NVIDIA has announced that it will stop manufacturing GPUs, accusing EVGA of disrespecting the company’s intellectual property. The move comes after a long-running dispute between the two companies, which began in earnest in early 2017. In a statement, NVIDIA said that it would “no longer produce or sell products based on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX graphics cards.” “We are disappointed with how EVGA has treated our intellectual property and we will continue to work together to protect our rights,” said NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. “We hope this dispute can be resolved amicably.” EVGA responded by saying that it would “vigorously defend its rights” and that it would continue to produce GeForce GTX cards “under the terms of our agreement with NVIDIA.”
It was reported on Friday that EVGA’s CEO, Andrew Han, announced in a closed-door meeting that the company killed its relationship with GPU giant NVIDIA. As a result of this decision, we won’t see any next-generation NVIDIA GPUs from EVGA next year — and since EVGA only sold NVIDIA cards, that means the company is officially done making GPUs for now. This report was subsequently confirmed by an EVGA representative on the company’s forums, saying that the company “will not carry the next-generation graphics cards.”
The company will still sell its current lineup until stock runs out, and likewise, it will continue supporting and honoring current products, including returns and replacements under warranty — it’s withholding inventory for this purpose. So if you have a current-gen EVGA GPU, or if you were planning to buy one, you should be fine. This decision just means that we won’t see new GPUs from EVGA grace the market. The company expects to run out of 3000-series GPUs by the end of this year.
As for the reason, EVGA cites “disrespectful treatment” from NVIDIA as the main reason. Among some of those disrespectful incidents, EVGA said NVIDIA wouldn’t disclose info about pricing, including final MSRP or part prices, to even its partners until the final announcement. The company planned at one point to produce the new GPUs, finishing engineering samples of 4000-series GPUs, but those won’t move into production. EVGA says people working in its GPU division will be relocated within the company, too, so this shouldn’t result in layoffs, but that’s never guaranteed.
Will we see any GPUs at all from EVGA in the future? It’s unlikely. The company said it’s done completely with NVIDIA for this generation and any future generations. It also only partnered with NVIDIA, and it wouldn’t explore partnerships at this time with its main competitor, AMD, or newcomer GPU maker Intel.
If you wanted to get a new RTX 4000 card once they’re released, you’ll have to set your sights on a Founders Edition card or check another third-party OEM like MSI or ASUS.
NVIDIA sent us the following statement:
Source: Gamers Nexus, EVGA
