EVGA and NVIDIA, a tale as old as time. EVGA was there at the start with NVIDIA, creating some of their first custom GPU designs. But it seems that this honeymoon is finally at its end with EVGA now cutting all ties with NVIDIA. Why did EVGA cut ties with NVIDIA? And what does this mean for you?
Let’s start at the beginning. EVGA was founded in 1999 in Brea, California and quickly made an agreement to work with NVIDIA that same year. The first result of this collaboration was the EVGA RIVA TNT2. From then on, #EVGA continued to produce amazing cards with custom cooling solutions to get the best performance out of your new fancy video cards. EVGA was always one to push NVIDIA processors to their limits, offering the OC (Overclocked), SC (Superclocked) and FTW (For the Win) versions of NVIDIA cards. These SKUs came out of the box with a factory overclock on them to get the best performance possible to utilize the crazy good coolers they attach to their cards. With these offerings, EVGA became the number 1 board partner with NVIDIA GPUs. But you don’t become number 1 in the hearts of gamers with just high-performance GPUs. Their customer service was (and still is) the pinnacle of tech industry. If you ever had a malfunction or any issue with their cards, they would send you a box to ship the card back to them and then send a new one out to you. There are many stories online about EVGA also supporting long out of date warranties on older cards. They would even go as far as sending you a much better #GPU than the one you sent in if they don’t happen to have your old card in stock.
So, why did EVGA cut ties with NVIDIA? Well… that’s a long and complicated story, however, EVGA describes the main reason for them cutting ties is the fact that NVIDIA treated them less like business partners and more like competition. According to EVGA, #NVIDIA wouldn’t give them necessary details to complete production. NVIDIA would keep the prices of the cards that EVGA ordered secret until late into the manufacturing process, oftentimes at the same time that the information was revealed to consumers. NVIDIA would also withhold the necessary drivers from their board partners until very late into the process, keeping EVGA and other board partners from testing their designs. However, the main reason EVGA announced their separation was the fact that NVIDIA is now actively competing with them and other partners with their “Founders Edition” series of GPUs. These stock overclocked cards are made with their own cooler design and because NVIDIA pulls from their own stock, their partners are left with less stock to utilize themselves. Not only that, but because NVIDIA has the parts on hand, this also allows them to price their Founders Edition cards far less than any of the other partners. Undercutting them completely.
So, what happens next? Does EVGA start making cards for AMD or Intel? No. Unfortunately the founder of EVGA, Andrew Han, has said they have no plans to ever come back to the GPU market again after this. GPUs made up 70% of all profit for EVGA, so this will not be a move without repercussions. Han said that they will be focusing on their #PowerSupply and Motherboard business. EVGA has also stated that they will not be laying off any employees, they will be moved to other parts of the business with no change in pay.
How does this affect you, I hear you asking? Well, not much. If you were an EVGA fan, you will no longer be able to purchase new GPUs from EVGA after their current stock of 30 series cards runs out. You’ll also have to look for a new board partner to buy from (We recommend Gigabyte, MSI, or ASUS) If you still have a card from them, all warranties will continue to be honored.
We’ll see what’s next from EVGA, I hope this isn’t the end for such an amazing company.
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