Hercules Slams nvidia

[whql]

This is one for the "xxx drops AIT" crowd

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16308

The increasing impression I was getting was that add-in board 'partners' are essentially treated like pawns by the two major graphics companies.

As if in confirmation of this, Francois was scathing about Nvidia. He said that "having Nvidia as a partner was like having someone spit on you and call you an asshole". He then told me about a meeting with Nvidia's CEO Jen Hsun Huang where Hercules was left with the distinct impression that Jen Hsun wanted it to have little or no brand identity and to simply conform and do Nvidia's bidding.

Last October we ran a story about AMD laying down the law for its partners, and the documents we saw - mentioned in that article - seem to back up what Francois was saying.

By contrast Francois said that doing business with ATI was a much more friendly affair.

He claimed that almost every time he got a phone call from Nvidia he knew that no matter what he had done, it was always going to be an unpleasant call, and usually one where it was trying to pressure Hercules to do something in Nvidia's interests.

 

[Evildeus]

Well, why didn't he continue with his friends?

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Well, why didn't he continue with his friends?

It says in the rest of the article - the competition was too tough to make a profit, the market and products shifting at high speed, and the IHVs don't let you differentiate your product. As an OEM, you are just a footsoldier caught up in the big war between Nvidia and ATI.

 

[Evildeus]

I know why, i'm french and Hercules is a french company. What's the point of having friends if it only put you out of business?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Wow, and before I even showered or shaved!

Time to go piss off nVidia for the day.... 8)

 

[AlphaWolf]

I know why, i'm french and Hercules is a french company. What's the point of having friends if it only put you out of business?

Well given their respective relationships if hercules ever decided to reenter the graphics market in the future which products do you think they would choose to carry?

Hercules didn't fold, they just don't make graphics cards for now at least.

 

[Evildeus]

I would say, the one that gives them the best profit

 

[AlphaWolf]

Well of course you would.

However, it's not above (even large) corporations to hold a grudge.

 

[Evildeus]

Sure, if the difference is thin, i would go with the one i have better relationship.

That being said, it's not because some corporation is friendly at one time that it will be in the future

 

[BetrayerX]

I believe those comments go back to the Kyro days.

 

[WaltC]

It says in the rest of the article - the competition was too tough to make a profit, the market and products shifting at high speed, and the IHVs don't let you differentiate your product. As an OEM, you are just a footsoldier caught up in the big war between Nvidia and ATI.

The thing is that the AIB's don't want to spend much on R&D and driver support--they want all of that to come from the companies from which they purchase their reference design licenses, if not the hardware itself, which they put into their own boxes with their own manuals and packing materials... Under those circumstances it's not hard to see how the IHVs would have to be strict in laying down the law.

OTOH, if the AIB partners would undertake their own driver development support if they wished to deviate from the reference design in interesting ways, and were willing to absolve the IHV of responsibility (ie, a "you make it to our specs and we'll support it," kind of thing), then I'd imagine things would be somehwat more lax. But the AIB partners look to the reference design IHVs for drivers, support, and often these days for warranties, not to mention that many of them just buy cards and repackage them. So in a real sense they are merely extensions of the IHVs, because they are so dependent on them.

But being realistic, the bar for doing custom 3d implementations is pretty high these days, and most of the AIB companies like Hercules don't have the money and expertise to do that kind of thing--the burden of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on R&D necessarily falls on the primary IHVs because the AIB OEMs can't afford it. Even the big AIB OEMs like Asus, for instance, vary little from the basic reference design as it is just too costly and the pace of competition-driven change too brisk to justify it.

But with nVidia, especially during its delusionary period circa GF4 introduction through most of last year, I can believe these comments, since it's obvious nVidia didn't believe it had 3d competition and could pretty much dictate at will to AIB OEMs who, nVidia believed, had no alternatives other than nVidia if they wanted to remain in the business. I would imagine the injection of ATi over the last 20 months has served to pull nVidia's "feet" closer to earth than they've been since the company propsered as the result of 3dfx's complete mismanagement failures a few years ago, and nVidia got the initial xBox contract. A hard line from nVidia is likely to get the company nowhere in a hurry these days, though, and so I'd expect a sea change in nVidia's dealings with its AIB OEMs--if nVidia wants to remain in this business...

Still, what we're seeing though is evidence of a vigorous, expanding market in which competition and investment are fierce, and the more sedate of the AIB OEMs will probably fall away. New ones will emerge as well as older ones consolodating their positions and improving them. Right now, though, I'd say the 3d-chip markets are healthier than they've ever been and competition is more keen than I ever recall it, even at the height of the 3dfx-nVidia wars circa 1999-2000. That's all good news, I think.

 

[Zod]

I think nvidia are well rid of Hercules, the company that (in its previous incarnation) sold an overclocked TNT2 Ultra with a high failure rate and then (in its current incarnation) sold GeForce 2GTS cards with non-functioning DVI outputs. In addition, its cards have always been overpriced and overhyped.

 

[WaltC]

I think nvidia are well rid of Hercules, the company that (in its previous incarnation) sold an overclocked TNT2 Ultra with a high failure rate and then (in its current incarnation) sold GeForce 2GTS cards with non-functioning DVI outputs. In addition, its cards have always been overpriced and overhyped.

Part of that was expressly nVidia's fault, though, since it shipped TNT2 review boards to sites like THG and Sharky Extreme which were overclocked to 175MHz, and the actual shipping clock was revealed as 125MHz when the boards finally shipped a couple of months later, IIRC. nVidia is still doing the same thing, as we saw with the so-called 450Mhz 6800U-E's nVidia air-mailed to certain websiters JIT for their R420 reviews. In the case of the TNT2, though, and Hercules, it was nVidia that kept insisting that "some of them" could be clocked to 175MHz--before they coined the silly, meaningless, "golden sample" phrase (purely a marketing gimmick.) Hercules was sort of stupid, though, since nVidia was never guaranteeing the chips for 175MHz operation--no matter what nVidia's PR department was saying to the contrary.

 

[karlotta]

I think nvidia are well rid of Hercules, the company that (in its previous incarnation) sold an overclocked TNT2 Ultra with a high failure rate and then (in its current incarnation) sold GeForce 2GTS cards with non-functioning DVI outputs. In addition, its cards have always been overpriced and overhyped.

 

[MrBond]

Certainly looks like Herc left ATI on much more amicable terms. They wanted to differentiate their boards from the others, ATI preferred conformity (probably to protect the brand more than anything). Different yet understandable priorities.

I hope they come back though, I wouldn't have minded buying a Hercules card

 

[TheMightyPuck]

AIB manufacturers need to find the most cost effective ways to create brand identity and add value (i think there is going to be a steep diminishing returns function the more you try to change things from the reference design). Given the product life cycle there is simply no way that an AIB is going to expend engineering resources to improve on the core design or drivers. Instead they will fool around with different colored PCBs, flashing lights, and cooling solutions. Although the theoretical business model for a company like Nvidia is to sell chips to AIB manufacturers, the reality is that they sell designs (chips included). I don't know much about the low end market (and things could be different there since the technology has had time to filter down and an AIB could conceivably have improved on the reference design) but in the mid and high end, the name on the box is almost meaningless. Nobody thinks of graphic cards these days in terms other than Nvidia and ATI (and some few others). AIB's can niche out with "golden sample" products or innovative cooling solutions but that's about it. The only other option they have is bundling. I always love reading "card shootout" reviews where every card gets the same scores. If an AIB can compete on price, distribution model (having shelf space in every best buy and compusa is nice) or niche features (like passive cooling) they can do ok but otherwise they are stuck in the awkward position of being lumped in with their competitors (who also sell Nvidia) with the knowledge that a good portion of any money they spend marketing their brand is also going to benefit said competitors (because they are really marketing the Nvidia brand). I confess that I haven't worked in the AIB biz so I am merely speculating, but I would not want to be in the AIB biz right now unless I had some huge competitive advantage like sourcing costs or solid relationships with major retailers.