EVGA is one of the best-known NVIDIA graphics assemblers, however, the company has announced that it is withdrawing from said market and blames the green giant of your decision. This means that, unless circumstances change abruptly, we will not see dedicated graphics Ada Lovelace (RTX 4000) coming from EVGA or later generations of NVIDIA.
It seems that EVGA has not been happy with the situation that it has had to manage with the still present generation, Ampere. On the YouTube channel Gamers Nexus they have commented that the assembler has had to sell his RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 with “losses of hundreds of dollars” to stay competitive against the Founders Edition models coming from NVIDIA itself. At this point, it is worth remembering the improvement experienced by the Founders Edition in recent generations, which has triggered its appeal and therefore its demand by consumers.
EVGA’s official announcement, published on its forums, does not explain much about the reasons for its decision either, having limited itself to saying that “will not carry the next generation (NVIDIA) graphics cards“, that “will continue to support existing current generation products” Y “will continue to provide the current generation products”. In other words, it will continue, at least for now, marketing Ampere graphics (RTX 3000) normally.
According to the Gamer Nexus and JayzTwoCents channels, EVGA would have allegedly claimed that NVIDIA has not been a good partner by not telling him how much he would have to pay to get his GPUs before publicly announcing the reference price of the RTX 3080. Consequently, the assembler was not able to easily calculate how much he would have to charge consumers for his versions of the graphics card.
Another issue that seems to have bothered EVGA is that NVIDIA would have sent the drivers to take full advantage of the Ampere graphics before the journalists than the assembler. This would add to an alleged insistence by the green giant to keep EVGA in the dark about how many GPUs it could integrate into its own designs and products.
Given the uproar generated by EVGA’s decision, NVIDIA has come forward through one of its spokesmen, Bryan Del Rizzo, who has said in statements to The Verge that the company “had a great association with EVGA over the years and will continue to support them on our current generation of products. We wish Andrew and our friends at EVGA all the best.”. Those words denote that from NVIDIA they have already assumed the divorce.
The abandonment of the NVIDIA graphics assembly by EVGA aims to be a stick for the company, which apparently going to try to stay so as not to fire anyone. However, it is clear that she has to move, either downsizing or expanding to other sectors or brands, if you want to meet that goal. At the moment there is no evidence that it will dedicate itself to the assembly of other graphics brands and on its website it still says that it is “one of NVIDIA’s top authorized channel sales partners throughout North America”, so it is possible that all this is a maneuver to improve the conditions of the agreement, although the company is very blunt in its forums.
NVIDIA, arguably the most beloved hardware company among gamers, doesn’t have such a great reputation when it comes to working with it. Two years ago, the green giant caused a controversy when he blocked Hardware Unboxed after asking the outlet to change its editorial line and to test the functions that it indicated if he wanted to continue receiving its graphics.
Regardless of what has actually happened between NVIDIA and EVGA, the truth is that the green giant has enjoyed a strong dominant position for years. Its graphics are used by 76% of Steam users and are practically essential to work in artificial intelligence or with Blender at a professional level. Such a good and dominant position is an invitation to the practice of certain abusive practices that we have seen on other occasions.