Hardware manufacturers removing game branding from AMD products?
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fantaskarsef
No they did not soft-patent the word gaming. They do not state what their brands that are NV exclusive have to be named. So if AMD was named "gaming" and NV was named "wonder" it would still work.
At least as far as I know, feel free to link me to facts where it says AMD GPUs can't be sold with the "gaming" term on the boxes anymore.
Truder
Rather, it's a euphemism for NVidia using the GPP to undermine the competition by having the board partners reserve special branding for themselves while squeezing out the competition.
I can understand NVidia wanting to have board partners differentiate between competition but if GPP ends up doing more than that, such as restricting partners using their existing branding methods such as, Aorus, ROG/Strix etc I don't think that's fair.... And worse if GPP restricts common words from being applied or rather, reserves common words only for NVidia products then that certainly is a problem.
NVidia really doesn't like AIBs to be supplying cards from other sources, just look what happened to XFX.
These are my fears and hopefully they wont be justified but I guess it's a case of wait and see what happens.
vbetts
Moderator
GPP is not the best thing to hit the market, I will admit that. Devils advocate here, but from a business point for the board partners it's a win win situation for them. Really the only people I believe they say they will boycott these board partners, are ones who are mainly team red no matter what.
Full disclosure, I am neither team red or team green. I run with what I believe is the best value.
I'm not saying what is happening is wrong, or this is going to make a huge difference. This isn't stopping Gigabyte or MSI from selling their custom board designs with AMD chips, they just can't use the branding. But I have a couple questions for everyone here.
So for anyone out there that is looking for an nvidia card, and there is say an EVGA(who only sells Nvidia anyway) reference design card, or an ASUS Strix design card are you telling me you're going to pick the reference design over the Strix design? Or say a reference powercolor AMD card, or a custom board design MSI AMD card with higher clocks and better cooling? Or in the case of motherboards, there's only an Asrock a320 board or a Gigabyte X370 board?
Personally, I'm not going to boycott these brands. I use them and I know they're dependable and worth the money(well, MSRP but not current prices).
Angantyr
Well, I can only answer that question anecdotally, so; from my own GPU ownership experience over the years and the handful of people I know who also build their own custom rig. Only one of us has ever had a reference card; me, a GeForce 7600 GT if I remember correctly.
But since then, benchmarks and reviews more or less dictated our purchases. And I honestly can't recall a moment where a reference card from AMD or Nvidia turned out to be the better choice over non-reference designs. Answering your question is probably redundant... But buying a GPU that is non-reference from ex. MSI/GIGABYTE/ASUS/EVGA etc. Is usually the best choice.
Denial
Only time I pick a reference design is if I know I'm going to drop water on it as the reference blocks come out first and I couldn't careless about the stock cooler performance. This is especially true the last few generations where the AIB cards with fancy caps and whatnot aren't really getting better clocks than reference anyway.
As for GPP, I would still like to know what's going on behind the scenes before I make a final conclusion but it does seem like some branding changes are happening, most of which are negative for AMD. People keep downplaying branding like it doesn't influence sales but it certainly does. I think the thing that bothers me about the anti-competitiveness of it is that if Nvidia and AMD were 50/50 on marketshare, Nvidia would have never been able to pull something like this off. The AIB Vendors would have either told Nvidia to get bent or would have branded Nvidia cards under new brands, or sub-brands of their gaming variants. If Nvidia really is forcing, not asking but forcing these companies to give up "ROG" and stuff, i do think that's anti-competitive and I don't support it.
alanm
I doubt they insisted on the sole usage of the term gaming in AIB products. Is it not basically they did not want to share the same 'gaming brand' with other competing products (ROG, Aorus, etc)? The AIB basically makes the choice, whether to label a product for Nvidia or AMD under the ROG or Aorus brand, just not for both simultaneously. ie, If an Nvidia GPU is sold as Asus ROG GTX 1070, then Asus can sell AMD under an alternate differentiating brand, lets say X-treme Gamers RX 580 for example.
Now if these are options for the AIB, then I see nothing wrong with GPP. But if GPP does not allow the AIB to create an alternative gaming brand to sell AMD cards under, then Nvidia deserves all the shame and notoriety as well as any anti-competitive penalties they may have coming their way.
Embra
We may not know until some time passes exactly what the effects GPP will be. There are still stocks of AMD cards with ROG/Gaming etc.... versions to be sold. Most likely under contracts. But there are changes being made that we can see going on now. Branding, especially established well known MSI/ASUS/GiG... brands are are a big deal to general buyers.
Rich_Guy
Of course they'll be fine, this doesn't affect them, as these are gaming card brands.
