Nvidia begins selling own-brand graphics cards at Best Buy

Jos

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In a rather unexpected move it seems Nvidia has struck a deal with Best Buy to begin selling certain GeForce models that are built and supported directly by the graphics firm. For now the initiative apparently covers only GTX 460 and GTS 450 cards, and they are stock clocked with designs based on the reference PCB and cooler. Bryan Del Rizzo from Nvidia issued a short statement confirming the deal, which is exclusive to Best Buy stores, and said more details will be given later.

Although Nvidia-branded cards will reportedly complement GeForce products from AIB partners we can certainly see how this could create an awkward situation with the few manufacturers that remain committed to selling cards from the green team exclusively. Bright Side of News speculates the move could be a response to the loss of several high-profile partners over the last year or so – specifically BFG Technologies.

The scope of the deal is unclear at this point but we are guessing Nvidia won’t offer its entire lineup under its own brand to avoid eroding its partner ecosystem. Also, it seems unlikely that Nvidia will offer overclocked non-reference boards so that part of the market will likely be reserved for AIB partners as well.

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I'm trying to figure out what the point of this is. I don't think their sales are suffering - especially after the 460 release. And not sure how this would drum up additional sales.

Weird....
 
TomSEA said:
I'm trying to figure out what the point of this is. I don't think their sales are suffering - especially after the 460 release. And not sure how this would drum up additional sales.

Weird....

It can drive up revenue by not allowing a partner to get a piece of the pie or allow Nvidia to make even more price drops for the same reasons.
 
their sales are definitely not suffering... especially with notebook graphics primarily being powered by GeForce mobiles now. in a way it gives them some flexibility with sales and could even benefit the consumer by consolidating products. of course it's more than likely that most of these self-branded units will be of reference design only, which may or may not appeal to mainstream and enthusiast consumers. it's the same thing with AMD cards and their subsidiary companies.
 
The article mentions this could be in response to the loss of BFG as well other AIBs. I agree it's probably a move to replace BFG. EVGA and PNY are still board partners and since EVGA's cards are very popular (I run them in my boxes too) Nvidia probably doesn't want to mess with that.
 
This isn't really that surprising. Just look at Intel's house brand of motherboards. They aren't really a huge competitor in that market, but they will naturally try to make money any way they can.
 
Wow, talk about a kick to the scrotum for the nVidia-loyal hardware manufacturers that have kept pumping out products (and ultimately kept nVidia in business). Ah well, time to cut out that middle man, profits are more important than loyalty, right?

Hope they put together a massive consumer support department to handle their new direct products. No more "its the OEM's problem, call them for support" excuses now :p
 
So instead of just seeing ridiculously marked up low end cards at Best Buy we'll be seeing ridiculously marked up 460/450's + low end cards, nice.
 
EXCellR8 said:
their sales are definitely not suffering... especially with notebook graphics primarily being powered by GeForce mobiles now.

How do you come to this conclusion? All the business laptops I order only have ATI or Intel graphics.
 
So, we have cards being sold at one retail chain, at a premium over regular AIB pricing (PNY and Galaxy are Best Buy's only nvidia vendors afaik) while being supposedly offset by a three year warranty (I believe both PNY and Galaxy offer two years). Earth shattering news indeed.
Wow, talk about a kick to the scrotum for the nVidia-loyal hardware manufacturers that have kept pumping out products (and ultimately kept nVidia in business). Ah well, time to cut out that middle man, profits are more important than loyalty, right?
Yea, I agree...How Sapphire, HIS, VisionTek, PowerColor, Asus, Diamond, Gigabyte and MSI must have detested AMD/ATI for selling their own branded cards for all these past years - most notably, but not exclusively, desktop cards sold in Canada, all AIW, FirePro and FireStream, so why nvidia should follow such a failed business model is completely beyond me.

If nvidia move further into the etail/newegg/worldwide market then there is probably a justifiable cause for concern from AIB's, but I would sincerely doubt whether nvidia would have the infrastructure, or be equipped for, the RMA/support side of the graphics card market on such a scale....unless all enquiries are re-directed to Foxconn (nvidia's reference/OEM card manufacturer)- in which case I'd be installing non-climbable guardrails to the roofs of their non-Apple-products assembly plants.
How do you come to this conclusion? All the business laptops I order only have ATI or Intel graphics.
True enough in the consumer space, with Intel taking the lions share. The pro field- especially medical, however is almost exclusively nvidia, since most medical imaging and diagnostics are compiled using CUDA. Although I doubt EXCellR8 was alluding to these applications.

Pricing, packaging and Kyle Bennett's take here
 
I think best buy needs to have a larger selection of video cards present in their stores, along with the prices on them half cut all the time. I still do my video card shopping at best buy , even tho newegg comes first now, because best buy never has what i want and when they do, their cards are way too high. They are selling a 5670 for 160 bucks, when i can order a 5670 1gb his edition for only 100 bucks.
 
I read that the GTX 460 is $300.00,which by the way is about 50 bucks more then Newegg.
 
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