Okay so Nvidia manufactures the cards. How do they do it? And what do Asus, EVGA, MSI etc do?
New Edit: Thank you very much guys for your help.
They are born out out of silicone ^^ just kidding XD
Nvidia and AMD "only" make the GPU (= the actual chip doing the heavy lifting) they publish a reference design for the PCB (printed circuit board) for the Asus, evga, msi .... of the world to manufacture graphic cards (the whole thing) with their chips.
But the makers of the cards (asus, evga, msi, ... ) do not have to stick to the reference design and can (and they do) create custom PCBs, cooling sollutions and so on.
I am not 100% certain but I doubt that the cards sold by nvidia have ever seen a nvidia owned or controlled fab from the inside (except for the chip (GPU)
So Nvidia and AMD only create the graphics chips?
1 Like
Yeah, in the same way that Intel and AMD make CPUs, not the mother boards. Here's a video on how chips are made if you're interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm67wbB5GmI
Indeed! They design the PCBs for the reference implementations; but the production is contracted to somone ales (foxcon, smc, ...)
AMD for example had to sell all its chip fabs, so they actually only design the chips and have the production outsourced.
Anyone, does nvidia produce? or do they contract as well?
Ps: fun fact, largest GPU manufacturer by units sold is Intel ^^ (when one allows IGPUs to count as GPU ;) )
Okay Thanks man now I get a clear picture
Doesn't Globalfoundries or TSMC often build the GPU? Frequently when you hear about a generation being delayed or not using a smaller architecture, they talk about delays or trouble Globalfoundries is having with the newer architecture. So I don't think Nvidia or AMD even actually build the GPU, but design it and work with another company to build it.
So basically most of the companies do not even build their own hardware. Take other products too.
1 Like
right. Intel is an exception. I think Samsung as well makes their own chips.
Intel and Samsung I for sure know have their own fabs. Apple for excample contract(ed) samsung to mfg the A? (what ever) SoCs
very carefully