By Jacob Roach
AMD’s former senior vice president and general manager of Radeon has come out with some strong words against Nvidia. Scott Herkelman called Nvidia “the GPU cartel” in response to a story from the Wall Street Journal in which Nvidia’s customers claim that it delays GPU shipments in retaliation for those customers shopping with other suppliers.
The accusation in question comes from Jonathan Ross, CEO of AI chip startup Groq, who said, “a lot of people that we meet with say that if Nvidia were to hear that we were meeting, they would disavow it. The problem is you have to pay Nvidia a year in advance, and you may get your hardware in a year, or it may take longer, and it’s, ‘Aw shucks, you’re buying from someone else, and I guess it’s going to take a little longer.’”
Herkelman responded to Tom’s Hardware’s coverage of the story on X (formerly Twitter), saying, “this happens more than you expect, Nvidia does this with DC customers, [manufacturers], [add-in board partners], press, and resellers.”
This happens more than you expect, NVIDIA does this with DC customers, OEMs, AIBs, press, and resellers. They learned from GPP to not put it into writing. They just don't ship after a customer has ordered. They are the GPU cartel and they control all supply.
— Scott Herkelman (@sherkelman) February 27, 2024
This behavior calls back to the GeForce Partner Program (GPP), as pointed out by Herkelman. Nvidia has canceled the GPP following backlash over it allegedly requiring Nvidia’s partners to remove its gaming branding from all non-Nvidia GPUs. This isn’t the first time Herkelman has come out against the GPP. He released a statement in 2018 shortly after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and European Union Commission began responding to complaints about the program.
“They learned from GPP to not put it into writing,” Herkelman continued. “They just don’t ship after a customer has ordered. They are the GPU cartel and they control all supply.”
Nvidia Bans Hardware Unboxed, Then Backpedals: Our Thoughts
Herkelman’s claim about restricting units from press is particularly interesting, as we know about a clear example of that happening in the past. In late 2020, Hardware Unboxed, a YouTube channel dedicated to PC hardware reviews and analysis, received an email that it would no longer receive review units from Nvidia. It stated: “Our Founders Edition boards and other Nvidia products are being allocated to media outlets that recognize the changing landscape of gaming and the features that are important to gamers and anyone buying a GPU today.”
Following pushback from larger YouTube channels like Linus Tech Tips and JayzTwoCents, Nvidia walked back its statement and issued an apology to Hardware Unboxed.
In Nvidia’s latest earnings called, CEO Jensen Huang said, “We allocate fairly. We do the best we can to allocate fairly, and to avoid allocating unnecessarily,” as reported by Fortune. We’ve reached out to Nvidia, and it declined to comment on the story.
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Jacob Roach is a writer covering computing and gaming at Digital Trends. After realizing Crysis wouldn’t run on a laptop, he…
GPU prices and availability (Q1 2024): How much are GPUs today?
The GPU shortage is over, and gamers around the world can breathe a sigh of relief. For those in the market for one of the best graphics cards, we looked closely at graphics card prices and availability to determine where the GPU market is headed and the best time to buy.
If you’re looking for a cheap GPU deal, now is the time to buy. Cards from AMD and Nvidia usually hover around the recommended list price, but some models are actually priced well below that, and the same goes for Intel GPUs.
The best GPUs if you’re upgrading from a GTX 1650
Nvidia’s GTX 1650 is nothing short of a legendary graphics card. The humble, budget-focused GPU has achieved a massive status among PC gamers, sitting at the top of the Steam hardware survey for years. It’s taken a back seat to Nvidia’s newer RTX 3060 in recent months, but it’s still owned by around 4% to 5% of gamers who take part in the Steam hardware survey.
It’s starting to age out of relevance, however. The GTX 1650 is four years old, and it’s struggling to keep up with modern games like Alan Wake 2 and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Although the GTX 1650 is still a great option for low-lift esports titles like Overwatch 2 and Valorant, you should upgrade if you want to experience AAA games in 2024 and beyond.
The prices of some GPUs are rapidly dropping
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the prices of some of the best graphics cards are rapidly dropping. We just got off a month of hardware launches, spearheaded by Nvidia’s RTX 40-series Super refresh, and those launches have caused some major shifts in the prices of older GPUs.
The most prominent example of that is the RTX 4070 Ti. Nvidia released its RTX 4070 Ti Super about two weeks ago. The Super version is set to replace the base model, but plenty of units remain in stock. Now, you can find the $800 graphics card for as little as $720.
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