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Radeon-Launch-Feature

About a calendar month agone, Kyle Bennett at HardOCP bankrupt a story on Nvidia's GeForce Partner Program (GPP), alleging that Nvidia is using the program to systemically disadvantage AMD GPUs. According to Bennett, all companies that wish to be office of GPP must have its "Gaming Make Aligned Exclusively With GeForce." The controversy has been simmering quietly in the background for virtually a month, but recent GPU launches from Asus may betoken the rumors about GPP'southward restrictions are true.

Hither's how HardOCP described the trouble terminal month. The Asus example below was hypothetical at the time it was written; information technology may non exist so hypothetical after today:

If Asus is an Nvidia GPP partner, and it wants to continue to use Nvidia GPUs in its ROG [Republic of Gamers] branded video cards, computers, and laptops, information technology tin can no longer sell whatever other company's GPUs in ROG products. And so if Asus want to go on building Nvidia-based ROG video cards, information technology can no longer sell AMD-based ROG video cards, and be a GPP partner.

Nvidia will tell you that it is 100 percent up to its partner visitor to exist part of GPP, and from the documents I have read, if it chooses not to exist part of GPP, information technology will lose the benefits of GPP, which include: high-effort engineering science engagements, early tech engagement, launch partner status, game bundling, sales rebate programs, social media and PR support, marketing reports, and marketing development funds (MDF). [The latter] is probable the standout in that list of lost benefits if the company is not a GPP partner.

As you lot might recall, nosotros take seen onerous terms such as those contained in GPP to have many similarities to Intel'south once monopolistic business practices (versus AMD) in withholding MDF to partners. The results of that state of affairs were huge multi-billion dollar fines for Intel. GPP has some striking similarities.

What is agonizing is that we have been told that if a company does not participate in GPP, those companies feel equally if Nvidia would hold back allotment of GPUs from their inventories. From all we take talked to, the result of not allocating GPU inventories to non-GPP partners have non been spelled out contractually, but is rather done on a wink and a nod.

The program doesn't preclude Asus or some other AIB (add-in board partner) from building an AMD GPU, but information technology does prevent Asus from building an AMD GPU under its premium gaming brands. If these allegations are authentic, the restrictions Nvidia is levying aren't as draconian as Intel's marketing rebates, which placed hard limits on the amount of AMD hardware an OEM could ship in desktop and mobile. Instead, information technology patently means AIBs take to either launch a new, AMD-specific brand or ship AMD GPUs under a generic name. But this also represents a loss of turn a profit for the AIB; it takes fourth dimension to build a high-finish gaming brand, and cards marketed under said brands tend to sell for college prices than their generic counterparts.

Fast forward to today. Asus is launching a new line of Radeon partner cards nether the AREZ brand. Equally PCWorld notes, these GPUs are all debuting nether a new name. They wait like ROG-branded parts with ROG-style coolers, but the only AMD GPUs launched nether ROG are the RX 580 and before GPUs. And the AIB companies are anything but interested in talking about the GeForce Partner Program. PCWorld's contacts have been silent on the topic. So are ours. But Asus used links like this to sell ROG-branded Vega GPUs. Where are those parts when you click on the ROG lineup now? Gone. ROG, now, is NV-merely.

Arez-Launch

AMD's web log postal service announcing the new GPUs isn't pulling any punches, either. The company has pledged to reignite (its give-and-take) liberty of choice in the gaming market, including, "The liberty to tell others in the industry that they won't be boxed in to choosing proprietary solutions that come arranged with 'gamer taxes' just to enjoy great experiences they should rightfully accept access to. The freedom to back up a make that actively works to accelerate the art and science of PC gaming while expanding its reach."

Elsewhere in the post, AMD refers to working with its AIB partners with "No anti-gamer/anti-competitive strings attached."

There's other show of strategic realignments as well. Co-ordinate to the Wayback Machine, MSI used to sell RX 580s with labels like RX 570 Gaming 10, equally shown in the image below. Visit MSI's webpage today, and the AMD GPUs are now labeled "Armor." The "Gaming 10" characterization is at present reserved entirely for Nvidia. The old RX 580 Gaming X page is still live — but the site no longer links to it or shows those cards equally part of its AMD lineup. MSI has used the Armor brand for several years, but information technology used to launch AMD cards under the Gaming 10 brand. Information technology did so last twelvemonth. Now those cards are gone.

Gigabyte appears to take taken a similar step with its contempo marketing, although non to the same caste. While it still sells Aorus AMD GPUs, its Aorus Gaming Box external GPU chassis is just bachelor under that brand proper noun in an Nvidia flavor. If you want the AMD flavor, you tin buy it — only sans Aorus branding.

HardOCP openly admits that AMD brought them this story in the beginning place, simply just considering a visitor alerts yous to a story doesn't mean the story isn't true. A month ago, HardOCP alleged that Nvidia had kicked off a marketing campaign that required AIB's to push AMD GPUs out of their premium brands in order to receive diverse benefits, including marketing dollars and GPU allocation. Today, we see evidence that more than than one visitor has either launched a new AMD-specific brand (Asus), removed AMD from its tiptop-make gaming products (Asus, MSI), or is choosing to sell an identical product without its top-end branding, where the but deviation is the presence of an AMD GPU as opposed to an Nvidia card (Gigabyte).

This testify doesn't automatically confirm HardOCP'southward story is accurate, but it suggests that such strategic "realignments" are indeed taking place across multiple companies at more or less the same time. Given that companies don't ordinarily launch all-new brands with no reason given, and the fact that nobody seems to want to talk about the GPP in the first place, the show thus far supports HardOCP's story, at least in broad strokes. And while some customers will scoff that this represents a meaningful restriction, this represents an area of disconnect betwixt how companies think nearly branding and how consumers tend to recall almost it. Smart companies take brands very seriously. By conspicuously linking the top gaming brands from diverse AIBs to Nvidia and Nvidia alone, Team Green would win a major marketing coup — not past literally telling AIBs they can't sell AMD GPUs, but by ensuring that the top marketing spots from a given partner company are always held by GeForce.

Nvidia has written a brief blog post about the GPP. Information technology does non get into much depth about the program and by and large reiterates points we've covered. It notes that the program isn't exclusive (no one says information technology is), that partners can join and leave at any fourth dimension (no one says they can't), and that there'southward no commitment to make whatever monetary payments or product discounts for being function of the program (no i said there were).