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Are Nvidia's board partner's ruffled about Founder's Edition?

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3DVagabond said:
Look at this! TPU has already set the mythical perf/$ for these cards we can't even buy. I'll bet nVidia is really thankful about that.
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It's mythical because it will never exist in two weeks, right? Sure, the stigma of paper launches make it lame, but if the product is complete and shipping then I'd be happy with paper launches every time rather than bickering over rumors and exaggerated use of fantasy adjectives.
 
Grooveriding said:
The reference cards have been at MSRP for every major launch. I've bought 780ti, Titan, 780 and Titan X all reference at MSRP. I've bought Titan X straight from nvidia as reference for MSRP. ACX EVGA cards have been at reference prices + $10. The founders card is a joke, it's a reference card, bare bones PCB design and the noisy blower. Even EVGA Classified cards have only been MSRP + $50 and that is the best of the best. :sneaky:

Revisionist history at work in this thread.
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Sure Classified are the best? I always regarded ASUS MATRIX and MSI LIGHTNING as the best. ASUS MATRIX are always clocked the highest out of the box.
 
The nvidia branded and boxed have indeed been sold at a premium at only Best Buy's (Back to GTX 460 I believe) in the US I believe. Only other way to get them is Nvidia direct on Nvidia's webstore, but that entails paying hefty shipping and tax etc etc.
 
littleg said:
Wouldn't OEMs (boutique builders) deal directly with Nvidia? And why the special marketing name? And why sell to consumers if that's the purpose?

Just seems a weird decision to me. If it's an early access thing because yields aren't so good then you can understand it but with AIBs getting cards out at the same time it just seems nonsensical.
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This is the first time Nvidia have had a standard gamers card like this outside the super high end - that is a high quality blower reference card that can be guaranteed for the lifetime of the model. Something I understand boutique builders wanted.

I guess once that had been decided Nvidia marketing decided to try and make the most of it by marketing it to normal buyers as well, only they messed it up leading to confusion and angst. I doubt they will do it that way again.
 
railven said:
Or you missed my correlation. "NV has done this for years at Best Buy, seems they are just going to do it every where."



Which is why I said it wasn't an issue until it was announced at a launch and made the standard. I mean:



That's rather explicit.

I'd argue if people were going to replace the reference cooler or not even going to buy it from the start, if they can get the option they wanted cheaper, they wouldn't complain. However, those that require that specific blower - ouch.
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Show me on NVidia's website where the MSRP of a GTX 970 reference is $379.99. The GTX 980 reference was $549 MSRP everywhere which invalidates your argument. Best Buy charges what ever the heck they want because they are Best Buy. It has nothing to do with the founders editions. The information that gets spread around here baffles me sometimes.
 
thesmokingman said:
You can't trust that, it's not dated.


https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/

Bottom of link chart, ref 970 = 330 msrp.
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the MSRP of the REFERENCE 970 has been $379 from the start. Though its only been available at Best Buy and Nvidia direct. So almost no-one has these and they were not pushed out to AIB's to sell like 1080 FE will be.

The 970 that 99% of people bought were the $330 MSRP AIB custom cooled models.

Point is, Nvidia has been charging a premium for NVIDIA BOXED AND BRANDED reference designs for a while. That does not include reference cards that are sold by AIB's under the AIB brand.
 
The AIB's are going to have FE's on the 27th, I spoke to our local Nvidia sales rep yesterday (South Texas) and our normal vendors that always have custom cards available on launch of cards and got the same. No sign of any custom EVGA, Gigabyte or MSI cards on the 27th, my sales rep told me to expect them around the second week of June.
 
poohbear said:
Nvidia is taking a big chunk of sales the first month the GTX 1080/1070 are released (maybe even the lion's share?), & I can't imagine they're too happy that Nvidia has decided to sell boards directly to the end users for a premium to boot.
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Are they in fact taking a significant chunk of new purchases, or is that just speculation? I tend to doubt most consumers look to direct-sale avenues as their first choice.) As for the price premium, surely that would mollify their partners, not piss them off further. What really upsets manufacturing "partners" and retailers is manufacturers selling product at a discount from MSRP (which is the reason few if any of them, in any industry, do it except for the occasional discontinuance/clearance sale).

Elixer said:
and yeah, not much they can do about it.
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Sure there is, at least for major players. In typical double-speak, it simply involves "shifting the focus of our product lines to better serve our customers."<roflmao>
 
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Rvenger said:
Show me on NVidia's website where the MSRP of a GTX 970 reference is $379.99. The GTX 980 reference was $549 MSRP everywhere which invalidates your argument. Best Buy charges what ever the heck they want because they are Best Buy. It has nothing to do with the founders editions. The information that gets spread around here baffles me sometimes.
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How does it invalidate my argument?

Do I have to requote myself? Should I just reword it?

Best Buy has been selling NV branded cards for a premium, at times $50-$100 over MSRP, even though the exact same cards from AIB's sat next to them for less. This is a fact. This does not mean ALL cards. This does not imply MSRP is different. This does not denote that it is NV jacking up the price or Best Buy themselves. This does not imply this is the SOLE reason for NV doing it to founder cards.

This is my opinion of why NV is doing this to all their cards from the get go. I'm testing my opinion that these cards won't be the primary sellers with a poll, just curious to see what an enthusiast form votes (since these aren't mainstream cards). I believe they will become a niche, and NV is trying to get as much as they can from them.

When I make reference to Best Buy it's just to support that NV branded cards have sold for more over AIB - and no one cared. That's all. I'm not defending the Founder's Price, I'm not defending NV's decision to create a new SKU exclusively for themselves. I'm simply saying "they did it at retail, I'm not surprised they'll try to do it globally." But people seem to twist this into something more nefarious.

I'm not spreading rumors and just about all my posts about this topic have had a variation of "this is my opinion, this is what it is based on."

EDIT:

n0x1ous said:
the MSRP of the REFERENCE 970 has been $379 from the start. Though its only been available at Best Buy and Nvidia direct. So almost no-one has these and they were not pushed out to AIB's to sell like 1080 FE will be.

The 970 that 99% of people bought were the $330 MSRP AIB custom cooled models.

Point is, Nvidia has been charging a premium for NVIDIA BOXED AND BRANDED reference designs for a while. That does not include reference cards that are sold by AIB's under the AIB brand.
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Since I only got on the NV train with the 980 Ti, I wasn't even aware of that. So there you have some precedent to the Founder's Edition.
 
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I remember when ppl went crazy for the 970 reference cooler look because they expected the same cooler from the Titan/980. After ppl realized that the cooler was not a vapor chamber lol. Talk about misleading...
 
thesmokingman said:
I remember when ppl went crazy for the 970 reference cooler look because they expected the same cooler from the Titan/980. After ppl realized that the cooler was not a vapor chamber lol. Talk about misleading...
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At least it IS a vapor chamber on 1080 but yes people were after them for the Titan "look" and multigpu in tight spaces I imagine.

EDIT: I don't believe the 980 had the vapor chamber either. It was only used on 250w parts until 1080
 
A few days ago the FUD was about a paper launch with no chips, now it's about nvidia selling so many GPUs directly that they annoy their partners.

War. War never changes.
 
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