Ex-EVGA Manager Details Nvidia Rift Before 2022 Exit
Former EVGA product manager Brendon Ray Hedrick posted a personal account of how Nvidia's Founders Edition GPUs and pricing demands strained their partnership.
Former EVGA product manager Brendon Ray Hedrick has posted a personal account of his time at the company, detailing the challenges that strained its relationship with Nvidia before EVGA exited the GPU market in 2022. The account was reported by Tom's Hardware.
Hedrick said his concerns began in 2016, when Nvidia released its Founders Edition GPUs. According to him, this put EVGA in the position of having its only GPU supplier compete directly against it.
He also said Nvidia required partners to sell a model at the announced MSRP even at a loss, with non-compliant partners receiving reduced chip allocations.
Hedrick left EVGA in 2019 and said he believed the two companies had about four or five years left before a confrontation. In 2022, EVGA announced it would no longer make partner cards with the RTX 40-series and would exit the GPU market once RTX 30-series stock ran out.
At the time of EVGA's exit, reports said Nvidia GPUs made up 78% of EVGA's revenue while contributing a tiny percentage of overall profit. Other reports said EVGA lost hundreds of dollars for every RTX 3080 and higher GPU model sold, while lower-tier products like the RTX 3060 remained profitable.
Quick answers
When did EVGA exit the GPU market?
EVGA announced in 2022 that it would no longer make partner cards with the RTX 40-series and would exit the GPU market once RTX 30-series stock ran out.
What did Brendon Ray Hedrick say about Nvidia's Founders Edition GPUs?
He said his concerns began when Nvidia released Founders Edition GPUs in 2016, as EVGA's only GPU supplier began competing directly against it.
What pricing requirement did Nvidia place on partners?
Hedrick said Nvidia required partners to sell a model at the announced MSRP even at a loss, with non-compliant partners receiving reduced chip allocations.