I’ve never seen a shopping page by any of the big three, AMD, intel or nVidia. Do you have links?
I hope EVGA goes to intel, that would be cool. I really want an Arc for my main rig for Encoding and secondary bypass GPU.
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The only one i’ve ever purchase directly from is AMD. That’s how I got my 5950x on release day, from using the AMD store. Here is a link for the direct shop from AMD https://www.amd.com/en/direct-buy/us
Nvidia uses Best Buy in the USA to sell their founders edition cards, I don’t think they sell from their own site direct.
Intel, i’ve seen prices, and I know a couple people that work there who can buy from internal channels, but I don’t remember seeing anything selling intel stuff direct to the general public.
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Couch commercial: But this Asus to put your asses on.
Why am I not a copywriter…
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He was referring to the reference models. But they also have their own stores. Well, AMD and Nvidia do, at least.
NVidia
https://store.nvidia.com/en-us/
AMD
https://www.amd.com/en/direct-buy/at
Did you buy evga graphics cards with chip from nv? If not, then nothing actually changes for you… Otherwise, loss of a known brand.
An interesting aspect of this case is the complexity of the problem that influenced such a decision, because it is hard to believe that it was some kind of deliberate political / personal decision, so the scale of the problem had to be really enormous since such a radical decision was made, which from the business point of view is only negative.
If in fact evga withdraws from the gpu market, all the fuss about breaking with nv is BS, it was enough to announce that they just end up with graphics cards in full if there are no plans for AMD / Intel gpu.
It’s a fairly big loss for the customers, as EVGA had stellar customer service and created high quality video cards (and all of their cards used Nvidia GPU’s).
As I mentioned in the initial post, EVGA accounted for 40% of all Nvidia graphics sales for North America. So basically Nvidia just lost their largest partner for that continent.
Really it’s the customers who are losing out though, because there is no other company in the world that did the things for the customers that EVGA does. And i’m not being pedantic by saying that. They were far and above the best company to buy Nvidia GPU’s from all the available choices in the North American market.
It’s sort of like having a great stadium to play your football games in, and then because the owners of the team did not take care of the stadium, it wraps itself up and leaves.
- Do you still have the team to play games? Certainly. But without the nice stadium, everyone who comes to watch you play will now have a worse experience. The seats won’t be as nice as before, and people will get rained on more often because they don’t have that nice chair or the roof that kept them dry, and instead of nice bathrooms, now they have a stinky hole in the ground… you get the idea.
So - Nvidia will keep making video cards, and people will keep buying them, but they will be of slightly lower quality, and if something goes wrong, buyers will have a harder time dealing with tech support, and the return system will be a bit more painful than it was before. Not to mention the other things that EVGA did for their customers through the Step-Up program which no other company has ever done… That’s what the loss of EVGA will mean for Nvidia customers in North America.
EVGA was not just another random, run-of-the-mill graphics card vendor. They were the best board partner NVIDIA had in North America, they made very high quality cards and backed them up with the best customer service programs in the industry with over 20 years experience and a very good reputation. - It would be similar to what would happen if SeaSonic suddenly stopped making power supplies… Only, EVGA treated their customers much better than SeaSonic.
I’m waffling and repeating myself now… sorry. It’s a loss. It bothers me quite a bit.
Did EVGA maker their own coolers and fans?
Seems like they could branch out to CPU coolers and take over the market like when cooler master did with the hyper 212
EVGA designed the boards that housed the Nvidia GPU.
Think of it like CPU’s vs Motherboards. Only when you buy a GPU, you don’t just get a little square chip and have to mount it yourself - instead you get the whole thing in a package called a ‘video card’.
EVGA designed the cards that the NVIDIA GPU was mounted on. The only thing Nvidia did was supply the chips themselves, and a basic layout for boards (which was very rarely actually used in any of the EVGA graphics cards.)
EVGA did a lot more than just design coolers, they basically made the graphics cards, and all Nvidia did was supply the center chip.
Of course Nvidia had their own reference design for graphics cards, that’s what you get when you buy one of the basic cards straight from Nvidia (often called “Founders Edition” cards). But the board partners do not use that, they will often design their own boards to mount the Nvidia GPU on.
The good cards that get recommended by various reviewers are actually ‘good’ because they are designed to be more robust and are usually of a higher quality than the ‘Founders Edition’ cards. That’s where you get price differences from between the various vendors. (i.e. it’s not just the coolers! it’s the whole card!)
And some companies like EVGA, went to great lengths to design very high quality cards. They have their own hardware engineers to design their cards, along with the coolers that are used on those cards, it’s a whole thing… Watch Gamers Nexus factory tour series specifically on Graphics card manufacturing.
EVGA is not that popular in the EU when it comes to graphics cards. Usually in front of them: Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, PNY, Zotac, Palit, PowerColor, Sapphire…
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This, but I see it more like EVGA provided the Stadium, and it was a damn good stadium. Now team Green is no longer allowed (though Team Blue and Team Red are, they are just playing Hockey instead of Soccer, and Team Green does not have a Hockey team).
The problem was not the decay of the stadium, the problem was that team Green paid hooligans to smash shit up in the stadium. All the while building their own stadium 3 blocks away with much lower maintenance costs, meaning ticket prices were much lower. When the hooligans started to come for “insurance money” (of not beating their stadium to bits), that was the final straw.
Nvidia just lost their traditional home stadium. That does hurt their image, but it was all part of their plan to ultimately get rid of AIBs. I guess they did expect someone else to cave first though.
Just because they have no current plans, this does not mean they won’t enter the race at a later date. “There are no plans for that” is political speak for “We see no reason to divulge our exact plans at the moment, we have a plan in the drawer ready to go once PR greenlights it.” It is like how 'dem republicans had no plans on touching abortion laws a couple of years ago. Plans change.
Nvidia and EVGA partnership stretches back since the nineties. Nvidia forced EVGA into this breakup. We are talking about a partnership that has lasted over 20 years. So yes, this breakup is a big deal for the computing world at large. Unless Nvidia immediately moves into damage control mode, EVGA might very well be the pebble that sets the avalanche going.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that though, but it all depends on what policies Nvidia share with their AIBs the coming month.
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And what would happen if that happened?
Suddenly other companies will start boycotting NV? Other companies will fight for their position in the market and try to have the best deals with nv as possible, those companies that find it no longer suitable may go entirely to AMD or stop producing graphics cards altogether.
The brutal truth is that the client always gets hit on the back with a stick.
There have been many companies in the history of IT, some disappear from the market, others appear. EVGA made such and no other decisions and that’s it. The world is moving forward, you can be sad if someone was a fan of EVGA but in general view of the market it will not introduce any radical change probably.
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Well, it’s not impossible. Jensen (the Nvidia president guy) has said he wants to make Nvidia more like Apple when it comes to manufacturing. So eventually all of Nvidia’s vendors will probably be pushed out, and Nvidia will be making all their own stuff and selling it directly to their customers. (which explains why Nvidia tried to buy ARM not long ago…)
But the thing is, Nvidia was not planning on having to do that very soon. However, because Nvidia has been treating their board partners so badly, EVGA decided enough was enough, and stopped doing business with Nvidia entirely.
Of course, where there is money to be made, there will always be someone to pick up the dough. In this case, there is still some profit to be made, even though Nvidia is badly mistreating their board partners. So many of them will likely hang on and continue to make cards as long as they can. While EVGA is principled enough - they were not willing to continue dealing with Nvidia’s abuse.
In my opinion, they are an early indicator of things to come. Eventually the other Nvidia partners will be forced out or stop making cards for Nvidia ahead of that, by choice.
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This can be broken down into several separate items.
How much annual income EVGA will lose by withdrawing from the graphics card market and whether it will not cause the necessity to reduce or undermine the very existence of the company itself.
If NV eventually becomes a standalone graphics card manufacturer for its chips, the profits will still be similar. As long as the market is ready to buy their chips, it won’t matter who makes the graphics card as a whole, be it nv or some oem. People will continue to buy the product as long as it delivers performance at an acceptable price. Suddenly everyone won’t say No for nv and only amd / intel.
If the nv goes completely autonomous then each oem will have to either switch exclusively to amd or abandon the graphics card market. At least when it comes to top-of-the-line gpu.
Only a new player with a new gpu chip can actually make a difference in the market. And Intel probably won’t be it.
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Yep. pretty much.
There is one other factor, however small it may be. - Idealists.
For example, because I do not approve of the way Apple treats it’s customers, even if they made the best computer products in the world, I would not buy any of their stuff. Because I am willing to sacrifice for my ideals.
Nvidia has basically started to tick the same sort of toggles as Apple does for me. Partially because of the way they have treated their board vendors such as EVGA, and partially due to their actions selling mostly to miners instead of normal customers over the years. And then all the pricing shenanigans they are constantly pulling, combined with their repeated attempts to lock people into buying exclusively from them through various underhanded means over the course of many years now.
Yes I understand that they are a company, and they are supposed to do everything they can to make money. But at a certain point, they tick off the Idealists through their overly greedy and underhanded tactics. And then those same Idealists will simply refuse to deal with Nvidia until they have proven they mended their ways.
I have basically hit that point with Nvidia and decided I will not be buying any of their products for my next build. So they have basically lost 1 customer. And sure, it’s an “E Pluribus Unum” situation (“out of many, one.”). I am only 1 of many people. But they have lost their opportunity to sell me the next product I will need. Instead I will now be taking my money to their competition. And the further Nvidia pushes, the more customers they will lose in this fashion.
- Vote with your wallet. Never pay companies to abuse you.
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This also has some bleed-out - since many of my friends and family come to me for recommendations on what to buy, I have pretty much written off Nvidia Ampere cards as “Hot, expensive and powersucking garbage”. While I am still willing to recommend an Nvidia card where it makes sense (CUDA support and GSync only monitors, mainly), as the market is right now it makes no sense to buy an Ampere card unless they slash all prices across the board in half. Haven’t checked for a couple of months though, could’ve changed by now.
Anyway, my point is that even though you are one person, you often make an informed decision and recommend products to other people. This still is only three of many, but it does have a small effect.
And for Linux AMD are the only cards that makes sense to recommend right now for most tasks.
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Question arises, why would I buy from the price fixers directly? When I probably could find a better deal from a retailer who then can add some extra coupon or other bonuses on top?
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You can buy from wherever you want. If the price is right, I don’t care if your grandma sells it or Jensen out of his kitchen directly. I was just sharing the store links. If you check the price of the Ryzen 5950X on the AMD store, you’ll see it’s double the price than at some other retailer elsewhere. You’d be a [insert insult] if you spent that kind of money for a product that is literally 50% on a clearance sale.
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Never had experience with EVGA products (are quite hard to find where I live).
But for the question itself - well, I’ve had bad practice with Gigabyte and Asus, so either MSI (my last 2 systems are “MSI fanboi” for the mobo and gpu, and they’re doin quite good), or the reference. And after trying to find a waterblock for a non-reference 2080, I would say that “reference” may be my next choice.
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Just coming to mind on thinking what other chipset and board manufacturing and expertise is kind of needed.
Could EVGA shift to Risc-V chipset / board manufacturing with SiFive and other with already quality knowledge on motherboard and chipset design?
Would this be a viable alternative as NASA is shifting to Risc-V only?
Would this be cool? Definitely, and amazing boost to this future tech that hopefully replaces these patent standards.
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EVGA typically does high end, unless they can score some insane non-consumer-product contract it’s unlikely. IMO Risc-V needs a few years to establish itself in SBC’s before a consumer-facing high end product is even remotely viable.
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