Why does ATI sell BBA cards and Nvidia doesnt sell BBN ones?

[Frostwake]

Well I was looking at that "ati vs saphire" thread and this crossed my mind, why does nvidia only sell through 3rd party manufacturers?

 

[aka1nas]

It probably allows them to focus on GPU design and stay lean and mean. If you think about it, it's pretty smart as if the cards don't sell Nvidia has still been paid for the chips and the board manufacturer is screwed.

 

[Bull Dog]

nVIDIA still makes and sells reference cards to OEM's.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: Bull Dog
nVIDIA still makes and sells reference cards to OEM's.

yep....i got a Gf3 TI200 here, and the only badge on it is nvidia...came from a Dell

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
It probably allows them to focus on GPU design and stay lean and mean. If you think about it, it's pretty smart as if the cards don't sell Nvidia has still been paid for the chips and the board manufacturer is screwed.

Yeah, but they pass up potential profits they could make by selling their own cards. Since they sell the GPUs to OEMs at a profit, if they made their own cards they could either sell them for less or make more money than anyone else on each card.

Of course, that has to be balanced against potentially pissing off the other card makers, since the chip maker gets an effective discount on their raw materials (they get the GPUs at cost). If ATI tried to undercut everyone else in the market, Sapphire and everyone else would be pissed.

 

[Cooler]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: aka1nas
It probably allows them to focus on GPU design and stay lean and mean. If you think about it, it's pretty smart as if the cards don't sell Nvidia has still been paid for the chips and the board manufacturer is screwed.

Yeah, but they pass up potential profits they could make by selling their own cards. Since they sell the GPUs to OEMs at a profit, if they made their own cards they could either sell them for less or make more money than anyone else on each card.

Of course, that has to be balanced against potentially pissing off the other card makers, since the chip maker gets an effective discount on their raw materials (they get the GPUs at cost). If ATI tried to undercut everyone else in the market, Sapphire and everyone else would be pissed.

Sapphire makes BBA for ATI so i dont think they would be pissed if they made more money.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Cooler
Sapphire makes BBA for ATI so i dont think they would be pissed if they made more money.

People keep saying this, but I haven't seen any proof that Sapphire makes most or all of ATI's cards. They definitely have, at points in the past, made some of ATI's "BBA" cards, but I haven't seen anything to say they definitively still do this, let alone make all of them.

 

[FalllenAngell]

Originally posted by: Frostwake
Well I was looking at that "ati vs saphire" thread and this crossed my mind, why does nvidia only sell through 3rd party manufacturers?

If you look at the historical earnings of nVidia vs. ATI, the reason could be they have no reason to change.

nVidia always makes many millions profit every quarter, and has for a very long time.

ATI loses millions most quarters, and has for a very long time.

If something is not broke, why fix it?

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: FalllenAngell

Originally posted by: Frostwake
Well I was looking at that "ati vs saphire" thread and this crossed my mind, why does nvidia only sell through 3rd party manufacturers?

If you look at the historical earnings of nVidia vs. ATI, the reason could be they have no reason to change.

nVidia always makes many millions profit every quarter, and has for a very long time.

ATI loses millions most quarters, and has for a very long time.

If something is not broke, why fix it?

Worked for 3dfx. Remember how many manufacturers had Voodoo 2 cards and then 3dfx screwed their partners by manufacturing the cards themselves and cut all their partners off...who in turn started releasing nVidia cards in droves.

 

[Brian48]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: Bull Dog
nVIDIA still makes and sells reference cards to OEM's.

yep....i got a Gf3 TI200 here, and the only badge on it is nvidia...came from a Dell

No. All that means is that an unidentified 3rd party vendor has produced these generic, "nVidia based" cards for Dell, but without any branding to tie it back to them. nVidia does not mass produce the card themselves. If you research the FCC number assigned to the card, you'd probably be able to trace it back to the manufacturer who actually produced it.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: FalllenAngell

Originally posted by: Frostwake
Well I was looking at that "ati vs saphire" thread and this crossed my mind, why does nvidia only sell through 3rd party manufacturers?

If you look at the historical earnings of nVidia vs. ATI, the reason could be they have no reason to change.

nVidia always makes many millions profit every quarter, and has for a very long time.

ATI loses millions most quarters, and has for a very long time.

If something is not broke, why fix it?

Worked for 3dfx. Remember how many manufacturers had Voodoo 2 cards and then 3dfx screwed their partners by manufacturing the cards themselves and cut all their partners off...who in turn started releasing nVidia cards in droves.

3DFX made a *lot* of mistakes. Considering how many other fields NVIDIA is in (chipsets being a big one), I'm not sure it makes much sense for them to get into video card manufacturing right now.

Not sure where "FalllenAngell" is getting his info on ATI; they have turned a profit every year for the last three years (and in fact made over $200M in 2004). They were considerably rockier before that, and posted losses in the tens of millions (on ~$1B in revenue) in 2000-2002. Over the last 10 years they're up over $500,000,000.

From their annual reports

1996: Sales $466M, Net $27M
1997: Sales $602M, Net $159M
1998: Sales $737M, Net $107M
1999: Sales $1.2B, Net $159M
2000: Sales $1.3B, Net -$69M
2001: Sales $1.0B, Net -$54M
2002: Sales $1.0B, Net -$47M
2003: Sales $1.4B, Net $35M
2004: Sales $2.0B, Net $205M
2005: Sales $2.2B, Net $17M

Comparable data from NVIDIA:

2001: Revenue $735M, Net $98M
2002: Revenue $1.3B, Net $176M
2003: Revenue $1.9B, Net $91M
2004: Revenue $1.8B, Net $74M
2005: Revenue $2.0B, Net $100M

NVIDIA's been somewhat more consistent, but they've also been a bigger company longer, and are in more markets (although ATI is starting to compete with them in the motherboard chipset market). I have no clue where the "ATI loses millions most quarters and has for a long time" statement comes from.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: aka1nas
It probably allows them to focus on GPU design and stay lean and mean. If you think about it, it's pretty smart as if the cards don't sell Nvidia has still been paid for the chips and the board manufacturer is screwed.

Yeah, but they pass up potential profits they could make by selling their own cards. Since they sell the GPUs to OEMs at a profit, if they made their own cards they could either sell them for less or make more money than anyone else on each card.

Of course, that has to be balanced against potentially pissing off the other card makers, since the chip maker gets an effective discount on their raw materials (they get the GPUs at cost). If ATI tried to undercut everyone else in the market, Sapphire and everyone else would be pissed.

Not making cards means they don't have to provide end-user support which I'm sure is very expensive.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: MDE
Not making cards means they don't have to provide end-user support which I'm sure is very expensive.

They still have to support the drivers (and other common things, like PureVideo). Although yes, they don't 'directly' take end-user calls, etc. NVIDIA also has to invest money producing reference card designs that they don't directly sell (although I'm not sure if they get royalties from OEMs that use their reference designs).

My point is that since they get the GPUs at cost (and already own the reference designs), ATI/NVIDIA should be able to make more profit than 'third-party' card makers selling at the same prices.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: MDE
Not making cards means they don't have to provide end-user support which I'm sure is very expensive.

They still have to support the drivers (and other common things, like PureVideo). Although yes, they don't 'directly' take end-user calls, etc. NVIDIA also has to invest money producing reference card designs that they don't directly sell (although I'm not sure if they get royalties from OEMs that use their reference designs).

My point is that since they get the GPUs at cost (and already own the reference designs), ATI/NVIDIA should be able to make more profit than 'third-party' card makers selling at the same prices.

Actually, I am pretty sure that most card manufacturers state to only use the drivers off their website and Nvidia's site says that no support is provided with the reference drivers.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: MDE
Not making cards means they don't have to provide end-user support which I'm sure is very expensive.

They still have to support the drivers (and other common things, like PureVideo). Although yes, they don't 'directly' take end-user calls, etc. NVIDIA also has to invest money producing reference card designs that they don't directly sell (although I'm not sure if they get royalties from OEMs that use their reference designs).

My point is that since they get the GPUs at cost (and already own the reference designs), ATI/NVIDIA should be able to make more profit than 'third-party' card makers selling at the same prices.

Actually, I am pretty sure that most card manufacturers state to only use the drivers off their website and Nvidia's site says that no support is provided with the reference drivers.

from the bfg site:

BFG Tech Graphics Cards use pure NVIDIA® Unified Drivers for the best performance and stability. Follow this link and then select Graphics Driver ? GeForce and TNT ? and then your Operating System

 

[akugami]

You know what would make more sense. If ATI had a "step-up" program similar to EVGA's for their BBA cards. It seems to be a good program, at least judging by EVGA customers on this board.