Nvidia reportedly pressures partners to stop them building next-gen Intel Battlemage GPUs

Are Nvidia trying to prevent their partners from building Intel GPUs?

Intel are new to the GPU market, and their current generation graphics cards are only capable of competing with mid-range offerings from AMD or Nvidia, but that should change with the release of their next-generation ARC Battlemage graphics cards. 

With Battlemage, Intel has a opportunity to gain real market share from AMD and Nvidia, and that alone should worry Nvidia. Nvidia has enjoyed dominance over the gaming GPU market for over a decade, and the last thing that Nvidia wants is for Intel to become a viable third source of gaming GPUs. 

Rumour has it that Nvidia are now pressuring their partners to avoid creating Intel Battlemage products, with PRO Hi-Tech claiming that they may limit their supply of chips if they decide to launch new Intel ARC series products. In other words, it has been alleged that Nvidia will not supply their partners with their own GPUs if they decide to back Intel. 

Below is what PRO Hi-Tech had to say on Telegram (translated). Sadly, we cannot confirm any of what is said here, as companies and their employees are rarely willing to discuss matters like this. 

     A little bird told me that Intel is already looking for partners to produce its next-generation graphics cards, naturally in China. But as soon as they turned to the manufacturers of the first echelon familiar to us and it became known to Nvidia, Nvidia began to threaten its partners that if they took up Intel, then NV would no longer work with them and they would not receive chips.

You have to remember that this has already happened, only with AMD. Then Nvidia said that their video cards and AMD video cards cannot be called the same, it is necessary that the model be called differently. Then the high rose and Asus already seemed to have made a separate brand, but Nvidia gave back under pressure from the public, once again.

So now the story is even worse for Intel, because the first echelon for their video cards, apparently, will not take up and they are looking for partners in the second. The public could shame NV this time, but the situation is developing at the level of relations between companies and I learned about it, one might say, by accident, thanks to an employee working in a company that will apparently sign an affiliate program with Intel. It is unlikely to come out.

(Remembering Nvidia’s GeForce Partner Program and its impact)

Is this the GeForce Partnership Program all over again? 

In 2018, Nvidia had a initiative called the GeForce Partnership Program, which was designed to create closer relationships between Nvidia and their partners, more closely aligning their brands in the process. Controversially, this program also tore away popular brands like ASUS’ ROG sub-brand from competing Radeon graphics cards, forcing ASUS to create ASUS AREZ branded Radeon products for a short time. 

Nvidia’s GeForce Partnership Program was widely criticised, and Nvidia eventually backed down and cancelled the initiative. Those who were critical of the program called it anti-competitive, as it effectively made all popular GPU sub-brands Nvidia exclusive, and made it harder for AMD to market their Radeon graphics cards. After all, most PC gamers have hear of ASUS’ ROG (Republic of Gamers) brand, and nobody knows about AREZ.

The GeForce Partnership Program highlighted the power that Nvidia has over their partners, and how Nvidia can influence the wider GPU market thanks to its dominance over its partners. Whether or not Nvidia are pressuring their partners to avoid Intel’s ARC Battlemage series remains to be seen, but it is undeniable that Nvidia have the power and market influence to do so. 

With their second generation ARC Battlemage products, Intel has a chance to showcase themselves as a real competitor to AMD and Nvidia within the GPU market, but only time will tell if Battlemage has what it takes to make Intel a real threat to today’s GPU giants.  

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