EVGA Abandons the GPU Market, Reportedly Citing Conflicts With Nvidia (tomshardware.com) 72
UnknowingFool writes: After a decades long partnership with Nvidia, EVGA has announced they are ending their relationship. Citing conflicts with Nvidia, EVGA CEO Andrew Han said the company will not partner with Intel nor AMD, and will be exiting the GPU market completely. The company will continue to make existing RTX 30-series cards until their stock runs out but will not release a 4000 series card. YouTube channels JayZTwoCents and GamersNexus broke the news after sitting down with EVGA CEO Andrew Han to discuss his frustrations with Nvidia as a partner. Jon Peddie Research also published a brief article on the matter.
Sorry to hear about that (Score:2)
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EVGA was stirring up the GPU shortages fulfilling bulk orders to mining businesses. And EVGA was shipping with pre-patched VBIOS on their hiring end NVIDIA based cards in order to unlock faster hash rates. Consider the recent Ethereum merge to be the nail in EVGA's coffin, a coffin they made for themselves.
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Yup. How dare they listen to customers. What were they thinking.
Re: Sorry to hear about that (Score:2)
Maybe they see the writing on the wall. The Merge is going to cause a tidal wave flood of GPUs on eBay...
Mixed blessing (Score:2, Informative)
EVGA bowing out is a mixed blessing: A decrease of competitors is bad. But I was never impressed by EVGA's quality, to the point that I have only ever owned two EVGA boards, the second after several people told me "They are better now", 5 years after I ditched the previous one. But just consider the fact that MSI's Afterburner software works better for monitoring your EVGA GPU(as well as controlling some aspects of it, like fans/fan profiles etc) than their own software is a rather damning flaw.
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EVGA is good at making quality hardware to a standard reference, so it doesn't break Afterburner.
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In my experience EVGA has been very customer-oriented: they have great support for the everyman and for the enthusiasts with great communication with the community, their products (at least on the high-end, I have not used their low-end) have been of good quality, and a rock-solid fair warranty for when things go wrong.
Paying attention to this space for years, it's clear that NVIDIA makes an increasinly poor partner. To control leaks they avoid giving partners access to design samples until right before the
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The issues go back a while. The Nintendo 3DS was originally based around a Tegra chipset, but NVIDIA couldn't fulfill their promises, so Nintendo had to go in a different direction.
I never heard the specifics of what went wrong, but obviously they were able to work it out, as the Switch is built on an NVIDIA chipset.
Still use their GeForce 8800 GT (512 MB of VRAM)! (Score:2)
In my 13 years old Debian PC! :O
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I've used EVGA cards for decades with zero issues. The next card I've been shopping around for would have been a EVGA before this announcement.
With that being said, I'm reading a lot of butthurt coming from EVGA that Nvidia won't just let them do whatever they want too. They seem to be upset that Nvidia is enforcing standards across the platform to keep the quality and performance high.
I'm kind of picturing EVGA as a big toddler pitching a temper tantrum threatening to take its toys and go home if it
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Wouldn't you be?
You go from a part vendor to board integrator relationship to a competitive relationship.
And NVIDIA ALWAYS WINS there because they can release boards AT COST, sans board vendor margins, which EVGA cannot write off.
The writing was on the wall for this once FE cards went from a time-limited special sku to a regular product.
It also destroyed the value proposition of cards built with better, higher-end components.
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Interestingly EVGA cited the fact that their high end GPUs end up being unprofitable due to their high quality as one of the reasons why they exited the market. They were unwilling to compromise on quality, and Nvidia was unwilling to compromise on price, so they ended up selling the high end models at a loss.
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The place where EVGA was hamstrung on quality was the same place every non-NVIDIA vendor was.
NVIDIA's FE cards directly undercut them. By sometimes HUNDREDS of dollars. Even when built to identical standards.
This seriously prevented EVGA from building cards with better components, since they were already at an economic disadvantage.
And it turned them into a third party RMA agency. Which is a no-margin business.
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If they were just a contract manufacturer, or a 3rd party outfit doing RMAs and reverse logistics, their margins wouldn't be particularly thrilling; but Nvidia would retain the risk associated
Shocking news, but... (Score:2)
...why was this announcement made through Youtubers, complete with time embargos and all? From what i've gathered, not even the employees were awere this was happening.
Has EVGA even put out a press release?
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Because those youtubers are fairly small (compared to other media in the industry) while having a substantial amount of viewers/readers, plus they are independent which made the risk of the story leaking extremely unlikely.
Having the embargo was only natural, Jay+Steve+Jon had to fly out to EVGA for the interview then fly home and produce the story. That takes time which is why stories like this are usually embargoed, just imagine the reaction of the employees if they found it out through second or third ha
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Because those youtubers are fairly small (compared to other media in the industry) while having a substantial amount of viewers/readers, plus they are independent which made the risk of the story leaking extremely unlikely.
That makes no sense at all, sorry. "Leak"? Just put out a press announcement, for Pete's sake - it's not like every tech outlet out there wasn't going to cover the story otherwise!
Having the embargo was only natural, Jay+Steve+Jon had to fly out to EVGA for the interview then fly home and produce the story. That takes time which is why stories like this are usually embargoed, just imagine the reaction of the employees if they found it out through second or third hand sources instead of the CEO? Companies have actually gone under for less.
Both Youtubers pointed out that EVGA employees knew nothing about the decision before the videos went online - and a good chunk of them are going to lose their job.
The whole thing is pretty bananas, even in these wild YouTube days. The only read that makes any sense is that EVGA's management is really pissed at nVidia and wanted t
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That makes no sense at all, sorry. "Leak"? Just put out a press announcement, for Pete's sake - it's not like every tech outlet out there wasn't going to cover the story otherwise!
As I mentioned, a press release doesn't cut it for this kind of decision unless the company and its employees likes being mobbed by media. Well, it would make sense if you a CEO that doesn't give a rats ass about the employees and the company's reputation.
Both Youtubers pointed out that EVGA employees knew nothing about the decision before the videos went online - and a good chunk of them are going to lose their job.
If we are going to believe the CEO of EVGA, no employees will be terminated and they will continue getting paid.
The whole thing is pretty bananas, even in these wild YouTube days. The only read that makes any sense is that EVGA's management is really pissed at nVidia and wanted to make that spite clear, but that doesn't justify any of it either.
Why is it bananas? The CEO wanted to do it this way, and I can't see any real downside to doing it like this either since he had essentially ful
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As I mentioned, a press release doesn't cut it for this kind of decision unless the company and its employees likes being mobbed by media. Well, it would make sense if you a CEO that doesn't give a rats ass about the employees and the company's reputation.
How? How a press announcement stating the why and how's of the decision would be covered any different?
And do you think it'll make any difference, say, 6 months down the line?
If we are going to believe the CEO of EVGA, no employees will be terminated and they will continue getting paid.
Please, check Gamer's Nexus video, which dwells on this topic way better than i could here. If you think EVGA is magically going to reassign the majority of their staff working on GPUs to keyboards and power supplies, well, you're more optimistic than me.
Why is it bananas? The CEO wanted to do it this way, and I can't see any real downside to doing it like this either since he had essentially full control of the narrative.
Let's put it this way. I'd be fucking hating this "narrative" if i were an employ
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Let's put it this way. I'd be fucking hating this "narrative" if i were an employee and found out my job's basically gone through some bozo on YouTube.
So you'd rather find out later when your company finally gets around to telling you, with even less time to find a job?
Think about that.
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So you'd rather find out later when your company finally gets around to telling you, with even less time to find a job?
Think about that.
Wait, are you for real?
I'd like the company i work for to notify me of (even potential) layoffs before letting a YouTube vlogger know, thankyouverymuch.
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Top preference is being notified about non-specific layoffs by management directly. I've never ever seen a company do this however, as they generally keep it close to the vest right until they have everyone selected and they want to do it.
If I have any third party information about likely upcoming that is highly credible, that would be my second preference. I don't care if it's a traditional news agency or some 'vlogger'. This gives me time to warm up my job hunt ahead of time. This is supremely rare beca
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How? How a press announcement stating the why and how's of the decision would be covered any different?
A press release isn't the same as an in-person interview. The former invariably means that everyone and their dog would start hounding EVGA and it's employees for more information.
Please, check Gamer's Nexus video, which dwells on this topic way better than i could here. If you think EVGA is magically going to reassign the majority of their staff working on GPUs to keyboards and power supplies, well, you're more optimistic than me.
You are implying that the CEO of EVGA lied to Steve and Jay. Seems a bit odd to invite people to an interview and lie to their faces when the alternative is so much simpler: Put out a press release.
Let's put it this way. I'd be fucking hating this "narrative" if i were an employee and found out my job's basically gone through some bozo on YouTube.
But that isn't what happened now, is it? The employees where informed before the end of the embargo period, but if you want to feel in
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A press release isn't the same as an in-person interview. The former invariably means that everyone and their dog would start hounding EVGA and it's employees for more information.
Dude, this was not an "interview". Those don't come with time-embargos attached to them.
You are implying that the CEO of EVGA lied to Steve and Jay.
No, i'm implying that they're not giving you the full picture - which is, by the way, exactly what those two YouTubers pointed out as well. GPUs were 80% of EVGAs (Extreme Video Graphic Adapters!!!) business, and +50% of their revenue.
Unless they have a magical new cashcow to milk, the sad reality is this is a business decision that will, not may, end up with people losing their jobs.
But that isn't what happened now, is it? The employees where informed before the end of the embargo period...
Yes, thank you. That's exactly what i
Re:Shocking news, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Three reasons:
1. They are the single most direct route to the largest portion of the audience that actually cares about this news
2. The mainstream media is legendarily incompetent when it comes to reporting on basically any subject requiring any kind of domain knowledge
3. Any ONE of those youtubers has a better track record of journalistic integrity and honest fact based reporting that the entire mainstream media combined.
If they'd gone through traditional routes the world would be flooded with half-truths, whole lies, and wild sensationalist garbage.
Re: Shocking news, but... (Score:3)
That's the weird thing... EVGA didn't say that they were laying anyone off. Quite the opposite. Confusing.
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True, unless it's some dramatic step with a possibility for nVidia to break and make EVGA happy. This was probably a threat and nVidia shrugged it off. Now EVGA goes through with it but might delay layoffs until some time window after nVidia utterly fails to try to regain EVGA as a partner.
In other words, I wager both ultimately think each other is just too big for the other to ignore, and EVGA had to pull the trigger to try to break that stalemate and make nVidia want them back. If and when nVidia truly
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Nobody likes finding out their job is gone. So you're right.
However your implication, that they don't like JayZ2Cents, is almost certainly incorrect. Jay does some extremely high-level EE-testing, and pretty much everyone who buys graphics cards watches his channel, so they almost certainly know and respect the guy,
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I'm sure EVGA's PCB engineers will be delighted to find out about losing their jobs through some "JayZTwoCents".
Would you think they would be better finding out from Arse Technica, or some "news" service named after an animal with a furry tail between updates on how God-King Trump won the 2020 election fairly?
As someone who has been laid off before let me tell you, where the story broke is quite honestly the thing I gave the least shits about, and at the time I had no shits to give anyone.
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Ars is a specialist tech publication, but they're not really into an EVGA specialty. I have seen plenty of reviews where they judge the performance of an entire system, but none where they get deep into the details over whether an Nvidia 3080 is a better buy for this use-case than a 3080TI. They really don't get into the weeds of which 3070 you should get. Their commentariat is the same way. In the odd case where gaming performance comes up people have to explain why a gamer benefits from FPS higher than th
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Why not leak to Ars Technica
Are you trying to get the perfect balance of people who have know knowledge while accessing the least amount of people interested as possible?
Gamers don't give a shit about Ars Technica. You reveal things to the groups who target your core audience the most, such as the "Youtubers" who you (or maybe the OP) don't seem to realise are registered businesses with 5-10 employees depending on who we are talking about, providing proper news coverage with sources inside many companies.
The more mainstream publicatio
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The reason is likely mutual trust from interactions in the tech youtube scene with their resident OC propagandist and stability consultant "Kingpin", who has participated in OC competitions and other "extreme" computing events with both GN and Jay. There's likely a bit of familiarity bias here, but when your business is falling apart can you really be blamed for being less objective in your decision making?
It was kind of funny hearing Steve talk about the work before releasing their video however, "spent a
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Yes. One of those two stands among the least trusted institutions in the entire world thanks to decades of lying, sensationalism, hoaxes, and fanaticism up to and including publishing genocide denying propaganda, antisemitic cartoons, and literally using stock photos stolen from image searches to manufacture a fake story. The other has a proven track record of professional ethics, integrity, hard hitting investigative journalism, and advocating for the public interest.
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Yup.
Imagine if Microsoft just told two YouTubers "We're gonna buy Activision, don't post a video until this date" and then just /didn't say anything else about it/ and let those YouTubers drive the story. That's essentially what EVGA is doing here.
https://twitter.com/KyleOrl/st... [twitter.com]
To bad! (Score:2)
Decision made back in April (Score:2)
Interesting lead time for next-gen given that the decision was made back in April.
Strange that EVGA is using Tech YouTubers to cover this?
The CEO of EVGA had a zinger at Nvidia:
This decision was easy. Working with Nvidia was hard.
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Sure, that explains why every single tech news outlet is covering the story right now.
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They reference the YouTuber videos.
Of course they are. Those two videos are literally the only sources on the story. I checked, and i cannot find any official announcements from EVGA themselves.
That would be petty but remember this is the same company that tried to blacklist the channel Hardware Unboxed for giving their new cards a positive review but not positive enough for Nvidia.
Yeah, i was just about to bring that example up. My point here is, claiming that tech oultets would not cover this story properly because of retaliation is preposterous. They all are doing it.
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Of course they are. Those two videos are literally the only sources on the story. I checked, and i cannot find any official announcements from EVGA themselves.
So you acknowledge the YouTubers are the only source of this news.
Yeah, i was just about to bring that example up. My point here is, claiming that tech oultets would not cover this story properly because of retaliation is preposterous. They all are doing it.
Again, Nvidia tried to blacklist Hardware Unboxed until they were called out on it. The plan backfired partially because Hardware Unboxed does not rely on any ad revenue from Nvidia that they could take away. You think Nvidia would not retaliate against a news outlet that is dependent on ad revenue?
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So you acknowledge the YouTubers are the only source of this news.
Huh? Yes, i do. Do you acknowledge every major tech outlet is covering the story right now?
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Strange that EVGA is using Tech YouTubers to cover this?
Why not? In this case "Tech YouTubers" happen to be the go to news source for the people most interested in their products, and also happen to be people largely listened to in the wider industry (which is precisely why Ars and others are now running the story too).
ok (Score:1)
I am ok with their graphics cards, they usually are made pretty cheap but tend to last a long time, but anything else, I mean even their better power supplies are ... power supplies. Their motherboard offerings are for hyper speed freak types.. and everything else they sell is pretty much rebranded meh to frankly garbage (really can anyone explain why I would buy a evga keyboard for 20 bucks, its going to be shit, just like every other 20$ RGB keyboard).
Adding onto a public whine aloud and proud about your
From the videos I've seen (Score:2)
Oh, and they'r
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(in the past all the nvidia cards were blowers and blowers kinda suck)
Really? It's quite the opposite, no?
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No, not really.
A card with ONE blower-style fan would cool worse than a card with 3x axial fans spread across the entire card (and then some, considering some coolers exceeded the PCB length).
EVGA was the only vendor to honor my wait list (Score:5, Insightful)
During the bubble, I got on wait lists for RTX 30 series. Other vendors discontinued the skus so they could sell rebranded cards at inflated prices. Only EVGA honored their wait list, giving me 24 hours to fail to respond before offering it to the next person (I already got one camping Best Buy website, 2 minute sellout there). EVGA is a class act. I've been thrashing one of their 500 watt power supplies for 6 years, not one single problem.
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I've been thrashing one of their 500 watt power supplies for 6 years, not one single problem.
I've thrashed powersupplies from brands and from complete no-names for far longer than that without a single problem. You shouldn't ever be in a position where a modern powersupply however cheap causes you problems. Unless you get a dodgy one like the Gigabyte fireworks edition.
I do agree EVGA is a good company, but your comment about their powersupply shows an incredible amount of survivor bias based on a single anecdote.
I've Owned 3-4 EVGA Video Cars (Score:2)
Something is fishy here... (Score:3)
They said that they aren't going to make new GPU's anymore, they aren't going to go into new product lines, but they aren't going to lay anyone off?!?
Unless they're going to pay 200 employees to do nothing, I'm not buying it. They must have some kind of skunkworks project going on that they don't want to talk about yet.
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I mean, if the EVGA CEO does not want to partner with AMD, he could let his GPU department spin-off and do it? Win-win...
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AI accelerators for the server market. Put some of that GPU knowledge to use.
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Options are:
-They are planning on expanding into a new market, but had nothing specific to mention at this juncture
-They are pulling the trigger, but staying in shape so that nvidia could win them back as a partner (EVGA hoping for social media prodding nvidia to want EVGA as a partner when nvidia in negotiations didn't otherwise value EVGA). This would explain, for example, not immediately going for an AMD partnership, leaving the door conveniently open for nvidia to come back and still have the exclusive
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Unless they're going to pay 200 employees to do nothing, I'm not buying it.
AIBs largely don't have special purpose employees. Their software division will have one less bit of software to deal with, their driver division one less dri... who we kidding they were repackaging NVIDIA drivers anyway, and for board design there's plenty of other products they can design.
The question isn't if EVGA is or isn't selling GPUs, the question is how many products and product lines are they maintaining. Just because you stop selling one thing doesn't mean you're not selling another.
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They stated that they make a loss at selling GPUs at the prices nVidia dictates. So basically their revenue might decline a lot but their income won't or at least won't decline much.
EVGA, Nintendo, Apple,... (Score:2)
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This is accurate. Their massive success has bred a company that feels they can do whatever, and a partner just has to deal with it.
Unfortunately, nVidia is mostly right on this front. EVGA pretty much has to be willing to fall on the proverbial sword to get out.
A real shame. Pretty sure GN was the first to (Score:2)
report this via youtube video [youtube.com]. I'm writing this on a machine that has an EVGA 1070 TI I got new and it's been rock solid.
Steve talked to the company founder and says it's mostly about respect and the lack of it from NVIDIA for their partners.