What Is Nvidia's GPP (GeForce Partnership Program)?

[Guest]

Nvidia wants you to believe in the GeForce brand.

What Is Nvidia's GPP (GeForce Partnership Program)? : Read more

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

It's a ploy to lock you into just Nvidia cards , not right.

 

[derekullo]

Sounds like the mafia selling "Optional Protection Insurance".

 

[shrapnel_indie]

TH is a little slow on getting to this, but they did get to it

From what I understand, yeah... the non-exclusive boast only seems to apply to the non-gaming cards. i.e. "you can release all the GPU cards you want of brands x, y, and z along with "ours," but when it comes to your gaming line, you absolutely must side with us, and only us" type thing, while promoting loudly the non-exclusive part.

Just like the HardOCP piece, you're going to have a hard time finding someone going on record (for whatever reason.) I assume for fear of breaking NDAs, retaliation, or some other reason that could hurt their bottom line. AMD has them nervous, and they are ready and willing to enact anti-competitive practices to ensure they minimize real AND potential damages.

Some are already dismissing this potential anti-competitive activity and its half-truth non-exclusivity statement. Partly because AMD shopped it around, and that the HardOCP piece said there wasn't solid evidence provided. (Well, there was enough to suggest further investigation, but not enough to actually call them on it.) Also, some are willing to ignore the reputation of HardOCP just because nobody was willing to go on record, but divulged info under the condition of anonymity. Part of it is also the fan-boy aspect refusing to accept that NVidia is nervous about AMD, even though their best this last round wasn't enough to beat the GTX 1080Ti and the Titan series.

 

[dudmont]

Several thoughts, what's to stop any of the companies from coming up with a second gaming "brand" that only employs AMD GPUs? or, hiving off a new company altogether that only uses AMD GPUs? For what it's worth, it doesn't matter that much right now anyways, none of us are getting any new GPUs due to AMDs supply issues and the mining craze.

 

[redgarl]

Smell like the Mother Of All Program (MOAP) from intel. It seems like an attempt to monopolize the market.

 

[redgarl]

Several thoughts, what's to stop any of the companies from coming up with a second gaming "brand" that only employs AMD GPUs? or, hiving off a new company altogether that only uses AMD GPUs? For what it's worth, it doesn't matter that much right now anyways, none of us are getting any new GPUs due to AMDs supply issues and the mining craze.

It is totally insane, the Rx 580 4GB cost around 600 CAD. It is not even a complicated card to manufacture. I am trying to buy one for my standalone 1080p rig, but I am not going to lay 600 CAD for a 580.

It is crazy that they are selling even at these prices.

 

[Math Geek]

Several thoughts, what's to stop any of the companies from coming up with a second gaming "brand" that only employs AMD GPUs? or, hiving off a new company altogether that only uses AMD GPUs?

that was exactly my thought as well. so now Asus is nvidia cards and Asis is amd cards. lol

but it sure looks like an anti-competitive move to me and a thinly veiled one at that. AMD sure has them scared. hard for folks to remember, but AMD specifically stated they were not going for the top of the market. they wanted to hit the low/middle part of the market hard and fast and they succeeded pretty well. clearly nvidia is scared and are trying to prevent AMD from getting further grips on that piece of the pie.

 

[-Fran-]

Several thoughts, what's to stop any of the companies from coming up with a second gaming "brand" that only employs AMD GPUs? or, hiving off a new company altogether that only uses AMD GPUs? For what it's worth, it doesn't matter that much right now anyways, none of us are getting any new GPUs due to AMDs supply issues and the mining craze.

Market size and positioning.

AMD, like it or not, is not at the same level as nVidia in brand recognition. Also, nVidia commands like 90% of the gaming market? This is a big squeeze they're doing to their partners, just because they can. There's a lot of statistical data that say a person that has brand A will most likely keep on buying brand A when all other conditions are similar to purchasing brand B. In the GPU sector, you know nVidia has always a little edge over AMD, so market conditions are there for most of nVidia's user base to stay with them. That is a huge amount of money and nVidia knows it. Their partners also want part of that money pot, so they just bend over.

Cheers!

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Nothing mentioned in this article is part of anything I have an issue with. The part I have an issue with is the alleged part where partners get an earlier provisioning of GPUs and engineering assistance before non partners. That can make or break the companies that aren't propperly diversified, forcing them into the program. That is the noncompetitive part. Now, this is all alleged as there is no proof of it, but with no one in the industry talking about it, for whatever reasons (NDA, fear of reprisal, thinking it is nonsense, what have you) we may never know if it is true or not.

 

[10tacle]

So am I to that as an AIB partner like ASUS that carries its ROG STRIX label with both AMD and GPUs as well as ROG motherboards and laptops are no longer going to be allowed to do that - and will have to come up with a unique name for their Nvidia GPUs? That is unfair business practice. I've always been for Team Green but this move may push me to go to Team Red for my next GPU. I will not support market manipulation like that even though I'm probably two years at least away from needing another GPU upgrade on my 1440p gaming rig.

 

[Vosgy]

I can understand the desire to keep the branding separate from their competition. I see many people who don't frequent sites like this that will say STRIX or Aorus are great products and their friends should buy them. Then the friend goes out and gets a GPU, but doesn't know to get a 580 or a 1070. ASUS and Gigabyte don't really care they still get money, but in this case the money could go to either team.
Nvidia appear to be attempting to make sure that their products don't get conflated with their competition.

As for the other benefits, I guess we'll wait and see what arises, as some have said it may not be a good thing.

 

[carlojoselitoch42]

I will never ever patronize NVIDIA Products for my next GPU Upgrade let alone monitor upgrade. I am currently using their old GTX 660 Ti and it is having difficulties to hold up in Windows 10 and in the latest triple A games. I am eyeing out AMD Radeon RX 580 for my next GPU.

 

[alextheblue]

"Nvidia has not responded to our requests for comment, and OEMs aren't talking, either."

Yeah this should pretty much tell you all you need to know about their latest marketing cash, tech sharing, early chip allotment program.

 

[kallekorhonen1982]

Nvidia has rights under the partner program to all "gaming" brands, so amd cannot have a "gaming" brand under gigabyte, asus, etc. Partners that are under GPP must produce only Nvidia "gaming" cards, if they create a new gaming brand it too has to be aligned under Nvidias control..

 

[kallekorhonen1982]

Just roamed around my countrys pc-webstores. Seems the nvidias 1060, 1070 and 1080 gaming branded cards have come up in price sbout 100€ across the board in 3-4 weeks.

Seems now that nvidia has the control over gaming brands, the prices have begun to rise. And not come down due to mining being not as profitable, like some tech sources have been claming.

So dont expect nvidia to give you any slack over the pricing under this monopolistic program.

 

[10tacle]

Seems now that nvidia has the control over gaming brands, the prices have begun to rise. And not come down due to mining being not as profitable, like some tech sources have been claming. So dont expect nvidia to give you any slack over the pricing under this monopolistic program.

Not true. There are several factors with why prices are high and stocks limited beyond miners and it's been going on for a while. One is the increased demand of memory chips with an increased smart phones demand, specifically among Apple and Samsung. This is further putting loads on manufacturing output between different types of memory they make (GDDR4 for smart phones, GDDR5 for GPUs). Samsung has stated they are forecasting shipment demand for memory chips, and said they expect DRAM and NAND flash chip shipments to increase by about 20% and 40% respectively in 2018 over 2017. That is HUGE.

Another big reason is that there has been a massive increase in the popularity of the online game PUBG, especially in the Chinese market, which has caused a spike of video card demand. There are some other smaller impacting reasons like Samsung's recent power outage in a fabrication facility that halted production. While that outage only lasted thirty minutes, it ruined 3.5% of the global NAND supply for March as the chips had to be destroyed. So Samsung had to focus resources on that operation recovery taking away DRAM resources. All of these factors, big and small and in-between, have come together in a perfect storm for higher GPU prices.

 

[kallekorhonen1982]

In my country i can still get ANY of the 1000 series Nvidia cards, they are available. Amd prices havent gone up, and they are the only cards nearly out of stock here.

So Nvidia at least here has no shortage on products, i can get any 1050/ti, 1060, 1070, 1080/ti product i want, but they are way overpriced and climbing up.

Amd here has lovered their prices around 20€-30€ or kept them stable for the past 3 months, but have little amount of stock available in stores or none.

And the cards that are coming to the stores by Amd have no gaming brand on them. No ROG, No Gaming X , No Aorus , Etc. The only ones i picked up are Armor, Dual and OC labeled.

 

[Co BIY]

I suspect that Nvidea is also selling a lot more cards through it's own channels than previously. I am seeing a lot of NIB Founders edition cards on my local craigslist. I can see that and a general chip shortage scaring the boards partners.