Origin PC Was Paid, Handsomely, To Remove AMD GPU Options.

[TechFan@ic]

As some of you might already know, Origin PC announced a few days ago that they will be removing AMD based graphics cards from their systems as an option due to technical support feedback, as it turns out that's not the reason why they did it according to Charlie Demerjian.

According to the industry veteran, what happened was purely for marketing reasons, to deflect away attention from AMD's recent market resurgence.
When you run out of real bullets, you start firing blanks & that's exactly what happened, Nvidia does not have any new products to compete profitably with the R9 290 series, Nvidia's $600+ products utilize the GK110 chip which is significantly larger & thus more expensive to manufacture than AMD's Hawaii chips in the R9 290 series so to avoid slashing prices Nvidia has to fire up its powerful marketing mechanism.

That's what the folks at SemiAccurate have reported, you can check out the full article here as it includes more details into the deal Nvidia had with Origin PC.

[Assassin]

Guerrilla Tactics at its finest.

[TheSLSAMG]

Not surprised at all. But, no company is above such.

[helping]

Linus Torvalds was right. 

 

also

 

when you consider that CPUs and mobos need more driver support than GPUs. And then there is the gaming performance disparity between AMD and Intel CPUs, AMD is laughably behind there with possibly worse driver support. This for some reason, it is 

???

[Morpheus]

tsk tsk tsk

[Mooshi]

[nsyedhasan]

As we all though. That such a bad way to promote your cards. Only people who don't know about the "tech game" will believe AMD has bad cards.

[Excon]

TL:DR,did they actually say how much?

[Mooshi]

But yeah, if this is true then Origin really is one stupid company that doesn't care about the consumer at all. While not the biggest tech forum, LTT isn't actually small. It's not only this forum and its members, but other tech sites and their followers. Word of mouth will spread and Nvidia/Origin's PR department will have to make up something to save their butts.

[Gunzkewl]

TL:DR,did they actually say how much?

From the Article 

 

 

 

SemiAccurate did some calling around and the answers probably won’t surprise you. Multiple sources all said the same thing, a certain Nvidia marketing person, they all called him Bryan for no particular reason, has been calling around to all the Tier 3++ gaming PC makers offering large dollops of funding to dump AMD GPUs or so the story goes. Multiple SemiAccurate sources say this number is in the six digit range, several gave exact figures but asked us not to publish them. This isn’t direct cash payments but more towards MDF funding, product discounts, and other quasi-legal kickbacks that are directly tied to and based on sales volume of AMD GPUs. More details were given to SemiAccurate but we were asked not to publish the exact terms to protect our sources.

[beebskadoo]

I knew Nvidia had something to do with this.

[TechFan@ic]

This is very reminiscent of the dirty tactics Intel used back in the early 2000s to strong-arm OEMs into not selling AMD CPUs.

[Kirihuna]

Who cares? Origin isn't a company that sells that many PCs compared to other companies, such as Dell, HP, Asus, etc.

 

A company is going to do something to get again. Apple paid EA to get PvZ2 to stay exclusive for a few months. Microsoft does this with CoD DLC.

 

It's part of the technological world now.

[beebskadoo]

This is very reminiscent of the dirty tactics Intel used back in the early 2000s to strong-arm OEMs into not selling AMD CPUs.

Stuff like this is poisoning the industry. I don't think AMD is going anywhere but this sort of nonsense is definitely not helping them.

[beebskadoo]

Who cares? Origin isn't a company that sells that many PCs compared to other companies, such as Dell, HP, Asus, etc.

 

A company is going to do something to get again. Apple paid EA to get PvZ2 to stay exclusive for a few months. Microsoft does this with CoD DLC.

 

It's part of the technological world now.

Obviously people care enough to write an article about it. It's not a small deal. Yeah it's a drop in the bucket but it's upsetting I suppose.

[Cobalt]

Stuff like this is poisoning the industry. I don't think AMD is going anywhere but this sort of nonsense is definitely not helping them.

Large companies be large companies, it is up to us to rise the underdogs to their rightul position!

[TechFan@ic]

Stuff like this is poisoning the industry. I don't think AMD is going anywhere but this sort of nonsense is definitely not helping them.

The thing these idiots working at Nvidia & Intel don't get is that these tactics always fail & they're downright immoral, Nvidia should fire this Brian guy, even if what he did was OK'd by the higher ups, they're all still idiots.

[beebskadoo]

Large companies be large companies, it is up to us to rise the underdogs to their rightul position!

AMD was the underdog and rose up. Look how many times they have had to do that. 

[beebskadoo]

The thing these idiots working at Nvidia & Intel don't get is that these tactics always fail & they're downright immoral, Nvidia should fire this Brian guy, he's an idiot.

I see things a bit differently. I'm in the middle I suppose. If Nvidia wanted to they could release cards that would slaughter anything AMD could release. I get that vibe, but competition is good that's why they don't. But this isn't competition, this is just dishonest trickery.

[TechFan@ic]

I see things a bit differently. I'm in the middle I suppose. If Nvidia wanted to they could release cards that would slaughter anything AMD could release. I get that vibe, but competition is good that's why they don't. But this isn't competition, this is just dishonest trickery.

I absolutely disagree, I think you get that vibe because of their powerful marketing, architecturally speaking AMD & Nvidia are neck & neck.

They're tied in gaming performance, AMD has 3X better compute performance but at the cost of slightly higher power consumption.

Nvidia is behind on compute because they chose so, to reduce power consumption.

If you give Nvidia & AMD exactly the same amount of space & time to work on a new chip, both will come out with chips that perform exactly the same per watt & per die area.

[GPUXPert]

I see things a bit differently. I'm in the middle I suppose. If Nvidia wanted to they could release cards that would slaughter anything AMD could release. I get that vibe, but competition is good that's why they don't. But this isn't competition, this is just dishonest trickery.

I agree with Tech, I don't think Nvidia is ahead of AMD by any measure, if the leaked benches are accurate, then AMD managed to outperform a 552mm chip with a 424mm chip, this means that in fact, right now AMD has the more powerful architecture & by a significant margin.

 

I absolutely disagree, I think you get that vibe because of their powerful marketing, architecturally speaking AMD & Nvidia are neck & neck.

They're tied in gaming performance, AMD has 3X better compute performance but at the cost of slightly higher power consumption.

If you give Nvidia & AMD exactly the same amount of space & time to work on a new chip, both will come out with chips the perform exactly the same per watt & per die area.

I completely agree.

[beebskadoo]

I absolutely disagree, I think you get that vibe because of their powerful marketing, architecturally speaking AMD & Nvidia are neck & neck.

They're tied in gaming performance, AMD has 3X better compute performance but at the cost of slightly higher power consumption.

Nvidia is behind on compute because they chose so, to reduce power consumption.

If you give Nvidia & AMD exactly the same amount of space & time to work on a new chip, both will come out with chips that perform exactly the same per watt & per die area.

the 600 series came out after AMD released the 7000 series. as you know the 680 performed basically neck and neck with the 7970. Well the 680 was supposed to be the 660/660ti This was rumored from the beginning. Nvidia saw what AMD released and moved their gpu lineup a few pegs down so to speak. 

If you look at the 670 you'll notice that it has a really short pcb, that's because it was supposed to be the 650ti!

The Titan was supposed to be the 680, but Nvidia saw what AMD released and decided to postpone it until February of this year. Almost a year after the 600 series launch.  

If Nvidia wanted to they could have wiped the floor, but they didn't (thank god) and AMD gained marketshare with aggressive pricing and awesome game bundles. 

I owe no allegiance to any company, I almost bought a 6970 instead of a 580, but the TwinFrozer card was on sale and I bought it. I am in no way biased, I just tell it how I see it I suppose.

[TechFan@ic]

the 600 series came out after AMD released the 7000 series. as you know the 680 performed basically neck and neck with the 7970. Well the 680 was supposed to be the 660/660ti This was rumored from the beginning. Nvidia saw what AMD released and moved their gpu lineup a few pegs down so to speak. 

If you look at the 670 you'll notice that it has a really short pcb, that's because it was supposed to be the 650ti!

The Titan was supposed to be the 680, but Nvidia saw what AMD released and decided to postpone it until February of this year. Almost a year after the 600 series launch.  

If Nvidia wanted to they could have wiped the floor, but they didn't (thank god) and AMD gained marketshare with aggressive pricing and awesome game bundles. 

I owe no allegiance to any company, I almost bought a 6970 instead of a 580, but the TwinFrozer card was on sale and I bought it. I am in no way biased, I just tell it how I see it I suppose.

That was not possible, I think you're still missing the point, the GK110 conspiracy was discussed to death, if you want to know what actually happened & why then I'll continue to do so via a PM or via a dedicated thread, I don't want to derail this thread however.

[beebskadoo]

That was not possible, I think you're still missing the point, the GK110 conspiracy was discussed to death, if you want to know what actually happened & why then I'll continue to do so via a PM or via a dedicated thread, I don't want to derail this thread however.

Ok, GK110 aside, what point am I missing?

[TechFan@ic]

Ok, GK110 aside, what point am I missing?

Well, what you were saying before was not very logical & I'll explain why.

You were basically saying that the GK110, AKA Titan was supposed be released as the 680 & had it been released as the 680 it would've wiped the floor with the 7970.

There are a few issues with that argument, one is that the GK110 is a 552mm², Tahiti is a 352² chip, so for a GK110 to outperform a Tahiti is a given, but for GK110 to compete with tahiti is illogical, as it's a significantly larger chip so the yields are significantly lower (Below 50% GK110 were actually salvageable when production began).

In laymen terms it's much more expensive to make, so for Nvidia to make a profit on it it has to either wait for the yields to improve or sell it at a very high price point.

Nvidia did both, the 780 was the result of the first option & the Titan was the result of the second.

In any case I really g2g, will continue this discussion when I get back (ETA 2 hours).