XFX Jumps Off GTX 480 / GTX 470 Ship

RavenXXX2 · 30 Mar 2010 at 11:52

XFX Jumps Off GTX 480 / GTX 470 Ship
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Posted by SKYMTL— March 29th, 2010, 5:03 PM

NO XFX 300x265 XFX Jumps Off GTX 480 / GTX 470 ShipXFX chooses to “skip” NVIDIA’s GTX 480 and GTX 470 in favor of ATI’s high-end cards. Could still release budget conscious Fermi derivatives in the future.

When NVIDIA launched the GTX 480 and GTX 470 on Friday of last week, we were bombarded by the usual influx of press releases from board partners announcing their Fermi-based cards. There were two which were oddly absent; one of which was the long-time NVIDIA favorite ,XFX. This was particularly odd simply because we had seen and posted images of XFX cards a few weeks ago. And according to our sources, those pictures were legit and the decision to avoid the GTX 400 series for the time being was made only within the last few days. We followed up at the time and didn’t receive a response until today. The news isn’t good for those of you who wanted to buy a GTX 400-series card with XFX’s signature Double Lifetime Warranty.

In our conversations with them regarding this subject, it has become clear that XFX will not be releasing any GTX 480 or GTX 470 cards. This is not limited to the North American market either and will affect every market worldwide since the decision was taken on a corporate level. The exact reasoning behind this is not clear but in the shady world of GPUs, very few things can be said with any certainty and for all intents and purposes we will probably never know. One way or another, this is a blow for NVIDIA and their fans.

There is however a glimmer of hope as XFX has stated quite clearly that they intend to continue support NVIDIA’s more budget-oriented cards. That means there is a good possibility that once cut down versions of the GF100 architecture are released, we will likely see cards brandishing the XFX logo.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/news/video/xfx-jumps-gtx-480-gtx-470-ship/

stulid · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:03

Shocking.

I thought nvidia also removed XFX from their preferred partners list because they started selling ATI, wonder if that got something to do with this?

P.s I posted in this thread and not kylew's because you beat him by 5mins

Meeeellar · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:09

XFX won’t have Fermi at launch

Nvidia won't provide

We have heard and confirmed from multiple independent sources that XFX won’t have Fermi cards at launch.

Nvidia is punishing this highly successful brand by cutting them off from Geforce GTX 480 and 470 launch cards, and this is a direct result of XFX's last year's decision to to start selling ATI. Since Nvidia’s sales department doesn't know any better, this is the action the green company decided to take.

Nvidia refuses to see that this might be a bad thing for the whole company as XFX has a very loyal fan base who will probably start standing up for themselves when they realize they won’t get a decent launch quantity of these cards.

In the meantime, XFX’s answer to Nvidia’s cut-out deal is bringing the fastest ever Radeon HD 5970 X2 cards with super specs, and we will try to get as many details as we can.

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18278/1/

RavenXXX2 · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:12

Lol Nvidia would say that, and from fud, well enough said.

D.P. · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:13

Meeeellar said:
http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18278/1/

This is much closer to the truth.

HeX · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:16

D.P. said:
This is much closer to the truth.

TBH I doubt they'll lose much sleep over it.

Locky · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:16

tbh XFX arnt great anyway.

Seems like both companys had a hissie fit.

'Wes · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:17

I don't know, it makes more sense that XFX made the decision.

RavenXXX2 · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:18

Or how about XFX decided to not bother with the 400 cards as the quantities they would have been allocated would have been so small the whole advertising packaging thing, was not worth the effort.

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18277/1/

londonbairn · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:26

Hardly punishing, how many would they have, 2 or 3?

They'll be making far more money out of profitable parts like 5850s, 5870s etc.

drunkenmaster · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:52

As seems to be the case, they are limiting Fermi to a select few companies, basically the biggest buyer of other cards, because theres not a huge amount of point sending 100 cards to 50 companies to make very few each, better for 5 companies to get the whole allocation between them.

Yes, XFX are most definately being exluded because they made the very smart decision to sell AMD cards. Thing is, more and more companies will be selling AMD cards soon because a few hundred 470gtxs/480gtx's per company, with zero profit, isn't going to help them. ALmost all the Nvidia exclusive partners who are more specialised in faster top end cards are suffering. Those that sell bucketloads of gt220's are doing fine, those that made the majority of their cash on overclocked/special edition mid/high end cards, XFX, EVGA maybe, and several others really have smeg all to sell. BFG/EVGA are hurting in lots of markets.

Thing is ASUS/MSI and a few others aren't NVidia exclusive, but it was leaving Nvidia to become non exclusive at a fairly important time that looked so bad for Nvidia, the others either haven't been exclusive for years, or never were. I'm guessing high end sales well into next year will be dominated by AMD cards, while its not critical to Nvidia, they are still selling low end cards by the millions, the "halo" effect does eventually trickle down and millions more sales at the high end establishes a clear market leader and so people want a AMD low end card when they get one. AMD high end dominance will slowly increase market share in the low end, and that will, and frankly IS hurting Nvidia badly.

3dcandy · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:57

I find it hard to believe that NV don't realise that all this negative press will have an impact on their business. Maybe not now, but it will at some stage. Is it arrogance?

kkbigal · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:57

nVidia probably doesn't have enough chips to go around, so they're just capitilising on the opportunity by reducing the number of partners it has to allocate chips to and gets to slap XFX for selling ATi products at the same time. I imagine that if they had buckets of chips available, they'd be only too happy to let XFX buy some.

I'm sure the board of XFX were not happy with the prospect of remaining loyal to nVidia, buying crusty old GTX 280/285/295 parts that were becoming as rare as hens teeth, horribly expensive and would mean they'd have to stack up the price to retailers to make any kind of profit. All the time this is happening, team red is coining it in with the 4x and 5x series...I'd have jumped ship too.

area512003 · 30 Mar 2010 at 13:03

3dcandy said:
I find it hard to believe that NV don't realise that all this negative press will have an impact on their business. Maybe not now, but it will at some stage. Is it arrogance?

I think they are arrogant. Didnt BFG go under due to Nvidia? And now punishing XFX cos they decided to bring on ATI?? :confused:

kylew · 30 Mar 2010 at 13:08

3dcandy said:
I find it hard to believe that NV don't realise that all this negative press will have an impact on their business. Maybe not now, but it will at some stage. Is it arrogance?

Arrogant bordering on stupidity to the detriment of their own wellbeing.

They're stuck in the mentality of "we're the best full stop" and it's hurting them bad.

bru · 30 Mar 2010 at 14:17

If this is really nvidia's decision then, oh great they put their foot in their mouth yet again.

i do actually wonder who's decision it really was, as in the original article they mention that it was also posted on legitreviews.com and they have xfx saying.

XFX said that the decision not to carry this series of GF100 graphics card was their decision and that they will still be carrying NVIDIA products

whereas on fud's all he says is that

We have heard and confirmed from multiple independent sources that XFX won’t have Fermi cards at launch.

everything after that seems to be his analysis of the situation.

not particularly clear either way, but defiantly bad news for us the consumer.

kinda makes me glad i was away for the actual launch weekend seeing as the new Nvidia cards really do suck as much as certain people were implying. (yes this is me saying i was wrong) when I'm wrong i don't mind saying it.

Robes · 30 Mar 2010 at 14:22

Nvidia needed a kick up the backside and maybe this is it.

fs123 · 30 Mar 2010 at 14:29

Are XFX really making any money? Their 58xx series cards are the most expensive of all the suppliers and don't really have any obvious advantage to show for it.

There seems to be plenty of XFX cards in stock everywhere. i.e not selling much...

duc999 · 30 Mar 2010 at 14:41

Commercial suicide for XFX and not the brightest decision.

Its about shifting cards so Nvidia won't bat an eyelid as there will be plenty more resellers waiting to take their place.

queamin · 30 Mar 2010 at 14:55

duc999 said:
Commercial suicide for XFX and not the brightest decision.

Its about shifting cards so Nvidia won't bat an eyelid as there will be plenty more resellers waiting to take their place.

I disagree how is it suicide not selling a few 480/470 as they must know how many fermi cards they would have got from nvidia and if it is worth it to them.

I would think they making more of a mark up on ati cards then 470/480.