AMD GPU might get their own gaming brand under GPP

[Razor01]

40 minutes ago, pas008 said:

 

 

Wow you guys are stretching it

Branding their product away from competition isn't anticompetitive or anti consumer

 

And they are in no way blocking the sell of amd cards or paying to block the sell of amd cards

 

So i will ask again sued for what?

 

 

Worse yet they don't even understand, once the injunction is in place, everything that has been happening prior to the program, must go as before, otherwise it gives even more ammo to the victim.  They start getting into the territory of tortious interference.  Which is a much easier case to prove at that point.  If there was anything "illegal" about the program, it would be done swiftly, the motions will be in place well before we see anything in court and everything is publicly view able.  Since nothing has been done so far.  And more so these companies are looking for ways to continue around the branding requirements of GPP, it shows that there is nothing in that GPP contract that is outright illegal.

 

Now if it comes to pass that AMD gets its own gaming brand, all these conversations are pointless.  The general public doesn't know shit about  advertising and the law.  Even if they read the FTC guidelines and they are pretty direct on what they are there for.  They aren't there for advertising and brand alignment requirements for partners.

 

Also common sense tells us one thing, if and AIB goes to court and wins, while an injunction is in place, first off they won't loose money, during the court hearings and trials, because well things have to move on as they were prior.  And once they win they will also get the money that they had to pay their attorneys from the defendant.

 

So the reporters that stated if AIB's drag nV to court and the proceedings are dragged out for years while the AIB's get screwed in the market.  That is just wrong too.

 

This can't be compared to what happened with Intel and AMD yet, because those types of actions haven't been done, nor does the GPP seem to even state those things on paper.  The first article on this topic went way too far across the line and assumed things that are totally intangible and it got anyone that is emotionally attached to AMD to start going out and posting shit.

[Trixanity]

13 minutes ago, pas008 said:

 

 

Wow you guys are stretching it

Branding their product away from competition isn't anticompetitive or anti consumer

 

And they are in no way blocking the sell of amd cards or paying to block the sell of amd cards

 

So i will ask again sued for what?

You've kinda flipped it. If the program is at it appears, Nvidia is dictating that their partners' branding can only remain with Nvidia products. Nvidia isn't changing their own branding. It wouldn't be an issue either if Nvidia requested their partners come up with new branding for Nvidia products. The issue is they demand partners remove competition from existing branding. They do so from a dominant position; that makes it worse. 

 

Nvidia is welcome to change their own products but they can't interfere with their competitor's. However that's exactly what they're doing. I think that's a pretty concise description of the problem.

[Razor01]

7 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

You've kinda flipped it. If the program is at it appears, Nvidia is dictating that their partners' branding can only remain with Nvidia products. Nvidia isn't changing their own branding. It wouldn't be an issue either if Nvidia requested their partners come up with new branding for Nvidia products. The issue is they demand partners remove competition from existing branding. They do so from a dominant position; that makes it worse. 

 

Nvidia is welcome to change their own products but they can't interfere with their competitor's. However that's exactly what they're doing. I think that's a pretty concise description of the problem.

Exclusive advertising with a current brand is not part of any anti competitive laws man, when a company that holds 70% or more of the market can ask partners do things for them like this.  Once the partner agrees, for better or worse, it must be done.  That is contractual law, since the contract itself is not illegal, and the option is open for them not to sign up for the program it can't be looked at anti competitive.  If nV uses the not signing of the contract to limit supply for chips under ongoing contracts then its a problem.  If nV uses the GPP to stop partners from buying AMD GPU's then its tortious interference and anti competitive by limiting supply.  This is what Intel did with AMD, that is not a happening here.

 

Everyone and their mother who has seen or heard about what the GPP is, and what it "requires" knows that yeah its going to hurt AMD because AMD cards will no longer have the "Top Gaming" brand in a partner's line up.  But that is not the same as anti competitive or anti trust.

[pas008]

9 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

Exclusive advertising with a current brand is not part of any anti competitive laws man, when a company that holds 70% or more of the market can ask partners do things for them like this.  Once the partner agrees, for better or worse, it must be done.  That is contractual law, since the contract itself is not illegal, and the option is open for them not to sign up for the program it can't be looked at anti competitive.  If nV uses the not signing of the contract to limit supply for chips under ongoing contracts then its a problem.  If nV uses the GPP to stop partners from buying AMD GPU's then its tortious interference by limiting supply.  This is what Intel did with AMD, that is not a happening here.

 

Everyone and their mother who has seen or heard about what the GPP is, and what it "requires" knows that yeah its going to hurt AMD because AMD cards will no longer have the "Top Gaming" brand in a partner's line up.  But that is not the same as anti competitive or anti trust.

Thx 

Beat me to it

And not to mention nvidia can just drop them just like xfx under their contact

 

The sub brand is not owned by amd or nvidia 

Nvidia has every right to negotiate terms to get those sub brands exclusively

 

We have not seen any other shit from this so far

And everyone jumps the gun with their anti/fanboyism or hatred

 

[GDRRiley]

45 minutes ago, pas008 said:

Wow you guys are stretching it

Nope being realist. 

[Jito463]

14 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

That is contractual law, since the contract itself is not illegal, and the option is open for them not to sign up for the program it can't be looked at anti competitive.  If nV uses the not signing of the contract to limit supply for chips under ongoing contracts then its a problem.

That's the thing, though.  If Nvidia is using their dominant position to effectively force the AIB's into signing the GPP, then that's abusing their monopoly which is anti-competitive.  You can't say it's optional if the alternative for them is to be locked out from competing with the other AIB's.

[pas008]

Just now, GDRRiley said:

Nope being realist. 

there is no anti anything going on so far

If you read last couple posts and used comprehension you would understand

 

[pas008]

Just now, Jito463 said:

That's the thing, though.  If Nvidia is using their dominant position to effectively force the AIB's into signing the GPP, then that's abusing their monopoly which is anti-competitive.  You can't say it's optional if the alternative for them is to be locked out from competing with the other AIB's.

There is no forcing

And nvidia can drop them from making cards period under their current contract

Like said whatever happened to xfx?

[Razor01]

6 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

That's the thing, though.  If Nvidia is using their dominant position to effectively force the AIB's into signing the GPP, then that's abusing their monopoly which is anti-competitive.  You can't say it's optional if the alternative for them is to be locked out from competing with the other AIB's.

That is not what they are doing, indirectly results of such a contract which are optional to do can't be taken as "forced".  Unless those forced results are tangible without the contract too.  That is why I gave the examples of if nV does things without the GPP being signed that breaks on going contracts.  On going contracts have both parties agreeing upon acquiring certain materials, and so forth.  Expectations are set, they can't be hurt.

[Doobeedoo]

Thing is, many certain brand names were already established for a while. New brand would first need to grain traction though. Power of a brand yo. For example like ROG people know what it is and all so their's more chance they'll buy it over something that just came with new name to the market.

So depends, different naming but potentially fancy, I guess we'll see. 

[NTDaws]

Fuck you Nvidia, nuff said.

[Trixanity]

2 hours ago, Razor01 said:

Exclusive advertising with a current brand is not part of any anti competitive laws man, when a company that holds 70% or more of the market can ask partners do things for them like this.  Once the partner agrees, for better or worse, it must be done.  That is contractual law, since the contract itself is not illegal, and the option is open for them not to sign up for the program it can't be looked at anti competitive.  If nV uses the not signing of the contract to limit supply for chips under ongoing contracts then its a problem.  If nV uses the GPP to stop partners from buying AMD GPU's then its tortious interference and anti competitive by limiting supply.  This is what Intel did with AMD, that is not a happening here.

 

Everyone and their mother who has seen or heard about what the GPP is, and what it "requires" knows that yeah its going to hurt AMD because AMD cards will no longer have the "Top Gaming" brand in a partner's line up.  But that is not the same as anti competitive or anti trust.

I haven't said it's explicitly illegal. It's quite grey area and probably too risky for a lawsuit. It's anti consumer though. 

 

I think you lack the appreciation of what you can do with 75% market share. You don't need to write up a contract to pressure companies. It's not like Nvidia don't have other avenues. There are plenty of others who can take their product. The market is screaming for every GPU that comes off the assembly line.

 

And again, you don't seem to get the angle here. There is no issue in having unique branding but pressuring partners to drop a competitor from the existing valuable branding that has historically been open is very bad for consumers. I'd have full respect for Nvidia if they said "hey, we want to get our own place in your branding. Make it happen" and partners collaborated with Nvidia to start up a new brand identity for Nvidia - it would be perfectly reasonable. It's not reasonable to tell Asus "you can't sell AMD products under your ROG brand if you want to keep our working relationship". Those are Asus trademarks, not Nvidia. Yet Nvidia wants to hijack it. Basically Nvidia want to own the gaming market and any branding that entails. They wish to do so not through superior products but through contracts and backroom deals. 

 

The thing is that it automatically devalues the AMD product. Branding is extremely important. By taking away gaming branding from AMD GPUs you reduce sales and it's a vicious cycle that will eventually give Nvidia a bigger market share meaning partners buy fewer AMD GPUs meaning Nvidia accomplished what they set out to do (ostensibly) legally but not through their products which is bad by any standards that consumers should hold dear. I would fully respect Nvidia if they managed to kick AMD out of the GPU business through shipping the superior product year after year. That's fair. Backroom deals? Not so much.

 

Nobody should be okay with that and neither should you.

 

Ultimately we don't know the full scope of this because of how hush hush it is. So all we can do is wait and see what happens but it doesn't look good. It looks like a big blow to consumers and I'm on the side of consumers first and foremost. I don't bow down before our corporate overlords. Don't drink the koolaid please.

[Razor01]

41 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

I haven't said it's explicitly illegal. It's quite grey area and probably too risky for a lawsuit. It's anti consumer though. 

 

I think you lack the appreciation of what you can do with 75% market share. You don't need to write up a contract to pressure companies. It's not like Nvidia don't have other avenues. There are plenty of others who can take their product. The market is screaming for every GPU that comes off the assembly line.

 

And again, you don't seem to get the angle here. There is no issue in having unique branding but pressuring partners to drop a competitor from the existing valuable branding that has historically been open is very bad for consumers. I'd have full respect for Nvidia if they said "hey, we want to get our own place in your branding. Make it happen" and partners collaborated with Nvidia to start up a new brand identity for Nvidia - it would be perfectly reasonable. It's not reasonable to tell Asus "you can't sell AMD products under your ROG brand if you want to keep our working relationship". Those are Asus trademarks, not Nvidia. Yet Nvidia wants to hijack it. Basically Nvidia want to own the gaming market and any branding that entails. They wish to do so not through superior products but through contracts and backroom deals. 

 

The thing is that it automatically devalues the AMD product. Branding is extremely important. By taking away gaming branding from AMD GPUs you reduce sales and it's a vicious cycle that will eventually give Nvidia a bigger market share meaning partners buy fewer AMD GPUs meaning Nvidia accomplished what they set out to do (ostensibly) legally but not through their products which is bad by any standards that consumers should hold dear. I would fully respect Nvidia if they managed to kick AMD out of the GPU business through shipping the superior product year after year. That's fair. Backroom deals? Not so much.

 

Nobody should be okay with that and neither should you.

 

Ultimately we don't know the full scope of this because of how hush hush it is. So all we can do is wait and see what happens but it doesn't look good. It looks like a big blow to consumers and I'm on the side of consumers first and foremost. I don't bow down before our corporate overlords. Don't drink the koolaid please.

 

 

But if the contract is written up and the parties agree to it, unless it can be proven that its illegal, there is nothing to appreciate about it.  There is nothing wrong with it.

 

You are taking an angle that is what is going on.  nV is saying they don't give a shit if a partner is part of the GPP or not, if they are great or else they don't need them as a partner period. All of the rest of GPP is just to give face to say we "really care", they don't care who is selling their cards right now because it doesn't matter who the partner is. Who looses out? For gaming AMD is not even a card to really considered at this point, the market share shows that, who is buying what, GPP wasn't around when that happened!

 

nV has other exclusive partners anyways, They don't need ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte.  If ASUS, MSI , Gigabyte don't sign up, they lose a lot more form future contracts, and future tech, they become second fiddle or no fiddle at all since they have to sell AMD cards only (once mining dies, which it has already) to the exclusive partners.  nV once new chips come out, does not NEED to sell to Asus, MSI, or Gigabyte AT ALL.  Market share % is irrelevant at this point, but because nV cards are the ones that are selling by the droves, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte have complied with nV's wishes since the consequences of not selling nV cards is much worse than the branding issues.  Also anti competitive laws and anti trust laws can't do ANYTHING about this either.  Laws can't force companies to deal with other companies when there are multiple companies in the market place unless those contracts are on going.  It might destroy ASUS, MSI's, and Gigabyte's brand, but that is not going against AMD.  You need to take AMD out of your mind here, because the direct consequence of branding from Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte, is the AIB's problem, the secondary advertising issue is AMD's so they aren't even part of the equation till after the fact.  This is exactly what they did to XFX, nV removed XFX as a partner when XFX started selling AMD cards, and the next gen of cards Fermi, they stopped selling chips to them.  This time around they are giving the option to these partners be part of the GPP or else you don't get marketing funds, and all those extras, well ya know what without those things they are no longer competitive in the graphics card market place, and eventually they will get squeezed out of nV card sales entirely.  So end result nV doesn't care about those AIB's even if the secondary option will hurt them in the short term as the other exclusive partners scramble around to take the left over market share.

 

If Intel, went to Dell with Ivy Bridge and stated we aren't selling Intel chips to you anymore, no reason given, they can do that too, but with P4 Intel could not do that because they had a sub par product and they knew it wouldn't have mattered in a positive way.

[vorticalbox]

17 hours ago, Okjoek said:

"GTX 1080ti Gaming"

 

vs

 

"Vega 64 Sports"

 

or something like that. Technically not their "gaming brand" and only AMD GPU have access to this new branding

 

Or pro gaming? Not a "gaming" brand them  

[Jito463]

48 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

But if the contract is written up and the parties agree to it, unless it can be proven that its illegal, there is nothing to appreciate about it.  There is nothing wrong with it.

Just because it's in a contract doesn't automatically make it right, even if it's technically legal.  Right and wrong isn't just about the law, it's also about ethics.

 

Nvidia is being unethical by using the power of their market dominance to diminish the Radeon brand, via back room deals with their partners.  And don't give the line again about how it's "optional" for them to join, because it all comes down to how competitive they could remain against the other Nvidia partners without joining the GPP.  From what I've seen, joining the GPP is pretty much essential unless they want their products coming out weeks or even months after their competition.

[Razor01]

25 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Just because it's in a contract doesn't automatically make it right, even if it's technically legal.  Right and wrong isn't just about the law, it's also about ethics.

 

Nvidia is being unethical by using the power of their market dominance to diminish the Radeon brand, via back room deals with their partners.  And don't give the line again about how it's "optional" for them to join, because it all comes down to how competitive they could remain against the other Nvidia partners without joining the GPP.  From what I've seen, joining the GPP is pretty much essential unless they want their products coming out weeks or even months after their competition.

 

 

Ethics has no place in business or law man.  There is no such thing as "technically" legal.  Its legal or its not legal. 

 

Sorry that is the way it is.  If business is war, ethics be damned as long as they don't cross the lines of legality.

 

Thats only part of the GPP, making decent money selling graphics cards is hard to do without the marketing funds, which are the rebate pass through, co marketing funds, and everything else.  AIB's only make around 30% gross profits on their cards man, that is barely enough to break a profit.  So without that MDF they aren't going to make profits, in a typical market.

[-rascal-]

31 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

 

 

Ethics has no place in business or law man.  There is no such thing as "technically" legal.  Its legal or its not legal. 

 

Sorry that is the way it is.  If business is war, ethics be damned as long as they don't cross the lines of legality.

 

Thats only part of the GPP, making decent money selling graphics cards is hard to do without the marketing funds, which are the rebate pass through, co marketing funds, and everything else.  AIB's only make around 30% gross profits on their cards man, that is barely enough to break a profit.  So without that MDF they aren't going to make profits, in a typical market.

 

"Ethics has no place in business or law man."

Incorrect.

 

Laws over copyright, trademark, and patents exist.

Engineering and Geo-science Associations exists because of this.

There are STRICT consequences over Negligence and Tort, including Standard of Care and Duty of Care.

 

 

In other note, ROG on GPU first started with the ASUS ROG HD 5870 Matrix.

I say ROG sticks with AMD -- nVidia can pick another one... like... Federation Of Inside Gamers or some shit (FOIG )

"Yuh m0n I'm a big Foig!"

 

[Razor01]

Laws are not ethics, ethics is what we feel is the right thing to do based on our morals.  Laws set the moral guidelines of what we should do and should not do.  Anything above that, has no place in business, unless a company wants to loose ground.

 

It would be great if everyone open sourced all their projects too, ethically its the right thing to do, because it will help the community as a whole, but morally, and legally, you don't need to do that if you are looking into cornering the market.

 

Can you see the difference of ethics, morals, and laws here?  They are different.  Ethics is the study of morals based on situations.  Morals in business is dictated by the law that is set forth.

 

Its like a court case.  A lawyer morally should protect his or her client to their best of their ability. But sometimes ethically they can't do that if they know something is not right with the clients view of things, and by law they must though.  The law is blind to ethics.

[-rascal-]

41 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

Laws are not ethics, ethics is what we feel is the right thing to do based on our morals.  Laws set the moral guidelines of what we should do and should not do.  Anything above that, has no place in business, unless a company wants to loose ground.

 

It would be great if everyone open sourced all their projects too, ethically its the right thing to do, because it will help the community as a whole, but morally, and legally, you don't need to do that if you are looking into cornering the market.

 

Can you see the difference of ethics, morals, and laws here?  They are different.  Ethics is the study of morals based on situations.  Morals in business is dictated by the law that is set forth.

 

Its like a court case.  A lawyer morally should protect his or her client to their best of their ability. But sometimes ethically they can't do that if they know something is not right with the clients view of things, and by law they must though.

 

Ethics can (in cases are) tied to Laws.

For an example, THESE are ethical issues that can be put on trial, and will have consequences with the Law.

• Relationships with clients, competitors, and contractors
• Legal compliance by clients, and client's contractors
• Conflict of Interest

Business related ethics can overlap these, which overlaps into laws.

Quote

Ethics is generally understood as the discipline or field of study dealing with moral duty or obligation.

 

Business Ethics

Quote

• Integrity
• Fair
• Obey the Law
• Morale

 

For an example, Engineers have a 'Code of Ethics' they are obligated to abide to.

Failing to do so, and they will be put on trail BOTH through the relevant association(s)  AND in courts.

 

I am not saying you are incorrect, but there is a FINE line between ethics, morals, and law.

In situations, they go hand-in-hand.

[Razor01]

LOL no they are not.

Quote

 

Ethics can (in cases are) tied to Laws.

For an example, THESE are ethical issues that can be put on trial, and will have consequences with the Law.

• Relationships with clients, competitors, and contractors
• Legal compliance by clients, and client's contractors
• Conflict of Interest

 

 

What you listed are not ethical relationships to law, they are moral relationships to law and all those are based on contracts.

 

What is done based on those moral relationships that is ethics!

 

Code of ethics is not Law.  Other wise it would be called Law of Ethics.

 

Understand this, My ethics are not your ethics, its not someone else's ethics either.  And those ethics change based on the situation at hand.

 

Ethics is based on a singular person or entity's needs at specific times and wants based on their morals, morals which are set by laws.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ethics-vs-morals-law-dr-arturo-perez/

 

This guy who teaches this stuff, says if you are ethical and moral at the same time, you are not going to be lawful lol.  I don't believe that is true but when you think about it, it does make sense.  Because when you are going out of your way to be ethical and morel in somethings there is a good chance you are not going to be lawful, they could be contradictory to each other.

 

http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3322&context=fss_papers

 

Yale paper on the topic.

 

You do not take subjective things like ethics and try to tell me its Law.  That is baloney and has no weight.

 

Lets say you see a fight happening.  Ethically you should break up the fight right? Morally you should too right?  But legally, if someone gets hurt because you break up the fight?  Well now you are on the wrong side of the law but what you did was moral and ethical.

 

You never put those three together and try to say crap like that in court, it doesn't hold water.

[mr moose]

It's interesting how people assume something is illegal because they feel it is unethical.    No one can get any information and yet people are still convinced they know full well what is happening. 

[LAwLz]

This is a surprise to nobody who actually looked into GPP even slightly (as in, read more than just the headlines).

 

 

5 hours ago, Trixanity said:

It wouldn't be an issue either if Nvidia requested their partners come up with new branding for Nvidia products. The issue is they demand partners remove competition from existing branding.

[Citation Needed]

I have not seen any evidence that Nvidia are demanding that their partners are removed from existing brands. From what I know, Nvidia has only demanded that Nvidia products are not carried under the same brand as their competitors. That could have been achieved by creating new brands for Nvidia products and kept AMD products under the existing ones. It seems like manufacturers would rather give the existing brands to Nvidia though, but that seems to be a decision made by them and not Nvidia.

[XenosTech]

Yay now we'll have confusing product stacks like we do on the CPU side of things. Thanks guys !

[mr moose]

15 minutes ago, XenosTech said:

Yay now we'll have confusing product stacks like we do on the CPU side of things. Thanks guys !

I already find all the different branding confusing, from Asus alone we have:  

 

ROG Strix,

ROG Poisendon,

Strix,

Turbo,

Dual,

PH and XH,

Plus all the vanilla stuff.

 

 

 

[XenosTech]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I already find all the different branding confusing, from Asus alone we have:  

 

ROG Strix,

ROG Poisendon,

Strix,

Turbo,

Dual,

PH and XH,

Plus all the vanilla stuff.

 

 

 

That's not confusing at all, Strix is the high end air cooled stuff, poisendon is the hybrid, turbo is reference, dual is literally the card with 2 fans. Not even confusing in the slightest