A stunning report claims that EVGA, a 20-year veteran of the GPU market and certainly one of Nvidia’s largest companions, is exiting the graphics card enterprise solely. As one of the crucial seen manufacturers promoting graphics playing cards to customers, its exit from {the marketplace} can have large ramifications going ahead. EVGA will proceed to promote its present provide of graphics playing cards, however is not going to design new {hardware} as Nvidia debuts its GeForce RTX 4000 collection of GPUs.
The report comes from GamersNexus, a dependable supply (and a good friend of the PCWorld staff) in a 30-minute exposé. The video cites interviews immediately with leaders at EVGA and quotes founder and CEO Andrew Han and chief branding officer Joe Darwin. PCWorld finds no purpose to doubt the veracity of the knowledge offered.
Replace (9/16/2022, 4:40pm): EVGA has confirmed GamersNexus’ report in an official put up in its group discussion board.
GamersNexus founder Steve Burke quotes EVGA sources on why the corporate made this resolution. In line with EVGA, long-simmering discontent between the corporate and its most vital provider have led to a definitive falling out. Apparently, this was recognized by Nvidia’s management way back to April. EVGA complains that it was persistently given product info far too late within the improvement cycle, even failing to reveal the worth of chips till the MSRP of Nvidia-branded graphics playing cards was introduced to the general public.
EVGA additionally claims that Nvidia restricts its companions from promoting playing cards to retailers beneath value flooring for some fashions and above value ceilings for others. This can be a widespread apply within the electronics trade meant to keep up the notion of market worth, however EVGA says the coverage has stored the corporate from creating distinctive high-end designs at extra worthwhile value factors. EVGA representatives additionally complained that Nvidia’s self-branded Founders Version playing cards are priced to undercut playing cards from third-party suppliers, immediately competing with corporations like EVGA, Asus, Gigabyte, and Zotac at an unfair benefit. EVGA claims that the present dip within the GPU market is inflicting them to lose “tons of of {dollars} per video card” for high-end designs. It’s recognized that lots of Nvidia’s GPU manufacturing companions have related complaints, if not so passionately expressed.
In line with GamersNexus, EVGA has made the choice to fully exit the graphics card market, not merely divorce itself from Nvidia as a enterprise accomplice. The corporate has acknowledged unequivocally that it has no real interest in constructing new graphics playing cards primarily based on chip designs from AMD or new competitor Intel. Nvidia graphics playing cards signify a whopping 78 p.c of EVGA’s present enterprise, and GamersNexus quotes the corporate in saying that it doesn’t plan to increase into new product traces. Meaning an inevitable shrinking and downsizing of the California-based company, at present using roughly 280 individuals worldwide. Darwin claims that no layoffs are deliberate in the mean time and employees will likely be moved to different departments, although the corporate’s leaders count on worker “attrition” as this information breaks.
On the time of writing, EVGA’s non-graphics card merchandise embody different desktop PC parts like energy provides (20 p.c of its remaining gross sales) and motherboards, cooling {hardware}, and some instances, plus gaming mice, keyboards, and video seize playing cards. EVGA has acknowledged that it intends to maintain the corporate collectively and isn’t in search of a merger or acquisition.
Present EVGA graphics card homeowners will reportedly proceed to obtain customer support, and the corporate has GPUs and elements in reserve for RMA and guarantee restore functions. Although some engineering samples of EVGA-branded RTX 4000 playing cards exist, retail merchandise is not going to be produced or bought, and the present provide of EVGA RTX 3000 playing cards is anticipated to be bought off earlier than the top of 2022.
