Hardware manufacturers removing game branding from AMD products?
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FlyBy
I am no particular AMD fanboy, nor am I am a Nvidia fanboy but what Nvidia does will put some weight on the AMD side if I need to buy again and decide between the two.
I already got 2 x 1600x-Ryzens instead of Intel i7's, 2 years ago it would have been a no-questions-asked-Intel.
Watch out Nvidia, people do not forget. Despite I like your products and Gsync, I dislike your behaviour.
Moral should rule over greed, not other way around.
Fender178
I see no big deal because years ago when we bought graphics cards there was no gaming in the title of the card it self it was sold as either a gaming card (Geforce) (Radeon) or a workstation card (Quadro) (Fire Pro). With Vega AMD made two sets of cards one with just Vega which included developer related technologies in it as well as game mode for those to test out their product and the Radeon Vega which is the gaming card only or was marketed that way. Nvidia did something similar with the most current titan card being sold as some kind of Workstation hybrid card since that card can game and its drivers are part of the Geforce drivers rather than the Quadro.
Ryu5uzaku
This falls in the same category as Intel paying dell and the likes off. Not exactly the same but effect they are trying to create is the same. It's more or less that nvidia went "you wont' get the goodies you have been getting if you do not sign this gpp".
Which kind of seems to cripple AMD on certain AIBs. But it's not like they AIBs have a choice really when faced with something like that. It's simply anti-consumer and anti-competition but hey money.
Embra
I think you under estimate the power of branding to the general public. Most every one here are advanced users to various degrees. The vast majority are not. Branding is very important to the general buyer, why else would NV bother with this GPP.
People are looking at this and how it effects themselves. There is a much bigger impact from this to AMD with the general user.
Turanis
After Intel aproach very tide with Amd Vega tech,then sudenly nVidia have some fears.This is their response to Amd-Intel tech bonds.
What if:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/73af7be68d366c83d3e9231929843d1a3cafa7876d05cbb909b3e1606a10cca4.png
Mugsy
S*** move by nvidia and shit move by the AIBs. Those brands were built using products from both nvidia and amd. Not nvidia wants those brands for themselves. I for one won't buy from those AIBs.
fantaskarsef
Only that something like this would be sued in an instant, a dozen times. It's obviously crippling a competitor's performance.
Noisiv
Competitor's performance? How about purposely crippling their own performance in the process?
The fact that this can even cross someones mind, the fact that the guy does not even see that this would hurt everyone's performance, tells you just how far gone is this fairness-loving crowd.
fantaskarsef
Not necessarily about his proposal in opinion, but the comparison is lacking in multiple ways. But it serves his argument. 🙄
Prince Valiant
One more reason why assisted driving would be a much better decision than self-driving cars. Nvidia still makes most of their money from the gaming segment according to their quarterly reports.
H83
So that´s Nvidia´s evil plan? To steal the "gaming" brands from AMD??? Seems a little stupid... It reminds me of some of the stupid plans from the villains in the Bond movies...
Truder
NVidia have essentially soft-patented the word "Gaming".
I can definitely see some anti-competitive and anti-trust lawsuits/measures being taken, particularly by the EU.
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.
airbud7
meanwhile on Facebook a minute ago
https://s14.postimg.org/3k5toho0x/amd_gaming.jpg
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.
D3M1G0D
Yeah, I think it's silly to think that branding doesn't matter. People tend to stick with what they know, and if they've had a good experience with a certain brand or company then they'll usually go with them again in the future (and if they have a negative experience then they tend to stay away). I remember being stung by a few dud products in the past and was wary of buying from them again, and even today I largely stick to EVGA for my Nvidia cards and MSI for my AMD cards and mobo. In particular, once you establish an elite gaming brand like ROG, it matters greatly.
I also agree that Nvidia is abusing their market position with the GPP. Any OEM who doesn't sign up to the GPP is putting themselves at a big disadvantage and potentially killing their golden goose. Although Nvidia says it's completely optional, the reality is anything but (and they know it). The very fact that Nvidia wants to influence or control the branding by OEMs is disturbing in itself.
