Whose card is it, anyway?

[jhsachs]

I've long known that most vendors of graphics cards use chips made by a few specialized companies, but I've noticed something that makes me wonder about the relationship between board vendors and chip vendors. If you look at used graphics adapters on eBay, the pictures often show a detailed view of the circuit board. In some cases the adapter is advertised as a product of one vendor (e.g. EVGA) and that vendor's name is on the card's shell, but the chip maker's name (e.g. NVIDIA) is on the circuit board.

In these cases the "chip vendor" seems to be selling the whole core of the adapter, not just a chipset and firmware. At most, the "card vendor" adds the connectors, bracket, fan, and shell, and stamps its name on the card. Which makes me wonder why either vendor bothers.

If you're familiar with the graphics adapter industry (not just the technology), I'm interested in your comments or insights on this.

 

[delaro]

Nvidia doesn't just sell chips, they have PCB's made to order. Not all companies make their products, they contract for it.

 

[ShadyHamster]

The vendors either buy the whole PCB in which they either sell it as a founders edition or they put their own cooler on it (this is usually in a blower cooler or AIO), or they buy only the chips and build their own custom PCB.

 

[gergguy]

If the card you are referring to is an EVGA card with NVIDIA's name on the circuit board. I believe EVGA is the manufacturer for NVIDIA's reference cards so they probably don't bother to change the printing on the PCB of their own aftermarket cards. Just guessing here

 

[Sam Hain]

I've long known that most vendors of graphics cards use chips made by a few specialized companies, but I've noticed something that makes me wonder about the relationship between board vendors and chip vendors. If you look at used graphics adapters on eBay, the pictures often show a detailed view of the circuit board. In some cases the adapter is advertised as a product of one vendor (e.g. EVGA) and that vendor's name is on the card's shell, but the chip maker's name (e.g. NVIDIA) is on the circuit board.

In these cases the "chip vendor" seems to be selling the whole core of the adapter, not just a chipset and firmware. At most, the "card vendor" adds the connectors, bracket, fan, and shell, and stamps its name on the card. Which makes me wonder why either vendor bothers.

If you're familiar with the graphics adapter industry (not just the technology), I'm interested in your comments or insights on this.

It's more cost-effective for NV (for example) to sell to vendors and let THEM make the investments and be accountable for the add-ons; power, cooling, BIOS-mods, OC'ing, warranty, packaging, specialized manufacturing equipment for the aforementioned as applicable, etc.

Plus, it allows for more varied competition... Not only at a performance-level but at a monetary level one as well. This is a bonus for the vendors and NV, AMD, etc.