A shocking report claims that EVGA, a 20-year veteran of the GPU market and one of Nvidia’s biggest partners, is getting out of the graphics card business entirely. As one of the most visible brands selling graphics cards to consumers, its exit from the market will have big ramifications going forward. EVGA will continue to sell its current supply of graphics cards, but won’t be designing new hardware as Nvidia debuts its GeForce RTX 4000 series of GPUs.
The report comes from GamersNexus, a reliable source (and a friend of the PCWorld team) in a 30-minute exposé. The video quotes interviews directly with EVGA leaders and quotes founder and CEO Andrew Han and brand director Joe Darwin. PCWorld finds no reason to doubt the veracity of the information presented.
GamersNexus founder Steve Burke quotes EVGA sources as to why the company made this decision. According to EVGA, the simmering discontent between the company and its biggest supplier has led to a definite downfall. Nvidia leadership apparently knew this back in April. EVGA complains that it was consistently given product information too late in the development cycle, even not disclosing chip pricing until after the MSRP for Nvidia-branded graphics cards was announced to the public.
EVGA also claims that Nvidia restricts its partners from selling cards to retailers below low prices for some models and above price caps for others. This is a common practice in the electronics industry aimed at maintaining the perception of market value, but EVGA says the policy has prevented the company from creating unique high-end designs at more cost-effective prices. EVGA representatives also complained that Nvidia’s own-brand Founders Edition cards are priced lower than cards from third-party vendors, competing directly with companies like EVGA, Asus, Gigabyte and Zotac at an unfair advantage. EVGA claims that the current downturn in the GPU market is causing them to lose “hundreds of dollars per video card” for high-end designs. Many of Nvidia’s GPU manufacturing partners are known to have similar complaints, if not voiced so passionately.
According to GamersNexus, EVGA has made the decision to exit the graphics card market entirely, not just divorce Nvidia as a business partner. The company has stated unequivocally that it has no interest in building new graphics cards based on chip designs from AMD or new competitor Intel. Nvidia graphics cards make up a whopping 78 percent of EVGA’s current business, and GamersNexus quotes the company as saying it has no plans to expand into new product lines. That means an inevitable downsizing and downsizing for the California-based corporation, which currently employs about 280 people worldwide. Darwin says no layoffs are planned at this time and that workers will be transferred to other departments, though company leaders expect “attrition” of employees as this news breaks.
At the time of writing, EVGA’s non-graphics card products include other desktop computer components such as power supplies (20 percent of its remaining sales) and motherboards, cooling hardware, and some cases, plus gaming mice, keyboards, and video capture cards. EVGA has stated that it intends to keep the company together and is not seeking a merger or acquisition.
Owners of existing EVGA graphics cards will continue to receive customer service, and the company has GPUs and parts in stock for RMA and warranty repairs. While some engineering samples of EVGA-branded RTX 4000 cards exist, retail products will not be produced or sold, and the existing supply of EVGA RTX 3000 cards is expected to sell out before the end of 2022.