AMD's official "eff you GPP" response: A Gamer's Choice

[Razor01]

Don't know if this is true but apparently rumors have it Kyle was paid to write the GPP articles.  I don't think is true, I've know Kyle for many years and that seems to be out of character for him.

 

 

[kokakolia]

12 hours ago, suits said:

I honestly think as far as naming goes with ASUS cards they lost on this one for me. AREZ sounds way cooler than ROG. GG asus. GG.

To be honest, AMD (or Nvidia) could sell their GPUs under the “flaming potato” brand and still run out of stock because of crypto mining. 

 

[Notional]

1 hour ago, Razor01 said:

Don't know if this is true but apparently rumors have it Kyle was paid to write the GPP articles.  I don't think is true, I've know Kyle for many years and that seems to be out of character for him.

 

 

Nvidia is acting completely desperate. But it's very easy. If NVidia believes Kyle is incorrect and "paid off", they can just publish their GPP contracts. Instead of stating they are "over it", deny to talk about it at all, and preventing ALL the vendors from even acknowledging the scummy GPP.

 

I don't know I've ever seen one company usurping control over a third parties IP like this. It's scumminess on a whole new level. Good job NVidia.

 

This is just an ad hominem attack on kyle to try and shift focus away from GPP, and undermining Kyle's credibility. But hey, if you get caught being scummy, you might as well go full retard and all in on the scumminess, by attacking the messenger.

[Razor01]

contracts are not privy to the general public because contracts will be different between the AIB's based on what ever is negotiated, can't make something like that public because it will undermine the negotiations of not just nV but also their AIB partners.  This is why NDA's are bilateral.

 

Everything else I agree with.

[Kamjam21xx]

I believe in free market, but free market includes me never buying nvidia because of what they do.

[Misanthrope]

46 minutes ago, Notional said:

This is just an ad hominem attack on kyle to try and shift focus away from GPP, and undermining Kyle's credibility. But hey, if you get caught being scummy, you might as well go full retard and all in on the scumminess, by attacking the messenger.

Specially coming from this guy who's extremely unstable himself.

[kokakolia]

20 minutes ago, Kamjam21xx said:

I believe in free market, but free market includes me never buying nvidia because of what they do.

"Free market" is such an outdated concept. People have this mental image of a small town with a bunch of tiny shops fairly competing with each other. The reality is of a monopoly or oligopoly of sorts. I mean, in a free market scenario it's only a matter of time until one business pulls ahead and starts growing exponentially. Then the other businesses get bought out or close one by one. This is kind of true with AMD and Nvidia. We only have 2 graphics card manufacturers. It's only a matter of time until Nvidia becomes the only graphics card on the market...in a free market scenario!

[Kamjam21xx]

57 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

"Free market" is such an outdated concept. People have this mental image of a small town with a bunch of tiny shops fairly competing with each other. The reality is of a monopoly or oligopoly of sorts. I mean, in a free market scenario it's only a matter of time until one business pulls ahead and starts growing exponentially. Then the other businesses get bought out or close one by one. This is kind of true with AMD and Nvidia. We only have 2 graphics card manufacturers. It's only a matter of time until Nvidia becomes the only graphics card on the market...in a free market scenario!

You cant possibly know that, because nowhere that i know of has a free market.

[Razor01]

8 minutes ago, Kamjam21xx said:

You cant possibly know that, because nowhere that i know of has a free market.

With markets such as these all free markets eventually end up being a monopoly (oligopoly first) this is the rule of three in economics even though its more of a theory than a rule, in practice we have seen and experienced this since the concept of free market was created and after antitrust laws were created as well.

[Notional]

4 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

Specially coming from this guy who's extremely unstable himself.

Who? Kyle? How so?

[Misanthrope]

4 hours ago, Notional said:

Who? Kyle? How so?

No that Elric dude from Tech of Tomorrow. He's had a very public beef with some co-worker/owner/whatever in the past and it's been known to go on fairly aggressive rants cursing down anybody who criticizes him. He has apologized for it AFAIK but he's a huge drama magnet regardless.

[Notional]

6 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

No that Elric dude from Tech of Tomorrow. He's had a very public beef with some co-worker/owner/whatever in the past and it's been known to go on fairly aggressive rants cursing down anybody who criticizes him. He has apologized for it AFAIK but he's a huge drama magnet regardless.

He is indeed. Mostly due to his diabetes causing him to have hes feet amputated, and having very very poor health in general. When your body doesn't work, neither will your mood or psyche.

But sure, it can easily go against his credibility, and that is a fair point. However, there must be a reason why NVidia isn't just coming clean about all this nonsense.

[Misanthrope]

12 minutes ago, Notional said:

He is indeed. Mostly due to his diabetes causing him to have hes feet amputated, and having very very poor health in general. When your body doesn't work, neither will your mood or psyche.

But sure, it can easily go against his credibility, and that is a fair point. However, there must be a reason why NVidia isn't just coming clean about all this nonsense.

Fair enough

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

No that Elric dude from Tech of Tomorrow. He's had a very public beef with some co-worker/owner/whatever in the past and it's been known to go on fairly aggressive rants cursing down anybody who criticizes him. He has apologized for it AFAIK but he's a huge drama magnet regardless.

Didn't someone pull a nasty number on him, bought his motherboards branding/website cheap on the proviso he would continue being the lead then they fired him?

I don't know exactly what the issue was but I remember he wasn't completely innocent. 

 

Still, that doesn't make him right unless he has some evidence to suport his claims too.

[Deus Voltage]

19 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Still, that doesn't make him right unless he has some evidence to suport his claims too.

This is precisely why I feel conflicted about the GPP.

 

There is the legal perspective, which Nvidia has done their homework on so I doubt they'll be in trouble. Nonetheless, there is also another dimension to the conversation that I feel is not being fully discussed.

 

I feel that the community is somewhat split because you have people on one side who view the matter purely from legal lenses. Then there are people who view the matter purely from a non legal perspective.

 

What's that old quote again? "You can chew gum and walk at the same time" ?

 

So yea, I think we need to take a more nuanced approach, which isn't very difficult if we pretend to be Martians for a moment that are analyzing humans and their silly shenanigans from a distance.

 

The following argument I feel is more appropriate in light of everything that has been reported on the matter thus far.

 

Legally speaking, and I'm no expert on this, but it is seems to be a very nebulas area of discussion due to a number of constraints that prevent Nvidia from releasing specifics, the AIB's from sharing important information and the public from exploring the relevant documentation.

 

From a non legal perspective, it seems highly suspicious. Tech of Tomorrow's years long Nvidia contact *cough* Brian *cough* is telling him to drop it. Gamer's Nexus is getting blocked from accessing info even off the record. And the behavioral pattern with regards to the AIB's indicate a fear based power dynamic with Nvidia. 

 

Nvidia may have played their cards well legally, but a part of their reputation, the extent of which I cannot fully declare, will depend on how they behave in the future.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, Deus Voltage said:

This is precisely why I feel conflicted about the GPP.

 

There is the legal perspective, which Nvidia has done their homework on so I doubt they'll be in trouble. Nonetheless, there is also another dimension to the conversation that I feel is not being fully discussed.

 

I feel that the community is somewhat split because you have people on one side who view the matter purely from legal lenses. Then there are people who view the matter purely from a non legal perspective.

 

What's that old quote again? "You can chew gum and walk at the same time" ?

 

So yea, I think we need to take a more nuanced approach, which isn't very difficult if we pretend to be Martians for a moment that are analyzing humans and their silly shenanigans from a distance.

 

The following argument I feel is more appropriate in light of everything that has been reported on the matter thus far.

 

Legally speaking, and I'm no expert on this, but it is seems to be a very nebulas area of discussion due to a number of constraints that prevent Nvidia from releasing specifics, the AIB's from sharing important information and the public from exploring the relevant documentation.

 

From a non legal perspective, it seems highly suspicious. Tech of Tomorrow's years long Nvidia contact *cough* Brian *cough* is telling him to drop it. Gamer's Nexus is getting blocked from accessing info even off the record. And the behavioral pattern with regards to the AIB's indicate a fear based power dynamic with Nvidia. 

 

Nvidia may have played their cards well legally, but a part of their reputation, the extent of which I cannot fully declare, will depend on how they behave in the future.

Even then, defending something innocent will easily make you look guilty.  Especially on the internet.    I'll just wait and see how these things pan out.  I know there is strength in brand recognition. But Like all brands they have to earn that strength and I can't see existing brands having something that can't easily be usurped by a simply better performing/looking  product.

[Notional]

https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/04/19/scott_herkelman_confirms_nvidia_gpp_tactics

 

Scott Herkelman, Vice President & GM Radeon Gaming at AMD:

Quote

I wanted to personally thank all of our resellers who are attending our AMD sales event in London this week, it was a pleasure catching up with you and thank you for your support. Many of you told me how our competition tries to use funding and allocation to restrict or block your ability to market and sell Radeon based products in the manner you and your customers desire. I want to let you know that your voices have been heard and that I welcome any others who have encountered similar experiences to reach out to me. Together we can work to ensure that we give gamers what they truly deserve -- freedom of choice.

 

[pas008]

47 minutes ago, Notional said:

https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/04/19/scott_herkelman_confirms_nvidia_gpp_tactics

 

Scott Herkelman, Vice President & GM Radeon Gaming at AMD:

 

more from hocp and kyle lol

so nvidia should pay to market sub branding for competition too?

if nvidia wants to market msi gaming x  on their website/events/etc why should amd get  free sub brand advertising?

[MoonSpot]

I think I've found nvidia's inspirational source for the GPP and how to handle their 'partners' and their partners brands.
 

 

[Notional]

4 minutes ago, pas008 said:

more from hocp and kyle lol

so nvidia should pay to market sub branding for competition too?

if nvidia wants to market msi gaming x  on their website/events/etc why should amd get  free sub brand advertising?

Actually it's more straight from AMD.

 

Because it's not NVidia's branding. 

[Kamjam21xx]

Yeah, thats not nvidias shit. How do they get people to think things like that?

[Blademaster91]

25 minutes ago, Notional said:

Actually it's more straight from AMD.

Because it's not NVidia's branding. 

AMD kind of looks petty when they go to that length of playing the victim, rather spending on cheesy attack ads and campaigning "freedom" instead of competing when they'd rather rake in profits from cryptominers than make cards available to their core gaming consumers. But I could understand as they're a ship with a hole in it after cryptocoin value has dropped, Raja got fed up and left and now their marketing director left too.

This went back & forth in here and other threads over and over, however when Nvidia has over 70% of the market and pays the AIB's to R&D and advertise their sub-brands, they're essentially giving AMD free branding with the popular known names like Strix, Aorus, or Gaming X. How do we know AMD isn't paying hardOCP to spread things to benefit their Radeon brand when they aren't investing in much besides create attacks and refresh GCN chips? I'm waiting to see how all this pans out too.

[Notional]

3 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

AMD kind of looks petty when they go to that length of playing the victim, rather spending on cheesy attack ads and campaigning "freedom" instead of competing when they'd rather rake in profits from cryptominers than make cards available to their core gaming consumers. But I could understand as they're a ship with a hole in it after cryptocoin value has dropped, Raja got fed up and left and now their marketing director left too.

This went back & forth in here and other threads over and over, however when Nvidia has over 70% of the market and pays the AIB's to R&D and advertise their sub-brands, they're essentially giving AMD free branding with the popular known names like Strix, Aorus, or Gaming X. How do we know AMD isn't paying hardOCP to spread things to benefit their Radeon brand when they aren't investing in much besides create attacks and refresh GCN chips?

What do you mean instead of competing? Where is AMD not competing?

 

AMD sells their chips to GPU vendors. They have no say who or what those vendors sell their cards to. In the end, it's the distributors and retailers selling the cards to miners.

Price increase has nothing to do with AMD. They are not reeling in the added revenue.

 

No vendor demands NVidia market their stuff. That is not what this entire thing is about. This is about NVidia strong arming the vendors and usurping the vendors IP (branding). It is entirely up to NVidia how they want to market things. They can just market specific models. After all, if they market ROG, they are also marketing Intel. That is their choice.

 

How do we know? Because NVidia refuses to talk about it. Refuses to debunk it. And because every single vendor doing both branding are making those changes while being completely hermetically sealed about ANY and ALL info about the program. Extrapolating a conclusion from all the info is not difficult. No vendor would willingly choose to do this at own accord. Remember that GPP does exist, NVidia had an official announcement about it.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

On 4/18/2018 at 2:10 PM, Misanthrope said:

My overall point is that if AMD was in Nvidia's position they would absolutely do something very similar to the GPP without hesitation even. You are correct in asserting they're just a business, what bothers me is the fact that the image of the freedom-loving underdog they cultivate it's bullshit yet so many people buy into it.

It's not bullshit. It's just that it will only be true as long as they are the underdog or it's otherwise in their best interest.

 

That's why fanboyism is so stupid. Consumers should always hope for the best for the underdog, no matter how many times the identity of the underdog changes. We know the alternative: if you want or need a Mac, there's only Apple in the market, and we know how that goes. But we also see an intermediate point in PC: if gaming Volta comes out and it's substantially better than Pascal, that's not going to be anywhere as good as Ryzen coming out and merely being "close enough" to Kaby Lake. Because if the leader pulls ahead further, sure, that would mean better performance at the frontier, but at ridiculous prices and conditions, but when the follower makes a substantial leap, then all of the sudden the terms improve for everyone. Intel launched the i7 7700K at ~$350 ($3xx, I don't remember), then Ryzen happened, and 9 months into KL Intel launched the i7 8700K at slightly higher ~$3xx which, today, it's just the same price as the 7700K back in the day. A processor with 50% more cores and zero downsides compare to the previous i7. It was simply 50% more for your money.

Now, here's the thing: people will often highlight better practices on Ryzen's side compared to Intel regarding locking things down, segmenting too much, etc., which yes, sure. But if you look into its past, the AM3+ platform was actually the best platform I've ever seen in terms of free everything for everyone. If AMD had comparable performance, there wouldn't have been any point in an AMD HEDT because they were already giving everything with AM3+ (save for triple/quad channel memory). Some people even criticized them for letting everything work everywhere (which implied you could put an FX-9590 on an HTPC-oriented motherboard and watch the fireworks). My point is, if you compare AM3+ with AM4, AMD has actually become more restrictive, it just doesn't seem so compared to Intel. Heck, they even copied the absurd naming scheme  And there are two reasons they went that way: first, because they are no longer as far behind so they can afford to give less, and second, because Intel had exploited their lead so much that there was room to be a little bit less open and still have some goodies to offer in comparison. That also tells us that if the leader manages to keep a healthy lead and exploit it more and more, a sudden increase in competition won't magically undo all of the exploitation, they may simply converge to not-so-consumer-friendly equilibrium. Hence why it is important to slow down as much as possible any market-cornering tactics Nvidia may want to deploy while in the lead.

 

Which takes us all the way back to your point: yes, AMD doesn't do any of these things because it's inherently "good", and they would do less if they could get away with it. However, that doesn't change the fact that they currently can't get away with the same things, and therefore are effectively doing all these things, because at this point it still is in their best interest.

And it's a good thing that they are doing it, and it's a good thing that they promote it and help, even if a tiny bit, to create a consumer mindset that demands openness, even if they regret it if and when they are on top. Because the best outcomes for us will happen if two conditions are met: a) we have as many competitors, as close to each other, as possible; b) openness is a valued by consumers, so that in such a competitive environment no one can get away with deviating away from it.

AMD making marketing videos won't make any fundamental changes to the market, but it's also nothing to get angry about. And that's perfectly consistent with acknowledging that a future were all CPUs are Intel and all GPUs are Nvidia would be as bad as a future were all key components are AMD.

[Razor01]

2 hours ago, Notional said:

https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/04/19/scott_herkelman_confirms_nvidia_gpp_tactics

 

Scott Herkelman, Vice President & GM Radeon Gaming at AMD:

 

 

 

AMD and Kyle are pulling at straws, because Kyle's initial article has already been debunked, where he was clearly stating AIB's couldn't have a second gaming brand for AMD products, yes we can all read what he stated, and what he stated on his very own forums.  Also his thoughts on lawsuits pending, all if it was conjecture based on his inability to understand the contract in front him.  Not only that he paraphrased parts of the contract, can't do that with contracts.  A part doesn't equal the sum.  Shit if the FTC and EU are now looking into the remarks of people, they aren't any where near lawsuit territory, they aren't even near an official investigation even let alone a lawsuit lol.

 

So now lets change the story a bit since everything seems to be in a foot deep of mud. Right, that is what Kyle is doing, taking a shovel and digging into mud.  How is he changing his own story? keep reading.

 

Now they are trying to say it limits choice?  What choice, consumers have no choice now how things should be branded lol, not when the brands are all owned by separate entities.  Please they should put themselves in a situation like this.  If Kyle's website co branded with another smaller website, and that other smaller website decides to promote a 3rd website that directly competitive to [H], would Kyle want that to happen?  I mean he is putting his [H] name up there for a co branding, so his site and the one he has an agreement with get more popularity, at the end that effort and energy goes and helps out his competition lol.

 

Its kinda goofy when people don't understand the logistics of who owns what and what they are doing for each other.

 

AMD is a barking dog they are using their "fans" to do their talking for them.  They are using [H] and Kyle to get that done.  Kyle is doing it to get hits, because its a controversial topic, which he created by using loaded terms which don't have any correlation with what is actually going on.  He can't compare it to what Intel has done to AMD back in the day, that was an incorrect assumption again. 

 

Two or more mistakes don't make a right.

 

No one likes a barking dog, everyone wants to muzzle the barking dog or worse. 

 

Things like "rebellion" "freedom", crap like that are the worst things to ever use in ad campaigns.  I don't even know WTF AMD is thinking!  How are these people allowed to do what they do with AMD's blessing with their ads, its pathetic.  Those types of ads insight instinctual behavior based on propaganda in most people.  And is frowned upon by advertising professionals in general.  Does Kyle really think he knows shit about the market he is in, he would know this, I'm sure he does know it, since he brought it up with the Rebellion campaign AMD did, why isn't he doing it now?

 

Why is Kyle taking one side and not shooting down BOTH sides?  I see a HUGE ass agenda for [H] and Kyle, he wants hits and doesn't matter how is going to get it.  Throw as much shit up there, and start changing what he initially wrote till something sticks.

 

He is now accusing of nV of continuously lying, That right there, is what he did, he made things up based on conjecture, in effect lying.  nV stated what they wanted from GPP, and told other review sites, they want a solo brand for their cards.

 

PS AMD is not competitive in the GPU side of things at all!