AMD Nano Blacklist Situation

[BFG10K]

I actually think it's a good move from AMD. Not from a consumer standpoint as this is atrocious anti-competitive behavior, but from a business standpoint.

Putting this statement into context, nVidia has employed countless anti-consumer tactics for years (including PhysX lock-out against their own paying customers), yet they continue raking in money. So customers continue to open their wallets for nVidia despite the internet nerd rage.

With regard to AMD's move, these big sites now have no choice but to purchase a Nano or they'll be disadvantaged against other sites that have Nano reviews. Then if they review the card poorly, AMD PR will be vindicated ("see, told you they were biased"). If they don't, that's still a win for AMD as their product is getting good reviews even with their bad behavior, allowing them to behave even more badly next time. In some ways, it's actually a genius move.

Again, this is completely abhorrent from a consumer perspective, but AMD's business and PR tactics thus-far have resulted in a company continually shrinking and bleeding cash into irrelevance. They need to start emulating profitable companies like nVidia/Intel/Apple, companies with a long history of anti-competitive tactics.

Not charging licensing for HBM and freesync is a missed opportunity, and they should've arranged some kind of licensing around Mantle instead of stupidly giving it away.

Ask yourself: does nVidia give away Cuda, hardware PhysX, gsync or SLI certification for free? Would nVidia allow memory technology they invented to be used by anyone for free?

This polar opposite is why nVidia is profitable while AMD is not. You don’t make money by giving things away for free.

 

[Aristotelian]

Thanks for this post. The way things are evolving, I find myself less and less inclined to believe any online benchmarks, or even comments on reddit about how x or y game runs on their computer. You'll see the behavior you described (from the 3 above) all over internet forums or other social media; it's a coordinated effort to bash competitors. You see it as soon as e.g., a certain non-fruit smartphone comes out - gsmarena will have people spouting the coordinated message. And the coordinated message is used against AMD as well, despite the fact that it is fundamentally erroneous.

As a consumer, I have nothing against companies not giving away free products for review. Even on top gear - wasn't it actual purchasers who'd donate their cars for a few episodes to the show to help it? (at least in some cases).

And back when the Sony Z3 came out I offered to ship a phone to this very website for them to run a review - the offer wasn't accepted. The fact of the matter is that almost every website around has an agenda; and the fact also is that most people are impressionable. It's those people that make sites such as this one so profitable. Even if you speak to engineers - bias creeps in (in a one on one) - how can that not creep into this entire exercise?

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Not charging licensing for HBM and freesync is a missed opportunity, and they should've arranged some kind of licensing around Mantle instead of stupidly giving it away.

They're charging for HBM, jedec licenses and divides the royalties among the parties holding the IP.

Not sure if charging for freesync would've been a good idea, since the monitor and scaler manufacturers had to do all the work.

 

[positivedoppler]

They're charging for HBM, jedec licenses and divides the royalties among the parties holding the IP.

Not sure if charging for freesync would've been a good idea, since the monitor and scaler manufacturers had to do all the work.

AMD already made it very clear they don't charge for HBM

 

[coercitiv]

I actually think it's a good move from AMD. Not from a consumer standpoint as this is atrocious anti-competitive behavior, but from a business standpoint.

It's not anti-competitive in this stage, and depending on scope and magnitude it might not be anti-competitive in the future as well.

Don't forget publishers can employ anti-competitive tactics as well: consumers read a funny note at the end of a GPU review saying something like "AMD is screwed", meanwhile AMD execs read a different message in the lines of "give us more ad revenue, or this keeps happening".

It's not funny when your product "dies" in the hands of select tech journalists.

 

[3DVagabond]

They're charging for HBM, jedec licenses and divides the royalties among the parties holding the IP.

Not sure if charging for freesync would've been a good idea, since the monitor and scaler manufacturers had to do all the work.

AMD already made it very clear they don't charge for HBM

And they also worked with the monitor companies.

 

[Keysplayr]

And it's not anti-competitive either. It's called, most appropriately, Super-competitive.

 

[BFG10K]

They're charging for HBM, jedec licenses and divides the royalties among the parties holding the IP.

Nope: http://wccftech.com/amd-squashes-rumors-hbm-ip-licensing-fees-memory-standard-free/

• “AMD is not involved in collecting any royalties for HBM,” said Iain Bristow, a spokesman for AMD. “We are actively encouraging widespread adoption of all HBM associated technology on [Radeon R9] Fury products and there is no IP licensing associated."

Giving stuff away for free so competitors can take advantage of it is great for consumers. Meanwhile, AMD continues to bleed and shrink. So from a purely business standpoint, it's an extremely poor decision.

Not sure if charging for freesync would've been a good idea, since the monitor and scaler manufacturers had to do all the work.

My argument is that all of them should be getting a cut, just like nVidia gets a cut from gsync.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Thanks for this post. The way things are evolving, I find myself less and less inclined to believe any online benchmarks, or even comments on reddit about how x or y game runs on their computer. You'll see the behavior you described (from the 3 above) all over internet forums or other social media; it's a coordinated effort to bash competitors. You see it as soon as e.g., a certain non-fruit smartphone comes out - gsmarena will have people spouting the coordinated message. And the coordinated message is used against AMD as well, despite the fact that it is fundamentally erroneous.

As a consumer, I have nothing against companies not giving away free products for review. Even on top gear - wasn't it actual purchasers who'd donate their cars for a few episodes to the show to help it? (at least in some cases).

And back when the Sony Z3 came out I offered to ship a phone to this very website for them to run a review - the offer wasn't accepted. The fact of the matter is that almost every website around has an agenda; and the fact also is that most people are impressionable. It's those people that make sites such as this one so profitable. Even if you speak to engineers - bias creeps in (in a one on one) - how can that not creep into this entire exercise?

Excellent post
I still enjoy reviews and look for several sites since conclusions will vary from horrible to great (same product). Behind most conclusions are monetary incentives being thrown at reviewers everywhere and for that alone you need to read more than 4/5 sites.

Nano blacklist tells it all. AMD must be fed up with a few individuals and IMO it all started with AB (that guy's bias can be seen all the way from Jupiter)

 

[Skurge]

I guess people have voted with their wallets.

 

[AtenRa]

I guess people have voted with their wallets.

Yeap, playing the nice guy with a low budget perf/$ product portfolio is not the way to go.

Unfortunately for us the consumers, the days of HD4870 vs GTX280 are over.

 

[flopper]

I actually think it's a good move from AMD. Not from a consumer standpoint as this is atrocious anti-competitive behavior, but from a business standpoint.

Putting this statement into context, nVidia has employed countless anti-consumer tactics for years (including PhysX lock-out against their own paying customers), yet they continue raking in money. So customers continue to open their wallets for nVidia despite the internet nerd rage.

This polar opposite is why nVidia is profitable while AMD is not. You don’t make money by giving things away for free.

Depends, amd choose to plan for dx12 and the future with win 10.
they do have consoles, Mantle is now dx12 and vulkan and their cards can do things the current 980ti cant with a 390 at half the price for the same performance.
So their plan are to make sure everyone use their technology.
Has happen.

Question will be if thats enough for them to launch the new zen CPU next year with the die shrunk 16nm gpu and its likely to even out the playing field leveling out whatever people buy its equal well until nvidia produce Volta as Pascal wont be enough for dx12.

AMD are run by engineers, not a ceo that stand on stage and lie to everyone about what he just holds in his hands is the actual product or not. That people actually brush that over and still buy, means amd needs to change their marketing even more.

A owner of a PC buys such to play games as anything else you can do on a laptop
e-mails, work, design, writing books etc...
so if the PC is bought to upgrade for entertainment what then are AMD doing to ensure the brand for people to actually identify what they do offer???

Nothing.
Thats their issue atm I dont know what I recive with AMD but at least people do know what they recive if they buy Nvidia or Apple or Intel. AMD lack branding, its a company of engineers who havent a clue about what they are doing in the eyes of the customer. They hired a engineer as ceo, good for them and she is really smart also 170iq at least. AMD lacks branding to make money you need to know as a customer what you recive with the stuff you buy and AMD simply lacks it atm.

Apple you know what you get and receive there if you buy such and while I don’t buy Apple product and never will I do know what Apple offers. That’s good branding.

Intel well to be frank I have no idea what they offer me except a CPU for my computer but that you then know what your buying it for.

AMD? I don’t know. I draw a blank there.

 

[LTC8K6]

It just biases the reviewers even more, imo.

AMD likes me, so I get a free card! What a great card!

AMD hates me, made me buy this stupid card! This card sucks!

IMO:

Either give cards to reviewers, or don't.

Don't pick and choose.

 

[positivedoppler]

Nope: http://wccftech.com/amd-squashes-rumors-hbm-ip-licensing-fees-memory-standard-free/

• “AMD is not involved in collecting any royalties for HBM,” said Iain Bristow, a spokesman for AMD. “We are actively encouraging widespread adoption of all HBM associated technology on [Radeon R9] Fury products and there is no IP licensing associated."

Giving stuff away for free so competitors can take advantage of it is great for consumers. Meanwhile, AMD continues to bleed and shrink. So from a purely business standpoint, it's an extremely poor decision.


My argument is that all of them should be getting a cut, just like nVidia gets a cut from gsync.

It would seems silly if AMD indeed did tank 8.5 years of R&D into it only to hand it to their competitor on a golden platter. But perhaps it's a defensive move against their competitor. By insuring that technology they developed achieves widespread adoption first, it ensures they they won't get shut out or end up paying a high licensing fee for a competitors technology. If G-Sync had won out, AMD would be in a world of hurt. But due to Freesync's free nature, G-Sync is the one with 9 toes in the grave and Freesync in turn is a major factor in my next purchase. Perhaps the same thing is true for HBM.
But in HBM's case, perhaps the only advantage AMD gets is earlier access to the technology and get an earlier lead on how to design the rest of the system around it.

 

[Silverforce11]

With regard to AMD's move, these big sites now have no choice but to purchase a Nano or they'll be disadvantaged against other sites that have Nano reviews. Then if they review the card poorly, AMD PR will be vindicated ("see, told you they were biased"). If they don't, that's still a win for AMD as their product is getting good reviews even with their bad behavior, allowing them to behave even more badly next time. In some ways, it's actually a genius move.

Again, this is completely abhorrent from a consumer perspective, but AMD's business and PR tactics thus-far have resulted in a company continually shrinking and bleeding cash into irrelevance. They need to start emulating profitable companies like nVidia/Intel/Apple, companies with a long history of anti-competitive tactics.

Not charging licensing for HBM and freesync is a missed opportunity, and they should've arranged some kind of licensing around Mantle instead of stupidly giving it away.

Ask yourself: does nVidia give away Cuda, hardware PhysX, gsync or SLI certification for free? Would nVidia allow memory technology they invented to be used by anyone for free?

This polar opposite is why nVidia is profitable while AMD is not. You don’t make money by giving things away for free.

Fully agreed, excellent post.

AMD is playing a nice guy, giving away GDDR3, GDDR5 and HBM while NV is beating them with their GameWorks propriety IP stick with every sponsored title release.

Also, whoever made this call to blacklist reviewers at AMD deserve a praise, they have FINALLY caught on with what we on the tech forums have seen for years. There are indeed sites that are out to be negative about AMD. AMD should NOT enable those people to beat them into the ground.

Saying this, if AMD ever go closed source GE features like GameWorks, I'm out of AAA PC gaming because that kind of segregation doesn't do me any good as a gamer. I would hate it if we have to own an AMD GPU and NV GPU to play latest AAA titles, depending on who sponsor its development. That kind of crap belongs on consoles.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Also, whoever made this call to blacklist reviewers at AMD deserve a praise, they have FINALLY caught on with what we on the tech forums have seen for years. There are indeed sites that are out to be negative about AMD. AMD should NOT enable those people to beat them into the ground.

Dunno, it's one thing to cut off kitguru, but they also cut off techreport.

Maybe there just aren't enough nano's for everybody.

 

[MeldarthX]

AMD is making small amounts on GDDR; and they will be on HBM; right now they are trying to give it way like drug dealer does with free samples.......

both are part of the jed standard so their royalties on them would never be high.

 

[BFG10K]

AMD lacks branding to make money you need to know as a customer what you recive with the stuff you buy and AMD simply lacks it atm.

I have to agree with the (lack of) branding being a problem too. They need to market their products as high quality parts that add value to any system. The same way Apple manages to sell vastly overpriced and underperforming Macs for mega-profits.

Selecting reviewers is a step towards this ("you're not good enough to get our product, so we didn't select you.")

Also it's definitely not a shortage of samples. Take a look: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2979...-to-the-fury-a-tiny-gtx-970-and-a-pencil.html

• Sadly, I can’t talk about its performance until then, but an AMD representative gave me permission to tweet out some pictures.

I'd never even heard of this site until the other day when I stumbled on it from a Google search. Yet they have a sample, and AMD's blessing to post early pictures.

 

[flopper]

I have to agree with the (lack of) branding being a problem too. They need to market their products as high quality parts that add value to any system. The same way Apple manages to sell vastly overpriced and underperforming Macs for mega-profits.

Selecting reviewers is a step towards this ("you're not good enough to get our product, so we didn't select you.")

Also it's definitely not a shortage of samples. Take a look: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2979...-to-the-fury-a-tiny-gtx-970-and-a-pencil.html

• Sadly, I can’t talk about its performance until then, but an AMD representative gave me permission to tweet out some pictures.

I'd never even heard of this site until the other day when I stumbled on it from a Google search. Yet they have a sample, and AMD's blessing to post early pictures.

Yea my take on this is AMD need to really change things for marketing by changing the way they announce the cards to the world. Tech sites are obselete for this and not needed anymore.
As a buyer you want to explore what you use this for in the value segment as girls for example can buy a Mac and enjoy its good looks and yes some atually buy stuff for the way it looks not what you use it for.

Pcworld is fine and not the normal tech site so thats a step into a good direction but they can do so much more and first need to brainstorm and fix their branding. Its non existent atm.

edit: also they dont send Nano cards out they send a whole computer.....

http://www.nordichardware.se/Grafik...h-ljudnivaring-i-Mini-ITX-system.html#content

 

[BFG10K]

Impressive performance for such a small card. They should push it hard as a boutique halo product (comes back to the point above about strong branding/marketing).

 

[flopper]

Impressive performance for such a small card. They should push it hard as a boutique halo product (comes back to the point above about strong branding/marketing).

Agrees

 

[XiandreX]

It just biases the reviewers even more, imo.

AMD likes me, so I get a free card! What a great card!

AMD hates me, made me buy this stupid card! This card sucks!

IMO:

Either give cards to reviewers, or don't.

Don't pick and choose.

My gut tells me this is more correct

 

[KingFatty]

Could someone clarify what aspect of not providing sample card to a review website is anti consumer? Is it because the review website itself is considered a consumer? or are consumers suffering harm because they will miss the review that would have happened if the card were given for free?

I'm struggling with this because I could see one side being that it's preventing biased review, which helps the consumers? Like stopping a bad surgeon from killing patients, or a bad teacher from mis-educating children... aren't those pro consumer?

 

[tential]

Nope: http://wccftech.com/amd-squashes-rumors-hbm-ip-licensing-fees-memory-standard-free/

• “AMD is not involved in collecting any royalties for HBM,” said Iain Bristow, a spokesman for AMD. “We are actively encouraging widespread adoption of all HBM associated technology on [Radeon R9] Fury products and there is no IP licensing associated."

Giving stuff away for free so competitors can take advantage of it is great for consumers. Meanwhile, AMD continues to bleed and shrink. So from a purely business standpoint, it's an extremely poor decision.


My argument is that all of them should be getting a cut, just like nVidia gets a cut from gsync.

Nvidia takes a cut from Gsync.
Look at the selection of Gsync monitors/availability.
Look at the selection of Freesync monitors/availability.

Then, think of AMD vs Nvidia marketshare.

Even with AMD's marketshare look how many Freesync monitor options there are.

HBM doesn't make sense.... Freesync makes perfect sense since it's easy to adopt and as a result many monitor makers have done so which is a further incentive to purchase an AMD product now since you have tons of monitor options.

Actually this is the sole reason I purchased an R9 290....

 

[tential]

Yea my take on this is AMD need to really change things for marketing by changing the way they announce the cards to the world. Tech sites are obselete for this and not needed anymore.
As a buyer you want to explore what you use this for in the value segment as girls for example can buy a Mac and enjoy its good looks and yes some atually buy stuff for the way it looks not what you use it for.

Pcworld is fine and not the normal tech site so thats a step into a good direction but they can do so much more and first need to brainstorm and fix their branding. Its non existent atm.

edit: also they dont send Nano cards out they send a whole computer.....

http://www.nordichardware.se/Grafik...h-ljudnivaring-i-Mini-ITX-system.html#content

I've seen tons of sorority girls newly initiated sell off their old laptop and purchase a mac just because it looks good and so they can fit in.

They launched this lineup at E3.... so I have 0 idea what you're talking about, they launched at a game event not a tech site.

AMD changed the way they did a lot of things this launch... they just messed up some key parts, like they always do it seems.