high-effort engineering engagements (likely, aids to custom designs); early tech engagement; launch partner status (as in, being able to sell GeForce-branded products at launch date); game bundling; sales rebate programs; social media and PR support; marketing reports; and the ultimate kicker, Marketing Development Funds (MDF). This last one may be known to our more attentive readers, as it was part of Intel's "Intel Inside" marketing program which spurred... a pretty incredible anti-trust movement against the company.

As a result of covering this story, HardOCP's Kyle Bennet says he expects the website to be shunned from now on when it comes to NVIDIA or NVIDIA partner graphics cards being offered for review purposes. Whether or not that will happen, I guess time will time; as time will tell whether or not there is indeed any sort of less... transparent plays taking place here.

Techpowerup

A couple of weeks later, we can see:

MSI
MSI, , has completely removed any mention of MSI Gaming from Radeon cards. For the RX Vega family, they ship the cards with reference coolers and “Air Boost” or “Iron” branding, Iron being the same blower cooler design with a brushed aluminium shroud. For the RX 580 and RX Vega 64 Liquid, they revert to using AMD’s stock designs there, and the custom designs are limited to the ARMOR series of coolers and branding.

Gigabyte
On Gigabyte’s website, nothing has been changed in terms of branding for AMD GPUs, but none of those GPUs are new. Their latest product, the RX 580 Gaming Box, features no external AMD branding anywhere, and ships with a custom cooler with no special branding that is small enough to fit inside the unit. NVIDIA Gaming boxes feature the AORUS branding.
In a statement to ComputerBase, Gigabyte Europe has 'clarified' why the RX 580 Gaming box did not carry AORUS branding as expected. A rough translation from Google Translate follows:
“ComputerBase asked Gigabyte why the model with Radeon RX 580 is the only in the series which does not come with the “Aorus” gaming branding. The manufacturer states that the product is not gamer focused. This however is inconsistent with the product page, whose headings are ‘Turn Your Ultrabook to Gaming Platform’ and ‘Upgrade the Game Experience’.”

Asus
ASUS’ website also still has the old branding for AMD GPUs in the ROG family, but has brands for AMD’s cards that aren’t as premium-focused. Taking the RX 580 as an example, they have DUAL branding for the RX 580 4GB and 8GB cards, as well as the Expedition brand for the RX 570 4GB card, which is an older dual-fan design that ASUS used previously for their Mining series of graphics cards. It’s available on GeForce cards as well, which is unexpected.
Google search "ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 580" brings you to the non branded "ASUS Radeon RX 580"

First rule of GPP: don't talk about GPP (hardocp)

DynamiteCop! · Mar 21, 2018

Nvidia is and has always been a bottom of the barrel company, there's business and then there's being cut-throat, anti-competitive and trying to monopolize the market. Regardless of how good their technology is and how competent they are at making GPU's, they're one company I wouldn't mind no longer existing.

tkscz · Mar 21, 2018

That's some twisted shit. Never looked into Nvidia's business practice though. This is one dick move that's for sure.

Dirk Benedict · Mar 21, 2018

I prefer Nvidia cards, but what the fuck? That is very fucked up.

Nikodemos · Mar 21, 2018

Oh, wow, how surprising.

I mean, nVidia have always had such a clean and shiny business practice record...

{coughs]

nephilimdj · Mar 21, 2018

Ofcourse who wants a gaming edition when you can get a mining edition. At the end of the nine you find Diablo with purple bitcoin drops and maybe common dogecoins

Louis Cyphre · Mar 21, 2018

All I can think of is thank God we have AMD as an alternative.

DryvBy · Mar 21, 2018

I love nVidia and Intel products but their business practices are awful.

goldenpp72 · Mar 21, 2018

Seems like business as usual really.

shpankey · Mar 21, 2018

Terrible. Shame on nVidia.

chinoXL · Mar 21, 2018

seems like AMD's new product has nVidia a little worried...shady business move but not surprising when you're the top dog

Blam · Mar 21, 2018

I doubt anything AMD does is gonna be substantial.

DZ_b_EZ · Mar 21, 2018

I wanted to go back to Nvidia for my next build since AMD has been lacking backbone in their GPU sector, but now I'm just stuck between a rock and a hard place. This REALLY is the worst time to be a PC gamer.

llien · Mar 21, 2018

chinoXL said:
seems like AMD's new product has nVidia a little worried...

I doubt it.
nVidia is in dominant position now so its CEO is using or rather misusing it to harm competitor.

goldenpp72 said:
Seems like business as usual really.

Really? Or you mean, as usual back in times when Compaq wouldn't take AMD CPUs offered for free, fearing Intel's retaliation?

manfestival · Mar 21, 2018

DZ_b_EZ said:
I wanted to go back to Nvidia for my next build since AMD has been lacking backbone in their GPU sector, but now I'm just stuck between a rock and a hard place. This REALLY is the worst time to be a PC gamer.

why do you say that this is the worst time to be a pcgamer? cause PUBG and fortnite are popular or something?

DryvBy · Mar 21, 2018

DZ_b_EZ said:
I wanted to go back to Nvidia for my next build since AMD has been lacking backbone in their GPU sector, but now I'm just stuck between a rock and a hard place. This REALLY is the worst time to be a PC gamer.

This kind of stuff isn't even what's bad about it. The hardware inflation is crazy. It's why I tell my friends that the PS5 coming next year is a giant joke.

chinoXL · Mar 21, 2018

this is from an article, AMD Gained Huge Chunk of GPU Market Share in Q4 2017, NVIDIA and Intel Fall Behind – Crypto Miners End Up Gobbling Over 3 Million Discrete Graphics Cards..not sure if we can toss links in to other articles or not

pj · Mar 21, 2018

chinoXL said:
this is from an article, AMD Gained Huge Chunk of GPU Market Share in Q4 2017, NVIDIA and Intel Fall Behind – Crypto Miners End Up Gobbling Over 3 Million Discrete Graphics Cards..not sure if we can toss links in to other articles or not

Nvidia is still outselling AMD 2 to 1 in discrete GPUs and that's with this crypo craze that favors AMD in terms of perf / $

WaterAstro · Mar 21, 2018

This is why I abandoned Nvidia long ago. Their business practices and monopolizing must be stopped.

chinoXL · Mar 21, 2018

pj said:
Nvidia is still outselling AMD 2 to 1 in discrete GPUs and that's with this crypo craze that favors AMD in terms of perf / $

gotcha, i know they're aren't seriously threatening nvidia, just seems like since sales are picking up, their tryin to shut it down

Mohonky · Mar 21, 2018

Sounds shitty.

Can manufacturers not just rebrand their gaming focussed AMD line up?

Ie. I know Asus push their ROG branding, but couldnt they just make their nVidia branding on cards, and use something else for their AMD line up?

Barakov · Mar 21, 2018

Real scummy. Not surprising given Nvidia's history.

lukilladog · Mar 21, 2018

Gaming branded stuff starts outselling regular products by a considerable margin (that´s a fact), and now scummy co. flexes it´s muscles to push competition out of it... how can that guy sleep.

HoodWinked · Mar 21, 2018

you know its reasonable for a company to dictate how their own products are marketed with its partners but when you start to dictate/demand how your partners market ANOTHER company's product that's like beyond scummy.

michaelius · Mar 21, 2018

chinoXL said:
seems like AMD's new product has nVidia a little worried...shady business move but not surprising when you're the top dog

Yeah that's what I heard for 12 months before Vega...

paolo11 · Mar 21, 2018

I am GREEN NVIDIA for life but they don't want competition. I mean.... AMD is only good for their prices but performance is NVIDIA. Still, they should not be anti competition.

LOLCats · Mar 22, 2018

i fired nvidia around GTX 670. They are doing nothing to help them getting re-hired in my household.

rokkerkory · Mar 22, 2018

Against this crap

Swizzle · Mar 22, 2018

paolo11 said:
I am GREEN NVIDIA for life but they don't want competition. I mean.... AMD is only good for their prices but performance is NVIDIA. Still, they should not be anti competition.

They would answer “why not?”. They have a position where people will pay for pricier cards that are worse in terms of performance : dollar just to get a small lead in some games (and paying dearly for it == great profit margins) and although they sense a monopolist nVidia having no competition being even worse they declare they are “GREEN NVIDIA for life” hence the mission a company would feel it has to take in a moment like that is to enjoy no antitrust oversight and kill the competition and slowly keep raising prices while lowering R&D spending if possible.

Odinnii · Mar 22, 2018

I would love to switch to an AMD card just to not support this BS, but not when the best card they have loses to the 2 year old 1080.

Swizzle · Mar 22, 2018

Odinnii said:
I would love to switch to an AMD card just to not support this BS, but not when the best card they have loses to the 2 year old 1080.

To be fair they do still lose the top performance crown on a variety of cases to the strongest card from heir competitor, but their cards do not perform badly (nor is a distant second) and is very good value for your dollars.

Makariel · Mar 22, 2018

I wish vega would be a real alternative to 1080(ti), but so far they are just better at mining and heating the house. My old 390X was so hot I couldn't really play games in summer, but was quite useful to keep the room warm in winter.

GAFDooMsDaY · Mar 22, 2018

I got a vega 64 to pair with my freesync problem and still get 90 fps or better in most newer games. Almost decided to sell it for 1080 ti but I think I might just hold out for the next line of AMD cards..(unless the performance between them is stark)

Bolivar687 · Mar 22, 2018

It's stuff like this that really make me wish I didn't get a 1080 but when Vegas are marked up by $400+ premiums, you really don't have a choice in the matter.

I don't understand how AMD isn't moving the needle more in terms of market share when these things are in such high demand. I assume they don't want to ramp up production too high so when the cryptocurrency craze ends, the market is flooded with cheap cards?

llien · Mar 22, 2018

Bolivar687 said:
I don't understand how AMD isn't moving the needle more in terms of market share when these things are in such high demand. I assume they don't want to ramp up production too high so when the cryptocurrency craze ends, the market is flooded with cheap cards?

Lisa Su (CEO) has mentioned they are constrained by memory supply.

Alexander DeLarge · Mar 22, 2018

Yeah go fuck yourselves nVidia, I already hated the driver experience on top of the lack of FreeSync support (in an attempt to push their proprietary "premium" displays instead of supporting the open standard) but now this? I was already considering taking a performance hit on my 1080Ti and trading it for a Vega 64 card but now I'm seriously going to do it.

I'm sick of their GameWorks tech arbitrarily tanking performance too. I hope developers start pushing back against this stuff because it really is just hurting their own users. AMD's GPUOpen initiative should be taken advantage of far more than it is currently. Also in case anyone missed it, AMD just showed off their Vulkan-based ray tracing tech while Nvidia is pushing DirectX exclusive to Windows/Xbox machines.

Open standards are worth supporting. Even if it's a little inconvenient on a performance level. https://gpuopen.com/

iconmaster · Mar 22, 2018

It does sound like nVidia's playing some hardball, but with only 70% marketshare (as the report claims), they are just on the edge of monopoly in the eyes of the courts.

Following Alcoa and American Tobacco, courts typically have required a dominant market share before inferring the existence of monopoly power. The Fifth Circuit observed that "monopolization is rarely found when the defendant's share of the relevant market is below 70%."(22) Similarly, the Tenth Circuit noted that to establish "monopoly power, lower courts generally require a minimum market share of between 70% and 80%."(23) Likewise, the Third Circuit stated that "a share significantly larger than 55% has been required to establish prima facie market power"(24) and held that a market share between seventy-five percent and eighty percent of sales is "more than adequate to establish a prima facie case of power."(25)

(from the Sherman Act)

So this could all be quite legal.

Coulomb_Barrier · Mar 22, 2018

I bet Durante loves these kind of practices; a total Nvidia monopoly is the end point, if its not there already.

Blam · Mar 22, 2018

Honestly I'm perfectly fine with Nvidia and this.

AMD Consistently falls short of every promise that they made their cards underperform. They literally need to throw money at these devs to make their games better.

They are always introducing new bugs with their software updates, and are really slow to fix them.

I hope AMD steps their shit up. They know how to make shit faster but perform better is something else. It's never stable.

JohnnyFootball · Mar 22, 2018

Blam said:
Honestly I'm perfectly fine with Nvidia and this.

AMD Consistently falls short of every promise that they made their cards underperform. They literally need to throw money at these devs to make their games better.

They are always introducing new bugs with their software updates, and are really slow to fix them.

I hope AMD steps their shit up. They know how to make shit faster but perform better is something else. It's never stable.

You shouldn’t be perfectly fine with this. Nobody should.

billythemule · Mar 22, 2018

Blam said:
Honestly I'm perfectly fine with Nvidia and this.

AMD Consistently falls short of every promise that they made their cards underperform. They literally need to throw money at these devs to make their games better.

They are always introducing new bugs with their software updates, and are really slow to fix them.

I hope AMD steps their shit up. They know how to make shit faster but perform better is something else. It's never stable.

I don't see how AMD's mistakes (in your eyes) makes Nvidia's alleged anti-competitive business practices suddenly alright. There is a reason why these things are illegal. It's to protect the consumer's interests and to ensure that companies can compete fairly against other companies with bigger market shares.

thelastword · Mar 22, 2018

Odinnii said:
I would love to switch to an AMD card just to not support this BS, but not when the best card they have loses to the 2 year old 1080.

There isn't one Rx Vega AIB that loses to the 1080....

There are many with benches as well....

At least the GPP is getting good coverage for what it is, but I don't think the "gaming branding" is going to affect AMD in the long run,....Sapphire is aces and they're with AMD, Powercolor just announced their AIB Vega cards.....Asrock is launching a new GPU line with AMD Gpu's etc...Yes, Nvidia is playing dirty we've known that for a long time, but I think NV knows they have some competition on their hands......All those APU's have Vega graphics, that will be sure to push AMD graphics some more as all those units can play your fortnites, overwatch, and moba's.. "the most popular games"....NV knows that all AMD GPU's are being sold the moment they get on shelves (to miners but it doesn't matter) and that 7nm Vega and Navi are going to light the GPU race up.......If AMD can get such performance from a CPU going from 14nm to 12nm, I can't imagine what they will get going from 14nm to 7nm with Vega later this year....perhaps NV knows.....Either-way, a card having Aorus and gaming on the box does not deter anyone who has $400-600 looking for a graphics card, the odds are they're knowledgeable gamers and they will do their research......they will watch some benches and do price vs perf anlayses when the GPU drought settles....

Best thing for AMD to do is just counter NV with developing their own gaming brand....Either way it's more important for AMD to fire away with good benches with Vega 7nm and Navi......

Marlenus · Mar 22, 2018

Blam said:
Honestly I'm perfectly fine with Nvidia and this.

AMD Consistently falls short of every promise that they made their cards underperform. They literally need to throw money at these devs to make their games better.

They are always introducing new bugs with their software updates, and are really slow to fix them.

I hope AMD steps their shit up. They know how to make shit faster but perform better is something else. It's never stable.

Except when AMD have faster cards like the 5870, 7970 or the R9 290X people find other excuses not to buy AMD and Nvidia still sells better despite having a worse performing product.

A.Romero · Mar 22, 2018

I used to be a AMD supporter but I got a 970 and enjoyed some things that I didn't have with AMD such as lower power consumption and better software (I was impressed by how easy was to set DSR up).

I also switched to Intel (lower power/heat, better performance).

I just updated my rig and to be honest I didn't even look at AMD, got a 8600k and a 1070ti.

If I knew about this before I probably would have decided differently.

Blam · Mar 22, 2018

Marlenus said:
Except when AMD have faster cards like the 5870, 7970 or the R9 290X people find other excuses not to buy AMD and Nvidia still sells better despite having a worse performing product.

Worse performing in numbers? Sure but their more optimized run better on nearly every single game out there. AMD Cards fluctuate a lot.

magnumpy · Mar 22, 2018

money talks. I mean in america everyone has free speech, but advertising has a large impact on how loud that speech is. :/

shpankey · Mar 22, 2018

I always felt like there were some nvidia shenanigans going on with the battle w/ 3dfx. Now that so much time has passed, I wonder if some nefarious stuff was going on back in those wars... if anyone remember back that far.

The_Mike · Mar 23, 2018

Shameful business, but AMD is sadly a poor alternative to nvidia and intel and they know it.

magnumpy · Mar 23, 2018

shpankey said:
I always felt like there were some nvidia shenanigans going on with the battle w/ 3dfx. Now that so much time has passed, I wonder if some nefarious stuff was going on back in those wars... if anyone remember back that far.

didn't nvidia buy 3dfx? they bought the rights to use "SLI" at least

shpankey · Mar 23, 2018

magnumpy said:
didn't nvidia buy 3dfx? they bought the rights to use "SLI" at least

Yeah, they did... well after the heated color wars back in the day. Man, the insanity of those forum wars, I'll never forget... not sure I remember anything like it.

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