AMD officially opposes the Nvidia Geforce Partner Program. The GPP is criticized for requiring partners to offer certain brands exclusively with Geforce graphics cards.
For the first time, AMD addresses the Nvidia Geforce Partner Program in their blog. Although the GPP is not explicitly named, it is clear from the context that AMD is referring to the competitor’s program, Nvidia.
In doing so, they highlight their own virtues: For AMD, transparency, innovation, and especially the freedom of choice for the PC gamer are of utmost importance. This freedom is what defines the PC market. According to AMD, it is not a privilege, but rather a right. It becomes clear that the competitor lacks these virtues.
What is the Geforce Partner Program?
What do partners officially gain from the program? With the Geforce Partner Program, partners receive support in marketing, sales, and technology. They receive hardware and exclusive information about bundles and discounts.
What does Nvidia officially gain from the partnership? In return, partners must commit to using the Geforce logo, selling exclusively through authorized distributors, and subscribing to the newsletter.
And what is it really about behind the scenes? Tech journalist Kyle Bennet accused HardOCP of wanting to push AMD out of the market. In order for the GPP partner to gain access to exclusive information, they must commit to not selling AMD hardware under the same label. If they refuse, they are at a disadvantage compared to that competition with all the advantages. And since Nvidia’s market power is significantly greater than AMD’s, companies prefer to choose Geforce over AMD. This negatively impacts the consumer’s choice. Nvidia publicly denied all accusations regarding the GPP.
Arez – New Radeon Brand from Asus
The pressure from the Geforce Partner Program even forces Asus to change its name. Instead of just removing Radeon from the branding while still marketing it under “Asus,” a completely new name is being created: Arez.
Future Radeon graphics cards will then be sold exclusively under the largely unknown name Arez, which will significantly harm AMD’s sales. It is expected that more partners will follow with new brands.
What dangers exist due to the Geforce Partner Program?
Nvidia already has market power in the graphics card segment. What exactly is the consequence if this power is further expanded? User status_two writes about this on Reddit:
Some people may think that Nvidia already has the better graphics cards. The problem is evident in the future GPUs. If Nvidia has the distributors and OEMs as exclusive partners, it leads to a monopoly in the pricing and development of gaming PCs. Competition is always better.
What has happened so far
Between the release of the GPP and AMD’s statement, several other incidents occurred:
• Gigabyte no longer released the AMD Radeon RX 580 under the AORUS branding, but under a generic one.
• MSI followed Gigabyte and removed Radeon cards from their ARMOR series, stating that they had no real choice.
• Reddit calls for a boycott against GPP.
• HP and Dell refuse to participate in the GPP.
• Intel remains silent; Kyle Bennet suspects that Intel is considering legal action.
• The European Commission and Federal Trade Commission begin reviewing the allegations.
Intel also wanted to push AMD out of the market
Similar to Nvidia, Intel also tried to use its market power to push AMD out of the market. The company granted significant discounts to OEMs if they primarily used Intel CPUs. It even paid them to hold off or not release AMD processors at all. In the server sector, Intel sold its products to strategically important customers below cost.
This led to a fine of 1.06 billion euros confirmed by the European Union Court. However, the next higher instance, the CJEU overturned this ruling. In its view, Intel’s arguments were not carefully examined, which is why the case must be reopened.
What do you think about the Geforce Partner Program? Are you not interested or do you plan to boycott it?
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