nVidia ends GeForce Partner Program

[Drak3]

4 minutes ago, ImNotDeViLzzz said:

Nvidia for bringing about PhysX and more

Nvidia bought PhysX, just to hinder AMD/ATI GPUs for GPU accelerated PhysX.

[ImNotDeViLzzz]

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

Nvidia bought PhysX, just to hinder AMD/ATI GPUs for GPU accelerated PhysX.

Yes I know about that and that is why I included the word, more, also in my statement.

[Drak3]

Just now, ImNotDeViLzzz said:

Yes I know about that and that is why I included the word, more, also in my statement.

Yeah most of the technology thought to be of Nvidia's making have just been things they bought from dying competitors.

Tensor cores are the only exception I can think of, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's also not even remotely original either.

[Razor01]

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

I'm not even talking about any of this at all though, that's not the point. Like I said way back I have no idea how far I have no issue with Nvidia having branding requirements as part of their partnership and supply contracts. The how is important.

 

ROG is a huge brand it's not inconsequential and people buy ROG products over others all the time, yes people may want a GeForce GPU but they have options from multiple AIBs and that is where ROG comes in.

 

ROG was not created for Nvidia or for an Nvidia product.

 

 http://edgeup.asus.com/2016/10-years-republic-gamers-history-innovation/

 

The first ever ROG product was an AMD motherboard.

 

So you can stop with the down playing of ROG and AIB brands because they mean a lot, these companies invest a fair decent amount of money in to their brands and utilize funds from many different vendors to bolster them. They have never belonged to Nvidia, Intel, AMD etc and Nvidia didn't gain ownership over them with GPP they only gained exclusivity to them, for GPUs only, and that is the part I don't agree with.

 

I have a very specific issue, there rest you or others keep bringing up I'm not that interested in. Nvidia wants exclusive branding stump up and create it not take it, it's not theirs.

 

Again this is not about GeForce or Nvidia's market share, it's about AIBs and their products. I buy ROG over other products, others may prefer another brand and this is what it is about.

 

 

Ah why were the AIB's pissed off with nV doing FE boards then?

 

You do realize they were worried about nV going into retail for themselves.

 

ROG's first product was an SLI nforce motherboard.

 

Now what graphics card do you have right now, and if you could only get the other IHV's (which is NOT equivalent in all metrics) card in the ROG brand would you buy that ROG card?

 

Right you are not interested, you don't care because its not your product that you are licensing to another company to sell lol, nV does or did care because it was there product that was being licensed and sold that these partners are making money on.

[Notional]

5 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Nvidia bought PhysX, just to hinder AMD/ATI GPUs for GPU accelerated PhysX.

Speaking of PhysX: Advanced PhysX (the proprietary GPU crap, not the basic CPU stuff) has been discontinued. It's dead!

 

He's a Warframe game dev.

[pas008]

10 hours ago, Drak3 said:

Nvidia bought PhysX, just to hinder AMD/ATI GPUs for GPU accelerated PhysX.

Yeah they bought out aegis physx to hinder others with something they don't even push lol

[Razor01]

10 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Yeah most of the technology thought to be of Nvidia's making have just been things they bought from dying competitors.

Tensor cores are the only exception I can think of, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's also not even remotely original either.

Seriously they made that product for their GPU's, they didn't make it so everyone can use it on their own GPU's, AMD/ATi went to other physics simulation software like Bullet and Intel had Havok prior to MS buying that out.

[leadeater]

30 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

Ah why were the AIB's pissed off with nV doing FE boards then?

What has that got to do with what I'm talking about, stay on point. Seriously why is it so hard to stick to the point, but this but that, not important. Nvidia making graphics cards and directly selling them, those are Nvidia's products. Asus's graphics cards are Asus's, not a hard concept.

 

Not to mention that directly shows even more why the AIBs own the products and not Nvidia otherwise there would be no reason to get annoyed.

 

30 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

You do realize they were worried about nV going into retail for themselves.

Irrelevant to what I'm discussing.

 

30 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

ROG's first product was an SLI nforce motherboard.

ROG first product was a motherboard designed by Asus, had an nForce chipset as one of many components, for an AMD CPU where they had to follow AMD's license agreements on design. That chipset could have been replaced by another chipset but at the time nForce 590 was the best part available with the best features so was used on the product as the point was to make the best motherboard possible. In no way is that motherboard an Nvidia motherboard.

 

30 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

Now what graphics card do you have right now, and if you could only get the other IHV's (which is NOT equivalent in all metrics) card in the ROG brand would you buy that ROG card?

You couldn't, ROG belongs to Asus and only Asus. You'll never get it from anyone but them. ROG is Asus's premium brand where you know their best designs and high end products go, from graphics cards to monitors, laptops, motherboard etc. If I see an ROG graphics card and it has either an Nvidia GPU or Radeon GPU in it I know that the graphics card itself is one of their high end products. Pushing AMD graphics cards out of this branding removes them from known premium brand so how do you instinctively know that it's a good product now and not a lesser one from Asus that they do also sell.

 

Edit:

And if you have this issue with every AIB the customer might just give up and buy a graphics card with an Nvidia GPU in it from one of those premium brands because they know and trust them.

[Razor01]

32 minutes ago, leadeater said:

What has that got to do with what I'm talking about, stay on point. Seriously why is it so hard to stick to the point, but this but that, not important. Nvidia making graphics cards and directly selling them, those are Nvidia's products. Asus's graphics cards are Asus's, not a hard concept.

 

Not to mention that directly shows even more why the AIBs own the products and not Nvidia otherwise there would be no reason to get annoyed.

 

Irrelevant to what I'm discussing.

 

ROG first product was a motherboard designed by Asus, had an nForce chipset as one of many components, for an AMD CPU where they had to follow AMD's license agreements on design. That chipset could have been replaced by another chipset but at the time nForce 590 was the best part available with the best features so was used on the product as the point was to make the best motherboard possible. In no way is that motherboard an Nvidia motherboard.

 

You couldn't, ROG belongs to Asus and only Asus. You'll never get it from anyone but them. ROG is Asus's premium brand where you know their best designs and high end products go, from graphics cards to monitors, laptops, motherboard etc. If I see an ROG graphics card and it has either an Nvidia GPU or Radeon GPU in it I know that the graphics card itself is one of their high end products. Pushing AMD graphics cards out of this branding removes them from known premium brand so how do you instinctively know that it's a good product now and not a lesser one from Asus that they do also sell.

 

Edit:

And if you have this issue with every AIB the customer might just give up and buy a graphics card with an Nvidia GPU in it from one of those premium brands because they know and trust them.

 

You can't get an AMD ROG branded or nV ROG branded card that is equivalent to the ROG branded card you have right now?  Is that what you are saying.

 

What I'm getting at, is you have either and nV or AMD card that is rog branded right?

 

If ASUS ROG did not have that GPU manufacturer as an option in their ROG brand but they had the opposing manufacturer's card that isn't remotely equivalent in all metrics, would you get that card instead?  I wouldn't, I would spend my money for the best product I can get for it, and if it comes from MSI, Zotac, EVGA, Sapphire, or others, doesn't matter. AIB doesn't matter to me at all, because what matters to me is what the card can do, and how much it costs, and its warranty time.  I could care less if its called Shit Brand lol, as long as it works and has good components and warranty and service is good, I don't care.

I have 453 cards plus my gaming and dev card, all of them come from different AIB's, some from EVGA, some from PNY, some from Zotac. some from Gigabyte, my gaming system from Asus, its an FE, my dev system, is nV Titan.  I don't see any differences between them outside of audible differences and that isn't much at the end.

 

out all of these cards I only had one issue with a PNY 1070, which they replaced with a 1070ti lol.

 

I rarely even look at premium cards any more, since Maxwell, because the stock stuff overclock and undervolts just as well, the only reason would be noise for me to look at those AIB cards lol. 

 

Personally I don't think the AIB's brands mean anything in the graphics market anymore.  They don't give anything extra for the money you put down on them.

 

EVGA cards I have are more expensive than the other cards but their memory they use overclock the least out of all of them, Gigabyte and PNY overclock the best they were the cheapest.  The GPU overclocks I got the best out of Zotac, which were cheaper than the EVGA's too!  But I'm tuning these cards to make money right? Now if I was gaming, like my 1080ti, I'm happy with what ever extra performance I get from my overclocks for the money I spent, its just extra.  But having experienced what it was with the 1070's, and 1080's, I knew it didn't matter for me to get a specific AIB 1080ti, because what ever I got it was going to end up with 2000mhz core clock with undervolting.   And that is exactly what I got.  I ended up getting it from ASUS, and FE because it was cheaper by 50 bucks and came with Destiny 2, effectively 100 bucks less for me than the other brands.  If EVGA or MSI had the same type of discounts I would have gotten one of those, preferably EVGA because I have had better experience with their RMA process.  But end of the day, I knew it really didn't matter 100 bucks.

 

Lets leave the other things out of it ok.

[leadeater]

19 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

Lets leave the other things out of it ok.

What other things? You're the one constantly bring the other things in. It's really simple and I'll end it here. If it says Asus on the product that's who owns it.

[Razor01]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

What other things? You're the one constantly bring the other things in. It's really simple and I'll end it here. If it says Asus on the product that's who owns it.

 

Asus doesn't own what they sell, they can't sell it as they wish, they are licensed to sell a product.  They have the right to sell, not the ownership of the product.

 

Its just like a software vendor, they have the license to sell that license, they don't own the product.

 

That license grants them certain things, and certain obligations must also be met.  What ever they are.  They don't own it as you and I own as an end user.

 

There was a thread on a guy who bought 50k copies of Windows 10 from China.  he is the owner of those products, but he can't sell those products even at no market up.  Because he is not granted that authority to sell.

 

If Asus doesn't not want to sell they can use the cards they make as they wish lol.

[leadeater]

25 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

Asus doesn't own what they sell, they can't sell it as they wish, they are licensed to sell a product.  They have the right to sell, not the ownership of the product.

Licensing is not product ownership otherwise all graphics card are owned by HDMI. Seriously everything you're trying to say applies to every piece of IP on the graphics card and that is not how licensing works.

 

Otherwise I have an Asus ROG AMD HDMI DisplayPort PCI Express R9 290X graphic card and they all equally own it and all have equal responsibility to warranty and repair the card for any fault on it from any component.

 

Edit:

P.S you just brought in 'other things' which you said you wouldn't which are not equivalent situation.

[Razor01]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Licensing is not product ownership otherwise all graphics card are owned by HDMI. Seriously everything you're trying to say applies to every piece of IP on the graphics card and that is not how licensing works.

 

Otherwise I have an Asus ROG AMD HDMI DisplayPort PCI Express R9 290X graphic card and they all equally own it and all have equal responsibility to warranty and repair the card for any fault on it from any component.

 

Any component so if its a fault of the GPU is it ASUS's responsibility to spend the money to get another GPU, or is it nV's?  This is why the license also stipulates warranty amounts too.  Why do you think EVGA dropped their life time warranties?  They didn't want to drop it, it was because nV didn't want to uphold that anymore.  It was costing nV too much with Fermi.  Fermi had a higher GPU failure rate that previous cards.

[Carclis]

2 hours ago, Razor01 said:

 

Any component so if its a fault of the GPU is it ASUS's responsibility to spend the money to get another GPU, or is it nV's?  This is why the license also stipulates warranty amounts too.  Why do you think EVGA dropped their life time warranties?  They didn't want to drop it, it was because nV didn't want to uphold that anymore.  It was costing nV too much with Fermi.  Fermi had a higher GPU failure rate that previous cards.

That's the point of licensing. If Nvidia did not carry the burden of warranty, among other things, then other companies would have no interest in designing products based on Nvidia's IP because there would be little to no financial incentive. This is why Apple ditched Nvidia when they refused to accept responsibility for their own defects. Nvidia can be very strict with licensing it's IP only because it holds a position as one of two companies in the world with the ability to produce a high-powered GPU. Nvidia sees value in AIB partners and that is why it licenses to them instead of producing their own products. If Nvidia were able to produce something better they would have nothing to do with other companies. How much of the end product is influenced by by Nvidia's IP has no bearing on whose product it is. As long as the terms of the license are being met Asus is free to add value to the intermediate product they were sold, making it their final product.

If this is not the case then Star Wars Battlefront/2 would be a Disney product and my Intel Core i7 7700k would be an AMD product.

 

This is why the GPP failed and why Nvidia chose to end it. Not only was it illegal for Nvidia to dictate how other companies used their IP, especially when the terms involve excluding competition but consumers also rebelled because preferential licensing was hurting the products that Asus and other companies could make.

[Mk7-Golf-R]

On May 4, 2018 at 2:02 PM, Master Disaster said:

They haven't covered their asses from anything, they still rolled the program out, signed up partners and enforced their policies.

 

Ending something illegal doesn't absolve you from doing the illegal thing.

How exactly was it illegal?

[Carclis]

40 minutes ago, Mk7-Golf-R said:

How exactly was it illegal?

I said in the comment right above you. It limited the ability for AIB partners to offer the competitions products by telling them that their gaming IP is disallowed from being paired with any competing products. Legally this is known as misuse of market power.

[pas008]

7 hours ago, Carclis said:

That's the point of licensing. If Nvidia did not carry the burden of warranty, among other things, then other companies would have no interest in designing products based on Nvidia's IP because there would be little to no financial incentive. This is why Apple ditched Nvidia when they refused to accept responsibility for their own defects. Nvidia can be very strict with licensing it's IP only because it holds a position as one of two companies in the world with the ability to produce a high-powered GPU. Nvidia sees value in AIB partners and that is why it licenses to them instead of producing their own products. If Nvidia were able to produce something better they would have nothing to do with other companies. How much of the end product is influenced by by Nvidia's IP has no bearing on whose product it is. As long as the terms of the license are being met Asus is free to add value to the intermediate product they were sold, making it their final product.

If this is not the case then Star Wars Battlefront/2 would be a Disney product and my Intel Core i7 7700k would be an AMD product.

 

This is why the GPP failed and why Nvidia chose to end it. Not only was it illegal for Nvidia to dictate how other companies used their IP, especially when the terms involve excluding competition but consumers also rebelled because preferential licensing was hurting the products that Asus and other companies could make.

with many ip licensing they are required to handle their own distribution and warranties along with many other factors

sometimes even requiring certain parts no matter what

seasonic sells their ip on psus all the time to other companies example xfx and does seasonic handle those rmas?

[Carclis]

15 minutes ago, pas008 said:

with many ip licensing they are required to handle their own distribution and warranties along with many other factors

sometimes even requiring certain parts no matter what

seasonic sells their ip on psus all the time to other companies example xfx and does seasonic handle those rmas?

I already addressed this saying basically that license terms can be negotiated upon and that Nvidia is in more of a unique position.

7 hours ago, Carclis said:

Nvidia can be very strict with licensing it's IP only because it holds a position as one of two companies in the world with the ability to produce a high-powered GPU.

 

[Razor01]

7 hours ago, Carclis said:

That's the point of licensing. If Nvidia did not carry the burden of warranty, among other things, then other companies would have no interest in designing products based on Nvidia's IP because there would be little to no financial incentive. This is why Apple ditched Nvidia when they refused to accept responsibility for their own defects. Nvidia can be very strict with licensing it's IP only because it holds a position as one of two companies in the world with the ability to produce a high-powered GPU. Nvidia sees value in AIB partners and that is why it licenses to them instead of producing their own products. If Nvidia were able to produce something better they would have nothing to do with other companies. How much of the end product is influenced by by Nvidia's IP has no bearing on whose product it is. As long as the terms of the license are being met Asus is free to add value to the intermediate product they were sold, making it their final product.

If this is not the case then Star Wars Battlefront/2 would be a Disney product and my Intel Core i7 7700k would be an AMD product.

 

This is why the GPP failed and why Nvidia chose to end it. Not only was it illegal for Nvidia to dictate how other companies used their IP, especially when the terms involve excluding competition but consumers also rebelled because preferential licensing was hurting the products that Asus and other companies could make.

 

 

Its not illegal, its a contract between nV and its AIB partners, if they agree to it, its up to them lol.

 

And its NOT THEIR PRODUCT if they want to resell it lol, because they don't have the right of ownership at that point! 

 

They have ownership of the license at that point, if they want to behave like an end user, yeah then they own the product, then they can't sell the card though.  As a reseller they must abide by what their contract and license with nV is, if they have MDF, if they have early access, if they are able to overclock, what kind of branding is required, etc.

[Razor01]

13 minutes ago, Carclis said:

I already addressed this saying basically that license terms can be negotiated upon and that Nvidia is in more of a unique position.

 

 

 

And you are calling it illegal, because of its exclusive branding, is BS, we see this all the time in every industry, its not illegal.

 

Does nV have more muscle yes, is it leveraging it yes.  Does it hurt us as consumers by

 

A) removing directly competing products in the market place

B) price manipulation either up or down (below cost)

 

Answer

 

A)  No AMD is just fine, AIB's can buy their cards as they wish, Even with the GPP, just brand them differently

B)  Nope happening

 

The other parts of anti trust like tying, and all that good stuff, just don't even fit the bill.

 

Anti trust laws that make manipulation of marketplace by over all influence of the market, MUST HURT the consumer's ability to buy a directly competing product, an AMD product, not another nV product, they are looked at as the same product just another brand. Or by a direct price manipulation that forces competitors to loose market share since they can't compete on lower prices or high prices which is forcing consumers to empty their pockets.

 

Key words directly hurting the consumer either by price or by competitor choices.  Neither of those are happening.  So it doesn't equate to anything anti trust.

[Carclis]

10 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

Its not illegal, its a contract between nV and its AIB partners, if they agree to it, its up to them lol.

But the choice isn't really theirs to make, is it? If one signs up, they all do because they are substantially less competitive if their competition receives the benefits of the GPP.

13 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

And its NOT THEIR PRODUCT if they want to resell it lol, because they don't have the right of ownership at that point!

Their license terms are not allowed to be discriminatory. That is anybody who meets them is able to create their own products using Nvidia's IP as long as they respect it. The difference here is they brought in a new agreement which compliments and makes the first agreement pointless on its own for the reasons mentioned above. Their agreement also hits companies who do a lot of business with Nvidia, quite hard, or it hits AMD hard if they so choose to sign up to the GPP.

So, why is it illegal then?
From the ACCC:

Quote

Misuse of market power

A business with a substantial degree of power in a market is not allowed to engage in conduct that has the purpose, effect or likely effect of substantially lessening competition in a market. This behaviour is referred to as ‘misuse of market power’. It is not illegal to have, or to seek to obtain market power by offering the best products and services.

 

The possession of market power of itself is not unlawful.

To determine whether there has been a misuse of market power, the courts will likely consider the following questions:

• does the company have substantial market power?
• is it engaging in conduct for the purpose, effect or likely effect of substantially lessening competition?

Substantial market power

Market power is the ability of a business to insulate itself from competition.

The market may be considered by asking three questions:

• which products are sufficiently close substitutes (the relevant product market)?
• which other businesses are sufficiently nearby to compete effectively (the relevant geographic market)?
• what is the functional level of the market (this relates to the stage(s) in the production/distribution process covered by a market)?

Within that market a business’s market power may be determined by a combination of factors such as:

• how difficult it is for competitors to enter the market
• the business’s ability to behave with little regard to what its competitors, suppliers or customers do
• the market share of the business
• the financial strength of the business
• the ability of the business to consistently restrict competition.

Purpose, effect or likely effect

Even with a substantial degree of market power, a firm will only contravene s. 46 if its conduct has the purpose, effect or likely effect of substantially lessening competition in a relevant market.

• ‘Purpose’ refers to a firm’s intention to achieve a particular result. It can be established by direct evidence or by inference. The purpose specified in s. 46 need not be a firm’s only purpose, but it needs to be a substantial purpose.
• ‘Effect’ refers to the direct consequence of a firm’s conduct. This is determined objectively by examining the actual impact on the competitive process within the relevant market. Although not determinative, evidence of consumer or competitive detriment will be relevant to the ACCC’s consideration of whether to pursue a matter.
• ‘Likely effect’ refers to the likely consequences of a firm’s conduct, including its potential impact on the competitive process. ‘Likely’ means that there is a real chance or a possibility that is not remote.

Substantial lessening of competition

It is not illegal to have market power or to use it. Conduct by a business with market power is only a contravention of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (CCA) if it  has the purpose, effect or likely effect of substantially lessening competition.

 

'Substantial' is an important concept in competition and consumer law and it arises in a number of provisions.

'Substantial’ has been defined in case law as large, weighty, big, real or of substance or not insubstantial. However it is not straightforward; the meaning of substantial depends on the context and in a relative sense.

 

An effect is considered to be substantial if it is important or weighty in relation to the size of the particular market.

In Stirling Harbour Services Pty Ltd v Bunbury Port Authority [2000] FCA 38; (2000) ATPR 41-752, Justice French said that to work out whether competition is being substantially lessened...

 

...there [must] be a purpose, effect or likely effect of the impugned conduct on competition which is substantial in the sense of meaningful or relevant to the competitive process.

As you can see, the GPP meets every single requirement that Misuse of Market Power stipulates for it to be called such. Now I'm sure something similar to this exists in the EU as well since that particular region is very heavy on consumer protections. If you need further proof that it's illegal just look at how Nvidia backtracked on the program, and only in two months.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Razor01 said:

And its NOT THEIR PRODUCT if they want to resell it lol, because they don't have the right of ownership at that point! 

They are not a reseller, resale is of a product without modification. Nvidia is a parts supplier contributing to a final product, a graphics card. They are not the sole supplier in the creation of the product or the sole contributor licensee.

 

Nvidia, like other suppliers, has a specification that you must adhere to when creating the product otherwise you are in breach of license and Nvidia will also not warranty that part if it has a fault in the product. If an AIB purchases a 12 volt 8 channel voltage controller as part of their VRM design but the design uses 14 volts and the part fails the voltage controller supplier, International Rectifier as an example, will not warranty that part failure. The AIB must warranty the product at their cost because they went out of allowed specification for the supplied part.

 

When you have a fault with the product you purchased and you RMA the item it goes back to the company that designed and sold that product, either direct sale or through distribution channels. They then assess the product to find the cause of the fault, if it's a GPU fault they, the AIB, report that to the supplier, Nvidia as an example, and Nvidia covers the cost of that part failure under their obligation of warranty. If the fault was with ram then the ram supplier covers the part cost, if it's the cooler then the AIB covers it themselves. At no point in this example does the customer ever deal with Nvidia.

 

I've brought this up more than once to you and you've been unwilling or unable answer this issue. There are multiple suppliers and multiple IP licenses and branding requirements for graphics card from more than just Nvidia, how do you explain your position on the matter without then also having to include say Samsung as the product owner due to their for example GDDR5X memory being used which is a licensed product or the HDMI outputs, another licensed feature.

 

A graphics card is a sum of parts and licenses to create the product, Nvidia contributes only part to that and is only responsible for the parts they contribute. You cannot RMA your faulty graphics card to Nvidia for a VRM fault, not unless you purchased off the Nvidia website which the product being sold to you actually is an Nvidia graphics card which is written on the box and the product is named so, the first word in the product name is Nvidia unlike all other AIB cards where you will find the AIB brand name.

 

You equally cannot create a graphics card product without an Nvidia GPU and license as you cannot without memory, VRMs, HDMI license, PCI Express license, VESA membership etc. The GPU by itself is useless, it is only a part, an important part but a part no less and no more in a product not created by Nvidia.

[pas008]

10 minutes ago, leadeater said:

They are not a reseller, resale is of a product without modification. Nvidia is a parts supplier contributing to a final product, a graphics card. They are not the sole supplier in the creation of the product or the sole contributor licensee.

 

Nvidia, like other suppliers, has a specification that you must adhere to when creating the product otherwise you are in breach of license and Nvidia will also not warranty that part if it has a fault in the product. If an AIB purchases a 12 volt 8 channel voltage controller as part of their VRM design but the design uses 14 volts and the part fails the voltage controller supplier, International Rectifier as an example, will not warranty that part failure. The AIB must warranty the product at their cost because they went out of allowed specification for the supplied part.

 

When you have a fault with the product you purchased and you RMA the item it goes back to the company that designed and sold that product, either direct sale or through distribution channels. They then assess the product to find the cause of the fault, if it's a GPU fault they, the AIB, report that to the supplier, Nvidia as an example, and Nvidia covers the cost of that part failure under their obligation of warranty. If the fault was with ram then the ram supplier covers the part cost, if it's the cooler then the AIB covers it themselves. At no point in this example does the customer ever deal with Nvidia.

 

I've brought this up more than once to you and you've been unwilling or unable answer this issue. There are multiple suppliers and multiple IP licenses and branding requirements for graphics card from more than just Nvidia, how do you explain you position on the matter without then also having to include say Samsung as the product owner due to their for example GDDR5X memory being used which is a licensed product or the HDMI outputs, another licensed feature.

 

A graphics card is a sum of parts and licenses to create the product, Nvidia contributes only part to that and is only responsible for the parts they contribute. You cannot RMA your faulty graphics card to Nvidia for a VRM fault, not unless you purchased off the Nvidia website which the product being sold to you actually is an Nvidia graphics card which is written on the box and the product is named so, the first word in the product name is Nvidia unlike all other AIB cards where you will find the AIB brand name.

 

You equally cannot create a graphics card product without an Nvidia GPU and license as you cannot without memory, VRMs, HDMI license, PCI Express license, VESA membership etc. The GPU by itself is useless, it is only a part, an important part but a part no less and no more in a product not created by Nvidia.

lol so nvidia doesnt have a license to use those to create another ip for their boards to use the chips with ?

[Razor01]

16 minutes ago, pas008 said:

lol so nvidia doesnt have a license to use those to create another ip for their boards to use the chips with ?

 

Exactly, come on, nV's licence gives the right to even create the AIB BOARDS!

 

They can't even create the boards if they don't have that license!  But that license doesn't give them the right to sell those boards without the GPU's!

 

In the past nV and AMD used to package the ram WITH the GPU, they bought the vram and sold it AIB partners!

 

How quick are we to foget about all the way these AIB's make money.

 

You don't get it @leadeater , if AIB's own a product as you say, like you are I, they can do WTF they want with, they can't, they are not allowed to sell in certain regions, they aren't allows to do what ever they want with their boards, they aren't allowed to do what ever they want with the GPU's, they aren't allowed to market in certain ways, YES that is also stipulated in current contracts, remember when nV put a minimum price of adverting for AIB cards?  It was oh a 8 years ago?

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, pas008 said:

lol so nvidia doesnt have a license to use those to create another ip for their boards to use the chips with ?

They do, for Nvidia graphics cards sold on their website which they are responsible for. What are you trying to point out, Nvidia having those licenses doesn't transfer them over to the AIB, the AIB must have them for the products they are creating and selling. It would be illegal for Asus to sell a graphics card with an HDMI output on it without an HDMI licenses irrespective of Nvidia having a license for it or not.

 

You can find a list of every company with HDMI license here, https://www.hdmi.org/learningcenter/adopters_founders.aspx. All AIBs are on this list.