Where AREZ Thou, GPP? ASUS 180's, Announces ROG Branding is Here to Stay

[FordGT90Concept]

Intel offered rebates (not anti-trust) to companies that remained Intel-exclusive (very anti-trust). NVIDIA threatened companies to make their branding exclusive. Different forms of anti-trust but anti-trust all the same. They both manipulated the market in their favor.

 

[Totally]

But again , it's not something of the same gravity. What Intel did was essentially the equivalent of straight-up bribery. GPP was an intentionally vague optional program which to my knowledge did not involve any payments of any kind. I really don't see how anyone could turn this into a fine worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Not that I would mind to see something like that but I know it wont happen , at least not on that scale.

Payments were in the form of being actually being able to receive product from Nvidia. If Nvidia likes a company more they get to buy more, conversely if Nvidia likes a company less they can only buy less. There are precedents, Nvidia used this to punish AIBs that were Nvidia exclusive leading up to the Fermi debacle, with all the delays few started turning to the AMD to fill in the gaps, when Fermi finally arrives coincidentally or not Nvidia threw them to the wayside.

 

[Fluffmeister]

Hmm they some said this tweet is not officially from Asus?

Pretty much!

UPDATE (22/05): ASUS informed us that the tweet which was the basis of the original report is not operated by ASUS. The company stated that it will continue to sell ASUS ROG and AREZ branded graphics cards side-by-side. ASUS is in the process of getting Twitter to take down the impersonating handle.

 

[Vayra86]

Not really. The ones that know a little about this stuff don't go for the stickers and the ones that don't usually go with what the sales rep recommends or know someone who knows a bit about the subject.
People buy the chips usually not the implementations. I for one never heard of anybody saying "I'm buying ROG" but I do hear them say "I'm going to get a 1080" for example.

The ones that 'know a little' are the primary market for these brands. You can deny this all you want but the fact remains that the premium these brands carry is being paid by customers. Its not like they're better products across the board; it differs even within a single 'branding'; Strix 1080's being a good example; you have ones that can OC and you have the exact same card that doesn't carry an 'O' in the model type which cannot OC at all, Asus locks it down deliberately.. They carry a nice logo, a name, a bit of status, people build 'all ASUS ROG' rigs, people see streamers/influencers that keep showing ROG gear, etc.

Im also not keen on these brands in any way but we cannot deny the reason they exist, which is what you're doing. The AIBs differentiate the SAME chips under several different names, and they would only do this if it resulted in profits. And it does. And for that same reason it was damaging to AMD to get relegated to a 'no-name' brand like AREZ.

Surely you can understand this...