OEMs not interested in Nvidia GPP

[NumLock21]

A while back we've heard about Nvidia's GPP program, where Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI all have signed up for it. Nvidia now also wants OEMs to join too and the good news is almost none of them have any interest in it. Dell and HP sees GPP is unethical and have not signed up for it. HP had recently revealed their new Pavilion systems featuring both AMD and Nvidia graphics. Nvidia have tried to get Lenovo to joined and so far rumor says, they were not successful. Intel on the other hand with their Kaby Lake G with built in AMD VEGA graphics, will most likely mean they probably won't join Nvidia GPP either.

Quote

 

Lenovo is the outlier in the big three OEMs, and we are getting little-to-no information about that company. We are unsure if Lenovo has gone with NVIDIA's GPP at this time. From what we are hearing, which is rumor and speculation, we think Lenovo has not signed on with GPP, but we could be wrong on that. However, Lenovo at this time still has its Legion brand gaming systems with Radeon GPUs listed on its site.

 

Dell and HP not coming on board with GPP is actually a very big deal. Out of all the companies that we think NVIDIA is strong arming into GPP, Dell and HP have the most leverage to push back due to the massive volumes of mid and low-end GPUs that both purchase from NVIDIA. While AMD is not able to compete on the extremely high end, it certainly is making mid-level and low-end GPUs that both Dell and HP have access to. And for what it is worth, the Vega 64 is an excellent gaming card at 1440p which fits the bill for a huge portion of the market on high end gaming systems. NVIDIA may be in a fight to seize these companies gaming brands for their own, which NVIDIA may just lose, and hopefully so.

 

Dell nor HP are wanting to turn over their gaming brands to NVIDIA. Off the record conversations suggest that both of these companies think that NVIDIA GPP is unethical, and likely illegal as it pertains to anti-competition laws here in the United States. The bottom line is that Dell and HP are very much upset with NVIDIA over GPP, and Dell and HP look to be digging in for a fight.

 

https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/04/12/dell_hp_resist_nvidia_gpp_leash_so_far

[NTDaws]

Fu*k you Nvidia. ?

[mr moose]

I personally don't think Dell, HP and Lenovo stand to gain anything from it. why would they care?

[vanished]

This is encouraging.  Other companies are starting to pause and think about this before jumping in, and I had heard the program was being investigated legally, so hopefully we'll see this shut down and things return to normal soon.  It just remains to be seen what will happen to ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte in the aftermath... and of course nvidia themselves.

[NumLock21]

On 4/17/2018 at 1:16 AM, mr moose said:

I personally don't think Dell, HP and Lenovo stand to gain anything from it. why would they care?

They don't but nvidia does and it's a good thing they told Nvidia to go F themselves.

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

This is encouraging.  Other companies are starting to pause and think about this before jumping in, and I had heard the program was being investigated legally, so hopefully we'll see this shut down and things return to normal soon.  It just remains to be seen what will happen to ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte in the aftermath... and of course nvidia themselves.

 

What if the investigation turns up nothing illegal and things only get better for it?

 

I highly doubt there will be any negative fall out for nvidia in all this,  I think we onlookers tend to attribute way more importance than there actually is.   Many times i have heard companies say dumb things and think to my self, they won't be a round if they keep doing that, but sure enough, they are still around and they still keep doing it.  Stuff like this works.  sales rhetoric works,  it takes mammoth fuck ups over long periods of time to bring a company down and even then it takes more again to send it broke.  look at what it took to kill 3dfx, or how long amd has been on the cusp of bankruptcy.

 

 

[vanished]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

 

What if the investigation turns up nothing illegal and things only get better for it?

 

I highly doubt there will be any negative fall out for nvidia in all this,  I think we onlookers tend to attribute way more importance than there actually is.   Many times i have heard companies say dumb things and think to my self, they won't be a round if they keep doing that, but sure enough, they are still around and they still keep doing it.  Stuff like this works.  sales rhetoric works,  it takes mammoth fuck ups over long periods of time to bring a company down and even then it takes more again to send it broke.  look at what it took to kill 3dfx, or how long amd has been on the cusp of bankruptcy.

 

 

I think it's pretty easy to see this is illegal abuse of monopoly, but you're right, it probably won't have a big impact on them in the long run.

[Deus Voltage]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

 

What if the investigation turns up nothing illegal and things only get better for it?

 

I highly doubt there will be any negative fall out for nvidia in all this,  I think we onlookers tend to attribute way more importance than there actually is.   Many times i have heard companies say dumb things and think to my self, they won't be a round if they keep doing that, but sure enough, they are still around and they still keep doing it.  Stuff like this works.  sales rhetoric works,  it takes mammoth fuck ups over long periods of time to bring a company down and even then it takes more again to send it broke.  look at what it took to kill 3dfx, or how long amd has been on the cusp of bankruptcy.

 

 

Realistically speaking, what would it take for Nvidia to bankrupt? Is Nvidia in the "too big to fail" category at this point? (not that I wish that to happen. AMD would just take over and do their own shenanigans whenever possible as well) 

[Dabombinable]

OEM's don't want to burn any bridges-remember, Nvidia has fucked up badly before when they had a deal with Apple.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Deus Voltage said:

Realistically speaking, what would it take for Nvidia to bankrupt? Is Nvidia in the "too big to fail" category at this point? (not that I wish that to happen. AMD would just take over and do their own shenanigans whenever possible as well) 

I don't know what it would take, but AMD have been on the cusp for 5 years straight (5 years up until 2015/6) and 1 year behind their competition for the last 2 years.  So I imagine with nvidia's bank account and marketing skills probably at least 7 years of losses and some really shitty hardware to boot.

 

6 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I think it's pretty easy to see this is illegal abuse of monopoly, but you're right, it probably won't have a big impact on them in the long run.

I just think of the amount of times I have heard people say that about companies, Intel, MS, google all cop it frequently, however It only seems to crop up in the EU once in every while as an actual court outcome.

 

 

 

[vanished]

Just now, mr moose said:

I just think of the amount of times I have heard people say that about companies, Intel, MS, google all cop it frequently, however It only seems to crop up in the EU once in every while as an actual court outcome.

Yeah, people tend to say that a lot, but this time it's actually happening

https://wccftech.com/ftc-eu-commission-zero-in-on-nvidia-gpp-calls-for-investigation-complaints/

and I've never been one to cry that frivolously.

[mr moose]

Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

Yeah, people tend to say that a lot, but this time it's actually happening

https://wccftech.com/ftc-eu-commission-zero-in-on-nvidia-gpp-calls-for-investigation-complaints/

and I've never been one to cry that frivolously.

That's not an investigation, that's just people making complaints to the eu and to the FTC.  I am sure plenty have and they have to look into it when people make a complaint. An investigation will start if they find enough evidence to warrant it.  Also WCCF's source is a reddit post. 

[vanished]

Just now, mr moose said:

That's not an investigation, that's just people making complaints to the eu and to the FTC.  I am sure plenty have and they have to look into it when people make a complaint. An investigation will start if they find enough evidence to warrant it.  Also WCCF's source is a reddit post. 

I'm sure they will, it's obvious that their behaviour / the terms of the program fall under anti-competitive , anti-monopolistic practice laws.  They just need to realize this is going on, and this is the start of that.  Often things that shouldn't happen go unnoticed for years because the right people just didn't know about because they're not in that space.  The whole Facebook issues recently come to mind as an example.

[MoonSpot]

Hmm.  Lets swing for the fences for a moment and make believe that these 3 OEM decide to slap nvidia down hard for their transgression by not just refusing to participate in GPP, but also make radeon their default config for everything under the sun that they make.

• Can AMD even supply the shear number of GPUs they'd require?
• Can AMD increase production without incurring additional costs to the OEM?

 

I was strongly suspecting that lenovo was going to cave for sure.  I am certain at least one of them will cave from back door money deals if for no other reason.  Why wouldn't nvidia jump at the chance for a 10+ year crippling deal like intel had once upon a time?  There's too much money up for grabs for them not to be actively trying legality be damned, their stock holders sure as frack won't care about the ethics/law.  Plus the intel+vega m thing I'd think is something that has nvidia seeing red.

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I'm sure they will, it's obvious that their behaviour / the terms of the program fall under anti-competitive , anti-monopolistic practice laws.  They just need to realize this is going on, and this is the start of that.  Often things that shouldn't happen go unnoticed for years because the right people just didn't know about because they're not in that space.  The whole Facebook issues recently come to mind as an example.

Is it though? so far all we have is the HArdOCP article.  Everyone else is saying nothing.  If that's all they need to start a formal investigation then they are going to be really busy bunnies with all of the shit flying around the internet.  Facebook didn't go unnoticed, a lot of people knew about it,  it's just taken them this long to organize an offensive against it. Edit: and I dare say the only reason the facebook thing is even a thing now is because the wrong president got elected.

[vanished]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Is it though? so far all we have is the HArdOCP article.  Everyone else is saying nothing.  If that's all they need to start a formal investigation then they are going to be really busy bunnies with all of the shit flying around the internet.  Facebook didn't go unnoticed, a lot of people knew about it,  it's just taken them this long to organize an offensive against it. Edit: and I dare say the only reason the facebook thing is even a thing now is because the wrong president got elected.

My understanding of the terms of the program is that:

1. The brand used to sell Nvidia cards cannot also be used to sell AMD cards.  We've already seen evidence that this is true as the companies that joined have split their AMD card into a new brand(s)
2. Partners will be given preferential treatment and access to GPUs, which AIBs obviously need to survive.  This is textbook abuse of monopoly to bully other companies into doing what they want.

Basically, it's join and relegate our competitors products in your marketing, or don't join and suffer.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

My understanding of the terms of the program is that:

1. The brand used to sell Nvidia cards cannot also be used to sell AMD cards.  We've already seen evidence that this is true as the companies that joined have split their AMD card into a new brand(s)
2. Partners will be given preferential treatment and access to GPUs, which AIBs obviously need to survive.  This is textbook abuse of monopoly to bully other companies into doing what they want.

Basically, it's join and relegate our competitors products in your marketing, or don't join and suffer.

But we still only have one source for this, and none of us know what the actual contracts state.  Someone is going to have to give the FTC a little bit more evidence (or start the case themselves) before this becomes an official investigation.  And I only say this because I'd hate to see tax payers money thrown into investigations based solely on organized complaints campaigns.

[vanished]

Just now, mr moose said:

But we still only have one source for this, and none of us know what the actual contracts state.  Someone is going to have to give the FTC a little bit more evidence (or start the case themselves) before this becomes an official investigation.  And I only say this because I'd hate to see tax payers money thrown into investigations based solely on organized complaints campaigns.

As Linus mentioned on the WAN show it's extremely likely that the contract comes with a gag clause that means we'll never see the actual document until they do look into it, so I guess the options are do nothing until there's even more evidence (I'm not even sure what that would be), meanwhile letting nvidia benefit from this at the expense of anyone they don't like, or start an investigation and actually find out if it's legal or not.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

As Linus mentioned on the WAN show it's extremely likely that the contract comes with a gag clause that means we'll never see the actual document until they do look into it, so I guess the options are do nothing until there's even more evidence (I'm not even sure what that would be), meanwhile letting nvidia benefit from this at the expense of anyone they don't like, or start an investigation and actually find out if it's legal or not.

So are you a proponent of government agencies starting investigations and subpoenaing private contracts based on hearsay in  singular media articles?  I get why people would want to know the truth, but surely you can see how this would be a bad precedent to set.

[vanished]

Just now, mr moose said:

So are you a proponent of government agencies starting investigations and subpoenaing private contracts on singular media articles?  I get why people would want to know the truth, but surely you can see how this would be a bad precedent to set.

No, certainly not on a singular media article, particularly if there was nothing to back it up.  Yes, that would be stupid and terrible.  But this is not that.  For one thing, nvidia publicly announced on their own website what this is and what they'd be doing.  Additionally, we've already seen evidence supporting what was claimed in the original article.  I don't support looking into things over nothing, and I can't think of another thing in recent memory that would have warranted it.  This however, I think it does.

[Blademaster91]

12 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

No, certainly not on a singular media article, particularly if there was nothing to back it up.  Yes, that would be stupid and terrible.  But this is not that.  For one thing, nvidia publicly announced on their own website what this is and what they'd be doing.  Additionally, we've already seen evidence supporting what was claimed in the original article.  I don't support looking into things over nothing, and I can't think of another thing in recent memory that would have warranted it.  This however, I think it does.

I want to know if this is true just as much anyone else does, but unless I missed something this is just yet another hardOCP article,and the only other proof we have are some reddit posts, a really stupid comment from an MSI rep,and a few people going "OMG the brands aren't there on the product page" even though they are (for now). Seems like a waste of tax dollars unless there is more proof first.

[mr moose]

13 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

No, certainly not on a singular media article, particularly if there was nothing to back it up.  Yes, that would be stupid and terrible.  But this is not that.  For one thing, nvidia publicly announced on their own website what this is and what they'd be doing.  Additionally, we've already seen evidence supporting what was claimed in the original article.  I don't support looking into things over nothing, and I can't think of another thing in recent memory that would have warranted it.  This however, I think it does.

See @Blademaster91 response.

 

[vanished]

8 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I want to know if this is true just as much anyone else does, but unless I missed something this is just yet another hardOCP article,and the only other proof we have are some reddit posts, a really stupid comment from an MSI rep,and a few people going "OMG the brands aren't there on the product page" even though they are (for now). Seems like a waste of tax dollars unless there is more proof first.

I pointed out two key parts of this program in my earlier comment.  The preferential treatment aspect (#2) was spelled out in nvidia's own press release, so I don't think there's any denying that.  And as for the rebranding (#1), well, that's literally actually happening right now, or already has, so you can't really deny that either.  I don't know what I'm missing here...

[Arika]

unsurprising. OEMs have nothing to gain from GPP. AIBs do.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

  I don't know what I'm missing here...

The accusations of illegality and the evidence of illegality are what's missing.  So far nvidia's press release does not  contravene any laws that I am aware of.  What the AIB are doing with their stock also doesn't contravene any laws. All the other claims are only coming from one source who will not provide his evidence.  Whether or not we consider that to be fair is moot.   Essentially what people want is an investigation because they don't like the way something looks.   Maybe someone has enough evidence to tip the scales and start an investigation, but if they don't then there is nothing to base one on.