AMD bans ASRock graphics cards in Europe

AmazingAvery

AMD has recently started “Freedom of Choice in PC Gaming” marketing campaign,  however, they are only now limiting the choice to customers. Just a little hypocrisy.

https://www.computerbase.de/2018-05/asrock-phantom-gaming-verkauf-europa/

With a lot of secrecy and good staging, ASRock announced its entry into the graphics card business at the end of March and intends to exclusively rely on graphics cards with AMD GPU. Nevertheless, AMD has banned the manufacturer from selling the new graphics cards in Europe, as is now known.
Tom's Hardware Germany had been able to test one of ASRock's new models, the ASRock RX 580 Phantom Gaming X, in advance, attesting that the manufacturer had a very successful debut. After the test, ASRock asked Tom's Hardware where the ASRock RX 580 Phantom Gaming X came from, not the manufacturer itself. ASRock's Senior Sales Manager also revealed that selling phantom gaming graphics cards in Europe is not possible, as AMD has not approved this release: " The problem for me is that AMD has not agreed to sell in EU, that is really a pity. "

Quizzical

Nvidia bans AsRock from selling GeForce cards worldwide, including in Europe.

Both Nvidia and AMD restrict what their board partners can do because they have their own reputations on the line.  If, say, MSI makes a shoddy quality video card that dies on you, you're probably going to blame it on Nvidia or AMD who made the GPU, not MSI for choosing poor quality VRMs that fried it.

About a decade ago, Gainward was going to bring a particular SKU of Radeon GPU to market.  AMD said no, you can't do that, as it won't be reliable enough.  Gainward tried to do it anyway, and AMD said, no more GPUs for you!

I don't know what AMD's reasoning in the case of regional restrictions on AsRock selling Radeon GPUs is, but both AMD and Nvidia have had such restrictions on their board partners for many years.

IceAge

Quizzical said:

Nvidia bans AsRock from selling GeForce cards worldwide, including in Europe.

Both Nvidia and AMD restrict what their board partners can do because they have their own reputations on the line.  If, say, MSI makes a shoddy quality video card that dies on you, you're probably going to blame it on Nvidia or AMD who made the GPU, not MSI for choosing poor quality VRMs that fried it.

About a decade ago, Gainward was going to bring a particular SKU of Radeon GPU to market.  AMD said no, you can't do that, as it won't be reliable enough.  Gainward tried to do it anyway, and AMD said, no more GPUs for you!

I don't know what AMD's reasoning in the case of regional restrictions on AsRock selling Radeon GPUs is, but both AMD and Nvidia have had such restrictions on their board partners for many years.

I hope you take everything you've said in here, and apply it on your topic about Nvidia choosing the whatever retail they want to sell their products. 

The irony , right ?

Ridelynn

IceAge said:

Quizzical said:

Nvidia bans AsRock from selling GeForce cards worldwide, including in Europe.

Both Nvidia and AMD restrict what their board partners can do because they have their own reputations on the line.  If, say, MSI makes a shoddy quality video card that dies on you, you're probably going to blame it on Nvidia or AMD who made the GPU, not MSI for choosing poor quality VRMs that fried it.

About a decade ago, Gainward was going to bring a particular SKU of Radeon GPU to market.  AMD said no, you can't do that, as it won't be reliable enough.  Gainward tried to do it anyway, and AMD said, no more GPUs for you!

I don't know what AMD's reasoning in the case of regional restrictions on AsRock selling Radeon GPUs is, but both AMD and Nvidia have had such restrictions on their board partners for many years.

I hope you take everything you've said in here, and apply it on your topic about Nvidia choosing the whatever retail they want to sell their products. 

The irony , right ?

No.

I'm not even Quiz here, but what your saying here doesn't make any sense.

AMD deciding not to sell a board partner GPUs for a specific market. For whatever reason. They aren't telling that board partner what they can or can't do aside from the fact they won't sell them parts.

nVidia GPP was dictating what board partners could do outside of the realm of nVidia. If you make an AMD board as well, then you don't get to buy nVidia chips.

AMD isn't saying that at all. What AMD is doing has been done by nearly every supplier at one point or another (including motherboards), and is pretty common when a board partner either cuts too many corners and quality is shoddy or tries to do things outside of what the chip manufacture intended (like circumventing intentional hardware locks).

AmazingAvery

So there was an update -

Taiwanese company can't sell graphics cards in Taiwan.... wow

This doesn’t work with the freedom of choice marketing campaign does it.

http://www.tomshardware.de/amd-asrock-grafikkarten-europa-nicht_verfugbar,news-259293.html

AmazingAvery

Ridelynn said:

.....”a board partner either cuts too many corners and quality is shoddy or tries to do things outside of what the chip manufacture intended (like circumventing intentional hardware locks).”

ASRock cards are apparently Sapphire and Colourful rebrands, this isn’t about quality of product. In addition, if the the issue is AMD needs better representation in Asian countries, where ASRock does well why are they being limited there too? 

Ridelynn

https://hardforum.com/threads/amd-not-banning-asrock-from-selling-in-europe.1960050/

Not linking to the Forbes article because it doesn't play well with Ad Blockers, but I found this an interesting read none the less.

Ridelynn

AmazingAvery said:

Ridelynn said:

.....”a board partner either cuts too many corners and quality is shoddy or tries to do things outside of what the chip manufacture intended (like circumventing intentional hardware locks).”

ASRock cards are apparently Sapphire and Colourful rebrands, this isn’t about quality of product. In addition, if the the issue is AMD needs better representation in Asian countries, where ASRock does well why are they being limited there too? 

There was some speculation that AsRock was using consumer-intended GPUs to build mining-specific SKUs, and AMD only wanted their "professional" GPUs into that product line.

That being said, it was speculation. And from the latest Forbes article... entirely unfounded, as AMD may not be doing anything to ASRock - it may just be false rumor spread to throw attention away from nVidia's GPP publicity, or to try to push AMD's stock to move.

The latest dose of rumor and speculation centers around AMD and ASRock's new lineup of Radeon-exclusive Phantom Gaming GPUs. Reports are circulating that AMD is forbidding ASRock from selling their debut GPU product in Europe and possibly North America. I can confirm that this is false, although the situation itself seems a bit strange.
...
ASRock got into the GPU game with cryptocurrency mining in mind. Indeed, it was initially reported that they were launching mining-based SKUs. What I've been told -- and I confirmed this twice over the phone and again via email -- is that in Europe, ASRock has decided not to sell Phantom Gaming graphics cards commercially. They won't appear in online or brick-and-mortal PC retail shops. They are only intended for miners and industrial use. Furthermore, the minimum order quantity for these customers is 500 pieces.

AmazingAvery

Here we have Toms reaching out to ASRock and they are confirming to them where they want to sell the cards.



The Forbes article the journalist spoke with a PR at ASRock who of course would like to play down and damage control things as to not overly impact their relationship with AMD.
The forbes article also doesn’t have any AMD perspective as they never talked to them.
So you have someone at ASRock talking to Toms and computer base x3 times and you have a Forbes guy talking to a PR person at ASRock doing damage control. So you have an ASRock sales manager and an ASRock PR person..

Why is AMD staying silent ?
Sounds like AMD intervened with ASRock. Nevertheless it would be normal day to day business except the issue is highlighted by the “Freedom of Choice” marketing campaign.

Ridelynn

Also of note - the Tom's information doesn't say ASRock has been banned from selling in any particular area. Just that ASRock does not plan to sell in particular areas.

Just like I would imagine they probably aren't targeting minimum purchase order lots of 500 to be popular in places like Puerto Rico, Mozambique, or the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Conclusion: That must be because AMD is preventing them from targeting those markets!

Quizzical

Depending on how many GPUs AMD is selling to AsRock, they might not want their marketing efforts spread worldwide.  Remember that GPUs in general are fairly supply constrained right now, and AMD GPUs especially.  If AsRock can easily sell all the GPUs they can get from AMD (or perhaps rather, all the GPUs that they can get the memory for, as that's the real constraint) in one market, why bother translating everything into dozens of languages for other markets?

Quizzical

Here's AsRock's take on it:

http://www.asrock.com/news/index.asp?iD=3997

"A leading global motherboard and graphics card manufacturer, ASRock, announced entering the graphics card market with the Phantom Gaming range – a strong line up of AMD Radeon™ RX500 series graphics card in April 2018. Initially, ASRock will roll out graphics card business in various regions based on internal planning. Regions with first priorities are APAC and Latin America. Then ASRock will gradually launch the business in other regions. Thanks for all media friends recently putting attention on our Phantom Gaming graphic card business and giving them massive coverages."

Apparently they're going to start in Asia-Pacific and Latin America.  They plan to expand into other regions later.  That they initially won't have cards in the US, Canada, or Europe is their own choice.

AmazingAvery

^ thats great, thanks for the update 

iAntigone

Just cause the new GPU won't be sold in EU it self. Don't mean people in EU can't get a hold of the new GPU anyways.

Dakeru

While this is not directly related to this case..
When I built my last PC the guy suggested not buying an Asrock board:
"It get's the job done but I can tell you when I'm fixing boards in the tech department the board typically looks like a soldering mess."

Now obviously he was trying to sell me a more expensive brand cause that is his job.

What I am trying to say is that Asrock seems to have "cheap" label to it and I could imagine they are having a harder time on the European market than on their target market South America.

So I don't really think them focusing on SA has any conspiracy background.

Dakeru

DMKano said:

Dakeru said:

While this is not directly related to this case..
When I built my last PC the guy suggested not buying an Asrock board:
"It get's the job done but I can tell you when I'm fixing boards in the tech department the board typically looks like a soldering mess."

Now obviously he was trying to sell me a more expensive brand cause that is his job.

What I am trying to say is that Asrock seems to have "cheap" label to it and I could imagine they are having a harder time on the European market than on their target market South America.

So I don't really think them focusing on SA has any conspiracy background.

Asrock is rock solid - been runnig an asrock mobo in my sons PC for years - zero issues

I believe you.
My point is just that the tech guy was trying to sell me another brand.

If Asrock's resources are limited then it makes sense for them to go for a market where they are more popular.

gervaise1

In the absence of ulterior motives AMD probably has agreements in place with other graphic card manufacturers that - as of today - don't allow it.

Probably comes down to Supply Change Management. Only so much revenue )all from customers) and that if everyone is to recover their investments in quality, manufacturing, assembly, delivery etc. there have to be strategic partnerships that guarantee business.

There are periodic reviews and retenderings etc. - these partnerships are not "keiretsus" - so going forward ASRock may be able to sell in Europe; just not today.