EVGA Withdraws from the Motherboard Market?

[neatfeatguy]

I don't see why folks are trying to fight here - just to say "Ha! I was right!"? Get over yourselves.

The way I see it, this means that there are fewer options on the market for the consumer and if things keep going this route we'll be down to fewer and fewer companies that manufacture these products and what happens then? I guess we can look at companies such as Intel (when they dominated the market and advancements in their field stagnated for years and prices were jacked for top-tier products) or maybe Nvidia (they dominate the dGPU market and it feels like another Intel situation waiting to happen). Less competition on the market isn't good for the consumer. If AMD hadn't been able to come back with their Zen lineup, where would have we all been with Intel still stomping all over with their tick-tock stepping stones and quad cores? Still there with their tick-tock model and quad cores....

 

[john_]

Not my fault you consider conversations not ruined only when they paint AMD as some sort of a victim.

Oh come on. Saint, martyr? You expect me to lose more time when the other person tries to derail the conversation?
Let's give you a hint.
From now and on everytime you are serious, you will get replies. But when you derail, you will only get "You win, the end, bye".

 

[bug]

Oh come on. Saint, martyr?

It's basically what everyone in the red camp stops short of saying. I just took the reasoning one step further. (And yes, it's ridiculous.)

Kingpin and his BIOS team IS the main MB team. Writing has been on the wall. No more video cards, MB team is leaving, Jacob works at NVIDIA now.
.
Can they make a comeback. Maybe, but pretty much bleeding all the talent.

It's a little strange, but it seems like everyone selling proper enthusiast-oriented products has to close up shop eventually. And not just cancel the enthusiast line, but pretty much go out of business. It happened to Abit, then DFI and now EVGA.
Meanwhile Asus and others, simply slapping on colors and leds is still happily raking in the cash.

 

[QUANTUMPHYSICS]

I am extraordinarily disappointed if that's the case. I wanted a 4090 Kingpin. Imagine how disappointed I was to realize I'd have to buy an Asus Strix?

EVGA had the best advertisement and the best product.

 

[CyberCT]

I'm staring at my EVGA 3080 ti through the PC's glass front as I read this news.

 

[bug]

I'm staring at my EVGA 3080 ti through the PC's glass front as I read this news.

I'm still on a 1060, but yes, still EVGA

 

[80-watt Hamster]

It's basically what everyone in the red camp stops short of saying. I just took the reasoning one step further. (And yes, it's ridiculous.)


It's a little strange, but it seems like everyone selling proper enthusiast-oriented products has to close up shop eventually. And not just cancel the enthusiast line, but pretty much go out of business. It happened to Abit, then DFI and now EVGA.
Meanwhile Asus and others, simply slapping on colors and leds is still happily raking in the cash.

Every mature product segment becomes commodified eventually. When there's no meaningful differentiation between manufacturers or models, it becomes mere price competition, at which point it's almost entirely a question of resources in the ensuing price war. The examples in desktop continuing are nigh endless. It happened in CPUs, graphics (chips), networking, audio, DRAM, HDDs, and now the reaper is coming for graphics boards.

 

[bug]

Every mature product segment becomes commodified eventually. When there's no meaningful differentiation between manufacturers or models, it becomes mere price competition, at which point it's almost entirely a question of resources in the ensuing price war. The examples in desktop continuing are nigh endless. It happened in CPUs, graphics (chips), networking, audio, DRAM, HDDs, and now the reaper is coming for graphics boards.

You're not wrong, but the kind of motherboards Abit, DFI anf EVGA sold never became commodity. And I'm still not sure how they managed to drag the entire manufacturer down with them.

 

[RandomWan]

Soyo actually still exists and you can buy motherboards from them on like Aliexpress but I don't remember who brought them sadly.

DFI just pulled out of the consumer market. They still sell industrial boards among other things.

 

[bug]

DFI just pulled out of the consumer market. They still sell industrial boards among other things.

Abit also continued as USI. But for the purpose of this discussion, it's only relevant if they exist in the consumer space.

 

[HairyLobsters]

Curious if discontinuing GPU production was partually an excuse for them the slowly shut down all together.

 

[Double-Click]

This is what happens when margins become razor thin and pricing gets out of hand.
Board prices (just like GPUs) have become bonkers, and nothing will change until the bottom falls out.

 

[bug]

Curious if discontinuing GPU production was partually an excuse for them the slowly shut down all together.

GPUs were their bread and butter, what they wanted may not matter at all.

 

[TechLurker]

Now, AMD doesn't have a very strong brand in GPUs and it needs to constantly drive prices down, away from the equivalent competing Nvidia models, which I don't know how that translates with it's partner profits. And that's because AMD doesn't offer the strongest GPUs neither has the strongest marketing. That means EVGA wouldn't have the room to sell expensive models. I mean a special super WOW overclocked RX 7900 XTX can't be priced much higher than the average cheapest RX 7900 XTX model without coming too close to RTX 4080.

Thing though, is that AMD lacks the same level of hardcore support NVIDIA gets from OC'ers like KINGPIN who'd push their GPUs to the limit and even work some magic to make them better (and even provide some feedback to the company, as KINGPIN and his predecessors used to do with NVIDIA). There just isn't a serious group out there who can push AMD cards as far as EVGA, Galax, and Kudan have done for NVIDIA. It's led to a self-sustained marketing cycle where the popular OC'ers market the cards at those who want to chase performance.

That's something AMD should be working towards; having serious OC'ers come and break their GPUs and feed the results back, leading to customs that can push beyond what the mainstream cards can do. AMD could do with a KINGPIN and crew of their own; ones who kitbash solutions on how to make their own GPUs clock higher, or effectively make custom cards out of top bins. Considering that AMD claims to be more open to working with others than NVIDIA, that would be one thing I'd love for them to do; start working with serious OC'ers on how to improve and push their GPUs. Give them the support NVIDIA no longer wants to give.

 

[bug]

Thing though, is that AMD lacks the same level of hardcore support NVIDIA gets from OC'ers like KINGPIN who'd push their GPUs to the limit and even work some magic to make them better (and even provide some feedback to the company, as KINGPIN and his predecessors used to do with NVIDIA). There just isn't a serious group out there who can push AMD cards as far as EVGA, Galax, and Kudan have done for NVIDIA. It's led to a self-sustained marketing cycle where the popular OC'ers market the cards at those who want to chase performance.

That's something AMD should be working towards; having serious OC'ers come and break their GPUs and feed the results back, leading to customs that can push beyond what the mainstream cards can do. AMD could do with a KINGPIN and crew of their own; ones who kitbash solutions on how to make their own GPUs clock higher, or effectively make custom cards out of top bins. Considering that AMD claims to be more open to working with others than NVIDIA, that would be one thing I'd love for them to do; start working with serious OC'ers on how to improve and push their GPUs. Give them the support NVIDIA no longer wants to give.

That's not hardcore support for Nvidia. If you want to set a record, you need to start with the fastest card. If AMD was able to build that, modders would switch in the blink of an eye.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

You're not wrong, but the kind of motherboards Abit, DFI anf EVGA sold never became commodity. And I'm still not sure how they managed to drag the entire manufacturer down with them.

Those kinds of products don't have the combination of margin and volume to sustain a company; they need to be able to move enough of the basic stuff as well to keep the lights on. But the bigger players will eat your lunch in that segment. And they did.

 

[Why_Me]

Closed shop on their gpu's and now their boards have went the way of Abit. The CEO should be fired.

 

[ir_cow]

Even though this is now confirmed to be a rumor, Gamers Nexus Computex video had Kingpin interview at the GSKILL memory XOC event saying the MB BIOS team is leaving. Every time he was asked by Steve where he's going, he didn't directly reply but it was pretty obvious that he's leaving as well.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Closed shop on their gpu's and now their boards have went the way of Abit. The CEO should be fired.

It wasn't the fault of their CEO.

It's been widely know that the cost GPU wafers, the coast of the boards, and then the cost of everything needed on the board has been going upward with each generation as complextly increases. That's the issue with more performance, cost goes up. GPU companies are on razer thin margins and EVGAs warranty made it worse.

Simply put they can't sell GPUs for a high enough price to make it work. The ony companies that can are the massive ones like ASUS.

There's no bottom to fall out on this either as it's the cost of making the product that driving it. Prices either have to go up a lot more, or high end GPUs need to go away completely.

 

[Solaris17]

Update 16:41 UTC: We just received the following statement from EVGA:

"We saw those message and they are rumors.

Our Taiwan office is still operating and Kingpin is still with EVGA.

EVGA is still doing business and supporting its customers.

Thanks for reaching out"

Nice! good news!

 

[sethmatrix7]

Nvidia could undercut AMD and kill it. AMD just can't because

- Nvidia enjoys higher capacities than AMD from TSMC. Nvidia can flood the market with cheap GPUs, AMD can't, except if it decided to take capacity from Instinct, EPYC and Ryzen. Not gone happen for obvious reasons.
- Nvidia enjoys the marketing advantage and a much stronger brand. We see RTX 3050 selling much better than RX 6600 while RX 6600 is killing RTX 3050 in benchmarks. If AMD was lowering prices, Nvidia would follow. We see it now with RTX 4080. AMD in the end will manage nothing more than hurting itself. Nvidia will keep selling with lower margins, but still higher margins than AMD. AMD is at 50% profit margins, Nvidia will pass 70% if it hasn't done it already.

The mentallity of "Please AMD lower prices so I can buy cheaper Intel and Nvidia hardware", is a thing of the past. And that's a consumer choice, not AMD's fault.

AMD needs at the same time stronger hardware than Nvidia, more favorable press coverage than Nvidia, higher TSMC capacity from Nvidia to lower prices and try to get some market share. And even then it's not certain that people wouldn't continue buying based on brand.


This is 1+1 = 2. Really analysing the obvious here.

True. NVIDIA's Mindshare has reached such a towering level that they have complete control over the average consumer, and the average consumer does very little research.

 

[megaclite]

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

It wasn't the fault of their CEO.

It's been widely know that the cost GPU wafers, the coast of the boards, and then the cost of everything needed on the board has been going upward with each generation as complextly increases. That's the issue with more performance, cost goes up. GPU companies are on razer thin margins and EVGAs warranty made it worse.

Simply put they can't sell GPUs for a high enough price to make it work. The ony companies that can are the massive ones like ASUS.

There's no bottom to fall out on this either as it's the cost of making the product that driving it. Prices either have to go up a lot more, or high end GPUs need to go away completely.

EVGA outsourced their PCB and cooler designs and manufacturing to third parties. EVGA only did the engineering internally. This made then uniquely vulnerable to supply chain shock. I wonder if that happened recently.

They also had the step up program, which was financial suicide, according to other AIB makers.

They also overordered the GTX 1000 series and the RTX 2000 series, and had apparently done the same to high end RTX 3000 series. This is just plain poor business management.

They also had lost a lot of their reputation in recent years, with multiple recalls and the exploding 3000 series issue.

The CEO absolutely takes blame for these. EVGA was run very loose, and that was a major factor in their pulling from the market.

True. NVIDIA's Mindshare has reached such a towering level that they have complete control over the average consumer, and the average consumer does very little research.

I guess giving nvidia the high end of a silver platter for three generations was actually a BAD idea. Hmmm....I wonder if anyone called them out on that......

Mindshare. LMFAO. People still looking for nebulous excuses for why AMD just didnt bother competing for years. Yeah, no duh your marketshare is going to tank when you give that much up to your competitor.

 

[LabRat 891]

IMHO, eVGA needs to sell off their brand before more discontent 'insiders' sabotage any value left in the IP.

I see Acer getting back into the components-market; maybe, they could buy them up.

 

[Dave65]

Ok, so Videocardz took their article down about EVGAs demise, so was this just a rumor?
If it was false then GN got it wrong too.