nVidia's GPP program is just a legally enforced GITG from hell?

You are looking at the worst case scenario that may happen according to HardOCP, it is sort of jumping the gun with what we actually know.
According to PCGamesn who managed to get a more detailed response from Nvidia and now on record the partner can use established brands for either AMD or Nvidia and separately all can be gaming branded.
Also in their original article they stated you can have two branches of ROG *shrug* - on the fence with that one myself but we cannot know for sure either way until the program is implemented.

But my post is not about the right/wrongs , it is a reference point and an update by one publication to the expectations Nvidia is blocking the gaming from AMD and also blocking established brands from AMD.
Both issues raised multiple times even in this thread.
Like I mentioned earlier, the truth can only really be seen though once the partner program is implemented by both Asus and MSI who are meant to be confirmed as signing up, until then we can be highly sceptical and critical but it needs to be tempered by known facts, which are scarce.

 

Who is PCGamesN and why are they a seemingly exclusive outlet for Nvidia for this program information?

 

Did anyone read the 1st article that was referenced indirectly via kitguru in this thread by Pharma's post #87
It does not answer your question, but made me smile as they were brought up awhile ago.

More seriously, yeah a valid question and all comes back in some way to the Nvidia gaming marketing division and the way they have totally mishandled this and still are.
Unless one wants to claim PCGamesn is outright lying now with the update and their on record claims with Nvidia, possible but seems madness/professional suicide by the tech journalist and editor to do so after the latest article.
I am curious how they managed to get the information from someone in Nvidia and importantly now allowed to say it officially, but sometimes people owe favours or there is a professional relationship now or in the past, along with getting to speak to the right person.
Dave James the author of both articles seems to have contributed to other large printed tech publications in past, although could be another tech journalist with the same name (seems unlikely though).

One could also say why did Kyle not write explicitely and show the paragraph in his article that is causing the shit storm or exactly how many AIB partners and separately OEM responded (he contacted 7 but not all contributed is all he said).
He may not be able to release the whole contract but as it was leaked relevant information he could the paragraph in question as he is not a signed party; should had been able to check the paragraph was identical from the multiple sources who contributed to his article.
Questions all round tbh.

 

Well that didn't take long - ROG Radeons disappearing and showing up as just ASUS Radeons, Gigabytes gaming boxes branded Aorus for GeForces but not for Radeons etc


The biggest problem is that no matter if NVIDIA has to pay damages at some point, this does serious damage to AMDs reputation as "gaming graphics brand" which no amount of compensation year(s) from now can really fix

 

Fuck Nvidia.

Seriously, just fuck 'em.

Let's see what the apologists have to say now, then.

 

Not sure what is going on, importantly the ASUS website under ROG, AMD still there in all their glory for now.
Microcentre still shows listings ROG for Vega,570, and 580.
Here in the UK various retailers still show ROGs for AMD, including Amazon UK.
Mindfactory in Germany still has AMD with ROG.

Anyone able to comment for other European countries or even more globally?
Newegg themselves has Vega ROG on their site still.

 

Well, it will be hard to prove this is illegal. I doubt there is an history of situations like this one that define legislation for it.

 

Oh ffs, give me a break with the f#%king apologism already!
The changes don't happen overnight, but they're happening in several places already.
Gigabyte's Gaming Boxes are the only new products released by any manufacturer since this GPP surfaced and it includes Aorus only for NVIDIA, it's on their site.
You can find MSI's "Gaming" branded Radeons via Google and even MSI's site search, but if you go Products > Graphics cards > AMD they're nowhere to be seen. For example according to their site there's total of 8 different RX 580 models (couple "basic unbranded" and 6 "Armor" branded - Armor has always been their "2nd grade custom" opposed to the toptier gaming models)

 

The Gigabyte situation is more compelling.
AMD still has GPUs under Aorus branding from 570,580,Vega.
However.
Both those new boxes are called 'Gaming', which is possibly why Gigabyte split them into different brands, but I thought they would restructure the branding rather than just dump a new model called gaming into G1 Gaming.
Although ironically they are in one of the Gaming brands while the Nvidia box is in Aorus, context discussions in this thread were stating Gaming brands sell more than other names.

What no-one seems to have picked up though way before the GPP, Gigabyte already put AMD's 'Gaming' tier bellow Nvidia and is kinda surprising just how strong the brand differentiation is by them even back then.
AMD has G1 Gaming but Nvidia has had Xtreme Gaming for awhile it seems, maybe this was missed in the past for such discussion because both share Aorus but still a problem IMO.

Edit:
Added IMO at end.

 

If you were not so hasty with your conclusions on Reddit maybe you would consider some take time to post to check their information, such as I did with Gigabyte as well, hence the delay in posting that info.
Some of us are actually trying to stay grounded on this situation rather than "£!$!"£$!"£$ as you say and jumping on any anecdotal news, which also included ASUS btw in the post that was linked, suggesting the original content needed scrutiny as it is not fully factual.

 

I haven't even visited reddit, I picked that link from another forum and only saw what it shows embedded.
I did check Gigabytes site for the new products - Aorus Gaming Box for NVIDIA, Gaming Box with no signs of Aorus for AMD. Aorus is their "gaming brand".
I did check MSI's site, search finds the old Gaming Radeons, but their product listing doesn't show them anymore.

How about you stop jumping into conclusions of what research others have or haven't done?

edit: fixed typos

 

You did a post that is jumping to conclusions by linking an anecdotal poster who states the GPP not only affected Gigabyte but also Asus as of now.
Like I said go to Asus or Gigabyte website, relying upon what one sees with Amazon.com rather than more broader that includes Microcenter or the primary retailers in other countries selling AMD GPUs still under those brands or even the primary partner website is jumping to conclusions.

It may happen but for now one needs to look at all the facts.
The only known one is Gigabyte and yes that does raise a concern even though they still sell AMD under Aorus the issue is the new model is called Gaming and so moved.
But then they should had been pointed out much earlier because of the G1 Gaming lower than Xtreme Gaming situation they already do as well and the naming structure of Xtreme with Nvidia.

Edit:
You even said:

That is jumping to conclusions with what we know Gigabyte did due to both boxes also being called Gaming while under Aorus AMD cards are still available (they do not say Gaming).
Let alone that AMD ROG cards are also available Microcenter and other major retailers and still shown on Asus ROG website.
Caveat to reiterate just going by what we know.

Edit:
Corrected bottom with Microcenter

 

You clinge to one post I made with a link to Reddit and completely ignore anything else I've posted since.
Go to the MSI site, go to their products > graphics cards > AMD GPUs. How many "Gaming"-branded models do you see there? You don't, because they removed them from the listings even if you can still find them with search tools.

You can ignore everything like you've done so far, but it doesn't make it less real.

 

I am not clinging, it takes time to go through this properly, like I have for Asus and Gigabyte for now, but you started to accuse me of being an apologist,etc...
Already Asus and Gigabyte situation is not as clear in the context you presented, but yes I will look at MSI as well.

 

MSI changed the Gaming for GPUs well before the GPP news broke but yeah could be related as their primary business is Nvidia.

One thing I am not sure about, anyone confirm the MSI website has changed, I could had sworn it also had more GPU categories than just Nvidia and AMD in the past.
If you really want to be angry with MSI, also consider they advertise only Nvidia along with associated promotions when clicking on the GPU general section.

The biggest concern IMO is beyond branding, I was waiting to see if it does become available early next month but critically for now you cannot get Frzr cooled AMD GPUs.....
This will have a product consumer perception effect and also importantly potentially have an impact on peformance for MSI cards reviewed that are AMD partner related, MSI are good in providing their cards to reviewers, again possibly affecting consumer perception depending how the model performs.
Frzr design is not limited to 'Gaming' name.
Anyone know how many AMD GPUs they sold relative to their Nvidia ones?

 

At least in the E.U., the legislation is usually broad enough to have a judge decide whether the contracts being made are monopolistic moves that harm the consumer or not.

nvidia wants to take over the "High-End Gaming" sub-brands from the major OEMs that sell graphics cards from different IHVs. And they're doing so by offering "special incentives" to the OEMs who join the GPP program.

But determining if these are incentives or actually threats may depend on historical data. Did nvidia historically offer these incentives to all brands who sold their GPUs? If so, then "not offering the incentives" to OEMs who choose not to join the program can be interpreted as coercion.
Or even without the historical data, stating that an AIB who doesn't join GPP is automatically left out from being mentioned during formal announcements for new GPUs, or an AIB who doesn't join GPP automatically gets to the end of the line for getting the new chips definitely sounds like coercion to me.
The way I see it, AIBs get little choice but to join GPP. The market might be relaxed on their end for now because of the mining craze, but once that goes away it'll be cut-throat territory all over again and they'll need the incentives from the IHV with >70% of discrete GPU marketshare.


@Ryan Smith decided to call the issue as "petty from both sides" in a tweet, later stating that's the reason they don't feel it's important enough to cover it.
He's welcome to further explain but I'd say it's for two reasons: a) AIBs can just create sub-brands for AMD products which (in their opinion) won't change the big picture that much and b) it's not a technical issue and AT only very rarely gets into political/legislation/marketing issues.
Now again, AT are definitely technical experts, but not marketing experts IMHO. The problem with a) is that "High-End Gaming" sub-brands (e.g. Asus STRIX/ROG, MSI Gaming, Gigabyte AORUS, etc.) get a substantially larger portion of the total card sales. Which is predictable because the AIBs' marketing money are more focused on said sub-brands.
There's a very well established "price-per-customer" that AIBs have invested in over the last decade, and GPP aims to appropriate this investment to their cards alone, through friendly coercion.

So AMD graphics cards now have to be pushed to new sub-brands whose name no one knows and will have to be built from scratch.
Can this really hurt AMD? Definitely.
When the mining craze gets settled, most PC gamers who are happy with their current ROG STRIX / Gaming X card will probably look for another ROG STRIX / Gaming X card when they return to the store for an upgrade.


So is it petty for nvidia to create contracts that coerce AIBs to appropriate all the marketing efforts for premium gaming sub-brands towards geforce cards? No, IMO it's monopolistic.
Is it petty for AMD to complain about that? Yes from a technical POV. Definitely not from a marketing POV.

Because that pretty much summarizes the majority of your posts in this thread (which started with a weird strawman argument about Sapphire). @Kaotik wasn't the first and won't be the last to point that out.

 

Sapphire situation is NOT a strawman sigh.
They have a higher tier type relationship with AMD over the other AIB partners; I linked showing how one of the biggest retailers in Europe had Sapphire as the majority of their launch cards, had Sapphire as the 1st 580 custom card, amongst other data as well including how they are the reference design partner and also global professional distributor that may possibly include the Vega FE, amongst various other facts pointing they are indeed a preferential partner who also only work with AMD.
But dropping that now as it is nothing to do with the current discussion.

 

There is something "funny" here. When I pointed that AMD allegedly going to change their naming scheme to include the architecture on it (as in Vega 64, Navi 96, etc.) was a bad idea because of diluting the Radeon name, many of you considered it was "fine", no problem at all, or even better! Now that we are talking about OEM brands, which is are variations of the same chip while still having the chip vendor and band name on it, everyone is losing their minds? Not discussing NVidia's intentions, which are certainly not pure and virtuous, but really?

The only thing I see here as a problem is nVIDIA paying/discounting OEMs for ANYTHING. It should not happen as it muddles the waters. Focusing on the issue of brands is really just diverting the attention from that. Hook, line and sinker and that is exactly what nVIDIA marketing genius wanted to divert attention and make it seem less illegal.

 

I do not know Picao84.
Depends upon how a consumer views a product and whether all AIB partners take the same approach or not (seems they aren't).
Been keeping an eye on Gigabyte and seems is still restructuring their products because now their site has the ludicrous situation of AMD in the top tier Aorus range but none say Gaming and the Gaming AMD ones are just under AMD section, while the categories Xtreme Gaming and G1 Gaming is now only Nvidia and that is a shit load of Nvidia GPUs, serious but also funny only in a ridiculous way because you see pages of Nvidia on their site due to those two categories; of course you need to click on them individually but still, and you also have the Nvidia section with them all in to boot lol.

If you never bothered with the Gigabyte webpage it probably is better for consumers as at least retailers will still say Auorus or Gaming for AMD, still not ideal.
However there is MSI that stay away from 'Gaming' in any names for AMD products, but more of a concern IMO is the lack of a FRZR model, even without branding FRZR look better than the other models but also a big concern is performance perception associated with AMD without FRZR from future reviews, need to see if there is a FRZR model early next month for AMD.

So two very different approaches but both with ramifications, also impacted how consumers get to view the products online as some will go to the AIB website and others their info from reviews and retailer site.

 

Nvidia just strong armed all their partners and stole the brands, which are part of the individual company's intellectual property. What ever money they spent building these brands are now owned by nvidia. I'm sure all of them are pissed off at nvidia but can't talk about it without being completely out of the competition.

Nvidia probably has decided that they gain more from this than any potential lawsuit can cost. It's not like AMD can easily sue them for things AMD has no access to and it's not like any of the OEMs wants to fight a legal battle with nvidia even if they are in their rights.