nVidia GeForce Partner Program: Well Intention Marketing or Anti-Competitive

[Razor01]

11 hours ago, MegaTechPC said:

Seems pretty anti-competitive to me if true.  I mean, basically Nvidia is trying to force Asus (for example) to ONLY sell their ROG-branded video cards with GeForce GPU's in them by denying them the typical perks they've always gotten from Nvidia before unless they sign up to GPP.  Asus can still sell AMD cards but NOT under the ROG brand, which is their most popular gaming brand.  This would be the same with MSI or Gigabyte or whoever.  The really sinister thing about it is that Nvidia knows that, due to their market share position, the AIB's can't afford to jeopardize their GeForce cards and will ditch AMD in a heartbeat if Nvidia makes it more of a financial burden for them not to do so.

 

I personally always buy the high-end AIB specialty cards like the ROG Strix or the MSI Lightning and it would be a real shame if Nvidia got their way so that the only AIB AMD cards you could buy were vanilla reference ones.  Not really sure how anybody can defend this sort of leveraging of AIB partners, if the story is accurate (which of course is not a certainty).

 

 

As of Pascal's launch those perks weren't there anymore, and most were not there before too.  Launch partner status was not there for Pascal's launch, the only card that was released at launch is the Founder's Edition.  All partner cards came a few weeks after.  Game bundles are extra addon costs for the GPU.  Early tech evaluation, not there either, need that for launch status.

 

Sinister != anti competitive.

 

anti competitive = illegal.

 

What they are doing isn't illegal.  This is the dangers of co branding, if one brand in the stack becomes too strong or too weak it affects everything in the stack.

 

They are using their market position to leverage AIB's and OEM's to favor them yes, and that is "sinister" in our eyes, but as long as they don't force AIB's and OEM's to stop selling AMD products or reduce the capability of AMD to sell products to AIB's and OEM's its fine when the law is concerned.

 

Kyle's remarks on Intel and what it did, that is way too premature to state at this point.  Intel used its MDF to give kickbacks back to OEM's, these kick backs were to essentially stop AMD's ability to sell to OEM's and thus stop the free market. There needs to be a clear and delineated line that shows that the contract WILL do this. Not maybe or can be used to, it must be spelled out.

 

This contract that he has in his hand, doesn't stipulate that.  The question is can it be used for that?  I can see it being used for that but as of now, there is nothing.  nV has to break the law by doing so before anyone says what they did is illegal.  Kyle made too many assumptions and quite frankly got things wrong when reading the contract.  The way he stated he read it, made it sound like the contract itself was illegal.  If that was the case, we wouldn't even need to have this discussion, AMD would have put a stop to this program even before it started, by partners signing up for such a contract it would be seen as anti competitive and as collusion.  No damages need to be done in this scenario, all that needs to be shown is these companies are working together to stop the free market.

[MegaTechPC]

10 hours ago, Razor01 said:

 

 

As of Pascal's launch those perks weren't there anymore, and most were not there before too.  Launch partner status was not there for Pascal's launch, the only card that was released at launch is the Founder's Edition.  All partner cards came a few weeks after.  Game bundles are extra addon costs for the GPU.  Early tech evaluation, not there either, need that for launch status.

 

Sinister != anti competitive.

 

anti competitive = illegal.

 

What they are doing isn't illegal.  This is the dangers of co branding, if one brand in the stack becomes too strong or too weak it affects everything in the stack.

 

They are using their market position to leverage AIB's and OEM's to favor them yes, and that is "sinister" in our eyes, but as long as they don't force AIB's and OEM's to stop selling AMD products or reduce the capability of AMD to sell products to AIB's and OEM's its fine when the law is concerned.

 

Kyle's remarks on Intel and what it did, that is way too premature to state at this point.  Intel used its MDF to give kickbacks back to OEM's, these kick backs were to essentially stop AMD's ability to sell to OEM's and thus stop the free market. There needs to be a clear and delineated line that shows that the contract WILL do this. Not maybe or can be used to, it must be spelled out.

 

This contract that he has in his hand, doesn't stipulate that.  The question is can it be used for that?  I can see it being used for that but as of now, there is nothing.  nV has to break the law by doing so before anyone says what they did is illegal.  Kyle made too many assumptions and quite frankly got things wrong when reading the contract.  The way he stated he read it, made it sound like the contract itself was illegal.  If that was the case, we wouldn't even need to have this discussion, AMD would have put a stop to this program even before it started, by partners signing up for such a contract it would be seen as anti competitive and as collusion.  No damages need to be done in this scenario, all that needs to be shown is these companies are working together to stop the free market.

You can't claim what is lawful or not based only on your opinions and interpretations of the law and this program because neither you (nor anybody else) has all the facts.  Perhaps it is completely lawful or perhaps it is not, but that determination would have to be decided in the court system to definitively say one way or the other.  What is certain is that there will be at least some negative reaction to this program in the court of public opinion since, lawful or not, the optics are bad and definitely reminiscent of the Intel fiasco.  Anytime a company uses its dominance in the market to attempt to disadvantage competition its bad news for consumers and they should rightly be called out for it.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, MegaTechPC said:

  Anytime a company uses its dominance in the market to attempt to disadvantage competition its bad news for consumers and they should rightly be called out for it.

I agree, we just need to be careful we don't endorse such calling out if it is an unfounded smear campaign.  Because that would be just as bad as defending anti consumer practice.

[Razor01]

13 minutes ago, MegaTechPC said:

You can't claim what is lawful or not based only on your opinions and interpretations of the law and this program because neither you (nor anybody else) has all the facts.  Perhaps it is completely lawful or perhaps it is not, but that determination would have to be decided in the court system to definitively say one way or the other.  What is certain is that there will be at least some negative reaction to this program in the court of public opinion since, lawful or not, the optics are bad and definitely reminiscent of the Intel fiasco.  Anytime a company uses its dominance in the market to attempt to disadvantage competition its bad news for consumers and they should rightly be called out for it.

If a contract is written in such a way that is anti competitive, its automatically unlawful.  Such a contract, if it ever gets out, will be shut down immediately, this contract is out there now, if Kyle got his hands on it, you can bet AMD has it too.

 

Kyle's interpretation of the contract is definitely INCORRECT, because if it was correct, then AMD wouldn't be holding on to the press to do its dirty work.  Talking smack about something never does anything when things like this is concerned.  nV has better products, is talking bad about their business practices going to stop most buyers from buying their products when they have 1 or 2 generation lead in tech?

 

This is a ridiculous argument, something I asked Kyle, which he didn't even want talk about.  I directly asked him, if this was like when AMD vs Intel back in the day.  If AMD went to the press instead of going to court would it stop Intel from doing what it did?

 

By not going to the courts directly that shows us many things and possibilities 

 

1)  AMD doesn't have the contract, which is highly unlikely at this point as I pointed out.

2)  AMD definitely talked to their attorneys already, because that is the first step before doing anything, because of the possible recourse of going to the press on such a case

3)  AMD has nothing on this program as the contract is not saying how Kyle has interpreted it

 

And if you read what one of the attorney's that I have linked to stated, number 2 and 3 are big on that list.  I did ask attorneys about this too......

[MegaTechPC]

Again, you are assuming that anything illegal would already be facing a suit by AMD and that is not necessarily true (especially since this program is new).  And even if AMD does bring a suit, that doesn't guarantee a verdict in either direction.  That determination would have to be made throughout the legal process.  If what you said were true and a contract was immediately declared illegal as written, there'd be no point in lawsuits, but that's not how it works.  There are unlimited examples of companies attempting to push the envelope of what is or isn't legal and the ultimate determination can only be made if they are challenged in the courts.

[Razor01]

Just now, MegaTechPC said:

Again, you are assuming that anything illegal would already be facing a suit by AMD and that is not necessarily true (especially since this program is new).  And even if AMD does bring a suit, that doesn't guarantee a verdict in either direction.  That determination would have to be made throughout the legal process.  If what you said were true and a contract was immediately declared illegal as written, there'd be no point in lawsuits, but that's not how it works.  There are unlimited examples of companies attempting to push the envelope of what is or isn't legal and the ultimate determination can only be made if they are challenged in the courts.

 

 

If a contact is illegal, there doesn't need to be any damages done! once another party signs it, its in effect,  And there still has be due process for the parties to stop.

[pas008]

we see new naming scheme come up from these aib all the time

 

and nvidia should not get rog based anything, first rog product was amd motherboard I believe

 

but I do believe nvidia should have their own sub branding from aibs

 

simple as that if these aibs want to sell both with their own sub brand, fine just dont get the partnership

 

sounds to me like anyother partnership with companies going on everyday

official car/truck/sound/etc of the nfl/nba/etc

[Razor01]

28 minutes ago, pas008 said:

we see new naming scheme come up from these aib all the time

 

and nvidia should not get rog based anything, first rog product was amd motherboard I believe

 

but I do believe nvidia should have their own sub branding from aibs

 

simple as that if these aibs want to sell both with their own sub brand, fine just dont get the partnership

 

sounds to me like anyother partnership with companies going on everyday

official car/truck/sound/etc of the nfl/nba/etc

The branding thing that's up to the companies involved (branding and advertising is upheld by the 1st amendment if nV doesn't like how its AIB's are branding their products they are in their right to pull it from them as long as it doesn't break ongoing contracts, so they just have to wait for the right time to do so), nV feels their Geforce brand is what sells AIB's products.  Which as it is right now, that is the case, AIB's wouldn't have the sales they did without Geforce cards.  (the example of Air Jordan and Nike, with out Air Jordan, Nike would not have gotten to the spot of #1 shoes in the world).  There is nothing illegal for nV to get AIB's to use their brand as the main gaming brand.  How they do that, is a different matter, and that is where the contract comes in. 

 

Kyle's Crux of the matter, specifically points to that.  I don't see that as the crux of the matter from what he wrote in his article.  What I find interesting is the MDF and how that will play out in the future.  This is exactly where Intel screwed over AMD and the rest of the market.  So if nV doesn't go down that road like Intel did, then there is no problem. The contract itself is not breaking any laws, because MDF is not spelled out to the T, that will be determined on a case to case need, which there will be different paperwork for all that.  This is exactly how Intel did their kickbacks.

[pas008]

1 minute ago, Razor01 said:

The branding thing that's up to the companies involved (branding and adverting is upheld by the 1st amendment if nV doesn't like how its AIB's are branding their products they are in their right to pull it from them as long as it doesn't break on ongoing contracts), nV feels their Geforce brand is what sells AIB's products.  Which as it is right now, that is the case, AIB's wouldn't have the sales they did with Geforce cards.  (the example of Air Jordan and Nike, with out Air Jordan, Nike would not have gotten to the spot of #1 shoes in the world).  There is nothing illegal for nV to get AIB's to use their brand as the main gaming brand.  How they do that, is a different matter, and that is where the contract comes in. 

 

Kyle's Crux of the matter, specifically points to that.  I don't see that as the crux of the matter from what he wrote in his article.  What I find interesting is the MDF and how that will play out in the future.

mdf can be tricky

but it is used all the time now

like stated above and many others

also can be used to help them establish their new sub brand to help it get the word out

 

why is everyone thinking the worse like always,

 

let the hate flow through you, fanboys and anti fanboys

 

[MegaTechPC]

Well Asus indeed does have separate sub-brands for their Intel and AMD mobos (Crosshair vs Maximus for example) but they both still fall under the ROG branding.  

[Razor01]

We just have to wait and see what happens, if nV plans to go down the road Intel did, its a bad move, its a stupid move, with this much marketshare and their next gen which is definitely better than anything AMD can counter with, they don't need to do it.  Intel did it because their products sucked compared to AMD at that time.

[mr moose]

7 minutes ago, MegaTechPC said:

Well Asus indeed does have separate sub-brands for their Intel and AMD mobos (Crosshair vs Maximus for example) but they both still fall under the ROG branding.  

for all we know that may be enough separation to pacify Nvidia (assuming it's as direct as the article makes out). 

[pas008]

18 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

We just have to wait and see what happens, if nV plans to go down the road Intel did, its a bad move, its a stupid move, with this much marketshare and their next gen which is definitely better than anything AMD can counter with, they don't need to do it.  Intel did it because their products sucked compared to AMD at that time.

dont know how people can even think that, eu would be all over them right away

but from what I have read (besides anti fanboy/fanboy biased shit) everything seems to be trying to align and move their product and away from its competition, not be anti competitive, if a 3rd company joins the race in couple yrs like intel (which has the marketing/distributors/fab/etc) would you want a 2nd competing company under same sub branding? remember profits come from multiple things and intel knows how to get shit out to make profits

 

 

all we can do is play the waiting game

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Razor01]

13 minutes ago, pas008 said:

dont know how people can even think that, eu would be all over them right away

but from what I have read (besides anti fanboy/fanboy biased shit) everything seems to be trying to align and move their product away from its competition, not be anti competitive, if a 3rd company joins the race in couple yrs like intel (which has the marketing/distributors/fab/etc) would you want a 2nd competing company under same sub branding? remember profits come from multiple things and intel knows how to get shit out to make profits

 

 

all we can do is play the waiting game

 

 

 

 

 

 

Intel won't make much ground into discrete graphics for minimum 3 years, that is the shortest amount of time to design and make a GPU, and its more likely going to be 5 years.  By then the demographics of the graphics industry might be completely different.

 

If nV keeps pushing the GPU bar the way they have been from Kepler, to Maxwell to Pascal to what ever is coming (Volta or Volta derivative), we can expect 2 more gens after too, its not something we can even expect Intel to compete with at the high end.  Even with Raja Koduri at the helm of Intel graphics, its not going to be easy.  nV didn't get to this position because of only one person (although that one person is very important).  nV has multiple leads for different important features of their GPU's.  All of them get together and figure out what is the best way to proceed to get the best possible performance in different markets, and then they design their chips.  This is why they moved away from the singular architectural designs of Tesla and Fermi.  The singular design for gaming and HPC and now DL, just wasn't working out.  We see the same problem with GCN. 

 

Both Intel and AMD are way behind in IP when it comes to GPU tech.  This has happened in the past 5 years, nV at this point has double the IP patents of both Intel and AMD regarding GPU tech.  For either of them to catch up, its going to take time and resources.  AMD doesn't have either, Intel doesn't have the time, they have the resources though.

[pas008]

1 minute ago, Razor01 said:

Intel won't make much ground into discrete graphics for minimum 3 years, that is the shortest amount of time to design and make a GPU, and its more likely going to be 5 years.  By then the demographics of the graphics industry might be completely different.

 

If nV keeps pushing the GPU bar the way they have been from Kepler, to Maxwell to Pascal to what ever is coming (Volta or Volta derivative), we can expect 2 more gens after too, its not something we can even expect Intel to compete with at the high end.  Even with Raja Koduri at the helm of Intel graphics, its not going to be easy.  nV didn't get to this position because of only one person (although that one person is very important).  nV has multiple leads for different important features of their GPU's.  All of them get together and figure out what is the best way to proceed to get the best possible performance in different markets, and then they design their chips.  This is why they moved away from the singular architectural designs of Tesla and Fermi.  The singular design for gaming and HPC and now DL, just wasn't working out.  We see the same problem with GCN. 

 

Both Intel and AMD are way behind in IP when it comes to GPU tech.  This has happened in the past 5 years, nV at this point has double the IP patents of both Intel and AMD regarding GPU tech.  For either of them to catch up, its going to going to take time and resources.  AMD doesn't have either, Intel doesn't have the time, they have the resources though.

I am being open minded, no one can tell teh future

we never know that koduri left because he might have new design concept that amd wasnt interested in developing or could afford

or the fact intel and nvidia had cross license agreement for long time which means they could have been working on a concept the whole time and thats why they brought in koduri to get a product to market

[Razor01]

3 minutes ago, pas008 said:

I am being open minded, no one can tell teh future

we never know that koduri left because he might have new design concept that amd wasnt interested in developing or could afford

or the fact intel and nvidia had cross license agreement for long time which means they could have been working on a concept the whole time and thats why they brought in koduri to get a product to market

Fair enough but we already know they are just starting off design of their Gen 9 tech.  This was shown shortly after Raja went to Intel.  So 3 to 5 years seems to be likely for now.

[pas008]

Just now, Razor01 said:

Fair enough but we already know they are just starting off design of their Gen 9 tech.  This was shown shortly after Raja went to Intel.  So 3 to 5 years seems to be likely for now.

pm'in instead of this off topic here

[TenThousand]

There would be no reason for amd to just sue nvidia. They would have to wait for proof first. Ie, brands never selling amd stuff under the same gaming brand. Just because they're letting Kyle do all the work first, doesn't mean nvidia is in the clear.

[pas008]

2 minutes ago, TenThousand said:

There would be no reason for amd to just sue nvidia. They would have to wait for proof first. Ie, brands never selling amd stuff under the same gaming brand. Just because they're letting Kyle do all the work first, doesn't mean nvidia is in the clear.

can you elaborate more plz i'm not understanding this comment at all

[suicidalfranco]

isn't this akin to what MS used to do to protect their monopoly in the 90s? 

 

 

[Mihle]

6 hours ago, pas008 said:

dont know how people can even think that, eu would be all over them right away

but from what I have read (besides anti fanboy/fanboy biased shit) everything seems to be trying to align and move their product and away from its competition, not be anti competitive, if a 3rd company joins the race in couple yrs like intel (which has the marketing/distributors/fab/etc) would you want a 2nd competing company under same sub branding? remember profits come from multiple things and intel knows how to get shit out to make profits

 

 

all we can do is play the waiting game

 

If nV means that for example ROG can not be used on AMD gpus, then it is anti competitive. If it doesnt mean that, then I dont know

[Canada EH]

Whats next 2080 3080 4080 ..............8080

oh dont forget the 2080ti's 3080ti 4080ti ............. 8080ti

[asus killer]

i saw the WAN show and still don't get the drama. I get that Nvidia made the partners join the GPP almost by force removing them any freedom to say no, but there are a lot of markets where this happens, it's actually pretty normal for this to happen when one of the parts have more power than the rest.

 

But i still don't see the anti competitive part, at most partners had to create a new subbrand for AMD products, i guess it sucks for the partners, more marketing, but it's not the end of the world and for consumers i guess it matters zero, you don't buy a ROG or a Strix you buy some other premium name, strax by democracy of gamers 

 

They don't remove ability to sell AMD products nor could they, that would be illegal and not in a soft way, that would probably be a serious problem for Nvidia.

[Mihle]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

i saw the WAN show and still don't get the drama. I get that Nvidia made the partners join the GPP almost by force removing them any freedom to say no, but there are a lot of markets where this happens, it's actually pretty normal for this to happen when one of the parts have more power than the rest.

 

But i still don't see the anti competitive part, at most partners had to create a new subbrand for AMD products, i guess it sucks for the partners, more marketing, but it's not the end of the world and for consumers i guess it matters zero, you don't buy a ROG or a Strix you buy some other premium name, strax by democracy of gamers 

 

They don't remove ability to sell AMD products nor could they, that would be illegal and not in a soft way, that would probably be a serious problem for Nvidia.

It will hit AMD A TON when it comes to normal non ethusiasts. I dont think you might understand how important a name of a product brand is. 

Doing anything to limit your competition is anti competitive.

A lot of the other examples I have seen with other markets, a new brand series is created to be with one company only. Thats FAR from the same as taking an old brand series and then locking that to one company.

[Carclis]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

i saw the WAN show and still don't get the drama. I get that Nvidia made the partners join the GPP almost by force removing them any freedom to say no, but there are a lot of markets where this happens, it's actually pretty normal for this to happen when one of the parts have more power than the rest.

 

But i still don't see the anti competitive part, at most partners had to create a new subbrand for AMD products, i guess it sucks for the partners, more marketing, but it's not the end of the world and for consumers i guess it matters zero, you don't buy a ROG or a Strix you buy some other premium name, strax by democracy of gamers 

 

They don't remove ability to sell AMD products nor could they, that would be illegal and not in a soft way, that would probably be a serious problem for Nvidia.

Just a few examples...

 

EVGA deals exclusively with Nvidia and as such has no reason to oppose the agreement. It brings nothing but perks and will put them at a significant advantage compared to the competition (if they don't also join). This means joining the program is basically mandatory.

Asus has their ROG brand which has been around since 2006. Asus has spent twelve years investing in and growing their brand which aims to provide quality gaming to customers. Now Nvidia is telling them to split their brand up and just make a new one so that it can continue to sell the competitions products, and all this to get benefits and perks that it used to receive without having to exclude AMD. So at this point who owns ROG, Nvidia or Asus?

 

Alienware is Dells gaming brand. If you don't build systems then you are likely going to rely on a company like this to provide you with a gaming PC. What the GPP means to companies like Alienware is that they must cut AMD out completely. So Alienware has to choose whether or not to make more money by joining the GPP or to offer more consumer choice and forego all the benefits of the GPP.
 

What is being offered here in all of these cases is an ultimatum. EVGA is already under Nvidias thumb and has no reason not to agree to be a partner which in turn forces all the others into the line (if they want to be competitive). They can say no of course but they will be less profitable and that would be working contrary to the goal of a company. So basically Nvidia (if all of this turns out to be accurate) is resorting to excluding AMD from the market instead of choosing to compete with them on the merits of their products. That is by definition anti-competitive behaviour.