Editor's Note: As of September 2022 the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080, 4090 have been unveiled — here's what they'll cost.
EVGA, one of the big names in PC graphics cards, has decided to terminate its longstanding relationship with Nvidia thanks to “disrespectful treatment, among other things.”
That’s according to GamersNexus, which posted a video revealing the development after sitting down with EVGA CEO Andrew Han. The confirmation that EVGA will not be carrying RTX-40 cards has since been confirmed on the company's official forums in more diplomatic terms.
"We are not going to be on [Nvidia CEO] Jensen [Huang]'s lap on stage, so I don't want people to speculate what's going on," the video quotes Han as saying. "EVGA has decided not to carry the next gen.
“EVGA is continuing the current product line, we will continue the current gen [until we run out.]” That existing stock is expected to finish this year.
“This is not a financial decision; it’s a principled decision”, GamersNexus was told, with claims that Nvidia doesn’t give pricing details to its partners until they’re revealed on stage publicly. “It’s hard to run a business when you don’t even know what the cost of your product is that you’re imminently launching,” the video adds.
On top of this, there’s apparently little flexibility around board design, and generally weak profit margins — compounded by Nvidia’s own Founders Edition cards undercutting anything EVGA can make.
It’s a strange move for a company with a name related to graphics cards to no longer be making GPUs, but according to the GamersNexus, Han “wouldn’t even entertain the idea of working with Intel or AMD when we asked.” Instead, it will apparently focus on power supplies, coolers and motherboards.
The timing couldn’t be much worse for Nvidia, which could launch its RTX 40 series as soon as this week at its GTC 2022 event. That may still happen, but it seems Nvidia will be relying on other manufacturers — like PNY and Zotac — to push the next generation of RTX GPUs.
It’s been a strange few years for graphics cards, which were subject to extreme shortages and price gouging during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic due to a perfect storm of supply chain issues and cryptocurrency mining hitting profitability highs. Both of those things have since evaporated, flooding the market with stock just as both Nvidia and AMD aim to move on to the next generation.
Still, that makes it a good time to be a buyer. And while it may not be the latest and greatest for long, you may want to take advantage of a cheaper RTX 30 series card. Especially given the reportedly high energy demands of the RTX 40 family at a time when electricity prices are spiralling out of control.
