ASRock Phantom Gaming Graphics Card series not allowed in EU

[Nicnac]

AMD blocked the release of the new ASRock Phantom Gaming series Graphics cards in Europe recently.

As you know we already talked about ASRock entering the graphics card market as an AMD only AIB Partner with an RX series lineup.

Now, these products seem to be only made available for Chinese Markets. It is speculated at least, since AMD wants to grow that market especially.

People who said before that the series might be for gaming cafes only might be on the right track here, but again, lots of speculation.

All we know for sure is that ASRock reached out to german Tom's and asked how exactly they got their review sample and stated that this model or any other from the phantom gaming series will not be available for the EU market.

 

German Article:

Spoiler

So heißt es in einem aktuellen Bericht von Tom's Hardware Deutschland, dass man von Asrock kontaktiert worden sei, nachdem man zuvor einen Test der RX 580 Phantom Gaming X veröffentlich hatte. In der Anfrage hakte Asrock nach, wie man in den Besitz der Grafikkarte kam, denn eigentlich ist der Verkauf in Europa nicht vorgesehen. AMD hat diesem einen Riegel vorgeschoben.

Translated (roughly):

Quote

In a recent article on Tom's Hardware Germany it is stated that they have been contacted by Asrock, after publishing the RX580 Phantom Gaming X review. Asrock asked specifically how they got the card, since the sale in Europe is not planned. AMD has blocked this.

Kinda sad, but then again probably not too many people who were interested in these cards specifically, anyways.

 

 

Sources:

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/AMD-Radeon-Grafikkarte-255597/News/Asrock-Phantom-Gaming-AMD-erteilt-Verkaufsverbot-in-Europa-1255860/

http://www.tomshardware.de/amd-asrock-grafikkarten-europa-nicht_verfugbar,news-259293.html

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

wow, uhh, is that temporary? ._. that sucks

Yeah, that card looks cool.

[AresKrieger]

I kinda like the simple design, and assuming the PCB is decent I'm surprised by this decision as I don't see a reason to not sell it at least online globally. Though that ^ is an assumption, I can understand not selling at retail locations though due to logistic costs, taxes also might be a major factor in this decision.

[Curufinwe_wins]

23 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

I kinda like the simple design, and assuming the PCB is decent I'm surprised by this decision as I don't see a reason to not sell it at least online globally. Though that ^ is an assumption, I can understand not selling at retail locations though due to logistic costs, taxes also might be a major factor in this decision.

It's probably because existing AIBs don't want their market share undercut by Asrock.

 

[Techstorm970]

AMD, u no fun all of a sudden.

[Nicnac]

3 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Omg AMD pulling off anti-competitive, anti-consumer moves against Nvidia. Riot!

^_....wat....

[vanished]

6 hours ago, Nicnac said:

AMD blocked the release of the new ASRock Phantom Gaming series Graphics cards in Europe recently.

Quote

ASRock Phantom Gaming Graphics Card series not allowed in EU

Well which is it?  EU or Europe?  Kind of an important distinction there lol

 

Spoiler

Europe:

 

EU:

And this doesn't even appear to be updated for the UK having left

 

[Murasaki]

Good, keep those ugly things away from me! (dont hurt me)

[ARikozuM]

SJW's have banned the beauty of ASRock's GPU from entering the bland market of Strixxes (I'm assuming Asus is "edgy" enough to add an 'x' for the plural) and "gaming" Dragons.

[Guest The Viking]

I guess it's more about Sapphire's market share. Here in Europe either it's Sapphire or MSI/Asus/Gigabyte, XFX bit less.

 

Like EVGA nvidia cards are mainly US and hard to come by here?

[Nicnac]

53 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Well which is it?  EU or Europe?  Kind of an important distinction there lol

 

  Hide contents

Europe:

 

EU:

And this doesn't even appear to be updated for the UK having left

 

You are correct. there is a difference between the European Union and Europe ^^

 

One article says Europe, another EU so can't be sure really, though the more "original" one says EU only so that's probably true.

 

UK has not YET left  

 

 

[vanished]

8 minutes ago, Nicnac said:

You are correct. there is a difference between the European Union and Europe ^^

 

One article says Europe, another EU so can't be sure really, though the more "original" one says EU only so that's probably true.

 

UK has not YET left  

 

 

Without knowing anything about this, I would suspect it's EU since any sort of issues with sales are almost certainly legal in nature, and not geographical/physical.

[Nicnac]

3 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Without knowing anything about this, I would suspect it's EU since any sort of issues with sales are almost certainly legal in nature, and not geographical/physical.

I agree, but I'm just here quoting news man ... 

[Okjoek]

4 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Omg AMD pulling off anti-competitive, anti-consumer moves against Nvidia. Riot!

 

[Notional]

AMD GPU's have little foot hold in asien markets. When a mass influx of chinese went onto the steam platform a few months ago, we saw a huge surge of NVidia cards, skewing the numbers a LOT (also had to do with steams flawed system, which is now patched). AMD and Asrock went together to try and change that. So Asrock was always supposed to focus on the asien markets, and not in the EU (and probably not US either?).

[Notional]

5 minutes ago, App4that said:

Not how you worded it. 

Not the point, and doesn't make any difference. Numbers that came out of China were skewed. Even took Valve a few months to find out why.

[App4that]

2 minutes ago, Notional said:

Not the point, and doesn't make any difference. Numbers that came out of China were skewed. Even took Valve a few months to find out why.

I use 3 PCs every day, with Steam. How should Steam count that? Is it the PC or the user?

 

You were wickedly ethnocentric my man. Wickedly. 

[Notional]

7 minutes ago, App4that said:

I use 3 PCs every day, with Steam. How should Steam count that? Is it the PC or the user?

 

You were wickedly ethnocentric my man. Wickedly. 

No, I was being factual. I even sourced the statement. Go read it and look at the figures. If you don't like Chinese for some reason, blame Valve. I don't even know what you're trying to argue anymore.

[AlwaysFSX]

12 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Omg AMD pulling off anti-competitive, anti-consumer moves against Nvidia. Riot!

>when Nvidia doesn't have to do anything to restrict AMD's graphics cards sales

>lols

[asus killer]

9 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Without knowing anything about this, I would suspect it's EU since any sort of issues with sales are almost certainly legal in nature, and not geographical/physical.

that would be kind of pointless, it would be stupidly simple for a German to just physically buy the card from a store in Switzerland for example, and everyone else to just order online from there.

 

 

 

I didn't get it, is it a card just for sale in China or is it a card that just doesn't sell in Europe/EU? what about the rest of the world? this guy from australia got one

if it's just Europe, AMD are really being assholes. 

[App4that]

8 minutes ago, Notional said:

No, I was being factual. I even sourced the statement. Go read it and look at the figures. If you don't like Chinese for some reason, blame Valve. I don't even know what you're trying to argue anymore.

I'd be in pretty big trouble if I didn't like Chinese, as anyone who's read this can guess.

 

You cited the Steam survey, I asked you a question as to how it should count. Should it be counting the hardware, or what hardware users use?

[Doobeedoo]

Odd move but oh well tough. Whwt matters is that AMD shows new GPU and prices get back to normal in general. 

[DragonTamer1]

I thought they had blocked it because of some kind of legal hoops they had to jump through but I don't live in the EU so I know nothing about imports there.

 

I definitely want to hear more about it.

[Razor01]

13 minutes ago, DragonTamer1 said:

I thought they had blocked it because of some kind of legal hoops they had to jump through but I don't live in the EU so I know nothing about imports there.

 

I definitely want to hear more about it.

Asrock is a Taiwanese company, they would have the same hoops to jump through as ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte.

[DragonTamer1]

9 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

Asrock is a Taiwanese company, they would have the same hoops to jump through as ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte.

That's what I thought, I just didn't know if the EU had some kind of registration process for new products. I don't see why they would but it was a consideration of mine.