Report: EVGA separates from Nvidia and exits the graphics card business

A shocking report claims that EVGA, a 20-year veteran of the GPU market and one of Nvidia’s biggest partners, is pulling out of the graphics card business entirely. As one of the most visible brands selling graphics cards to consumers, their exit from the market will have a huge impact going forward. EVGA will continue to sell its current range of graphics cards but not develop new hardware when Nvidia unveils its GeForce RTX 4000 series GPUs.

The report comes from GamersNexus, a reliable source (and a friend of the PCWorld team) in a 30 minute exposé. The video cites interviews directly with EVGA executives, citing Founder and CEO Andrew Han and Chief Branding Officer Joe Darwin. PCWorld sees no reason to doubt the accuracy of the information presented.

GamersNexus founder Steve Burke cites EVGA sources as to why the company made this decision. According to EVGA, long-simmering dissatisfaction between the company and its key supplier has led to a definitive rift. Apparently, the Nvidia management was already aware of this in April. EVGA complains that it received product information far too late in the development cycle and didn’t even disclose the price of chips until the MSRP of Nvidia-branded graphics cards was released to the public.

EVGA also claims that Nvidia is preventing its partners from selling cards to retailers below price floors for some models and above price ceilings for others. It’s a common practice in the electronics industry aimed at maintaining perceptions of market value, but EVGA says the policy has kept the company from developing unique, high-end designs at more profitable prices. EVGA officials also complained that Nvidia’s self-branded Founders Edition cards are being underpriced to undercut third-party cards that compete directly with companies like EVGA, Asus, Gigabyte, and Zotac to gain an unfair advantage. EVGA claims that the current slump in the GPU market is causing them to lose “hundreds of dollars per graphics card” on high-end designs. Many of Nvidia’s GPU manufacturing partners are known to have similar complaints, albeit not as passionately voiced.

According to GamersNexus, EVGA has made the decision to completely withdraw from the graphics card market and not just part ways with Nvidia as a business partner. The company has unequivocally stated that it has no interest in building new graphics cards based on chip designs from AMD or its new competitor Intel. Nvidia graphics cards make up a whopping 78 percent of EVGA’s current business, and GamersNexus quotes the company as saying it has no plans to expand into new product lines. That means an inevitable downsizing and downsizing of the California-based company, which currently employs about 280 people worldwide. Darwin claims that no layoffs are planned at the moment and employees are being transferred to other departments, although management expects a “turnover” of employees when the news breaks out.

As of this writing, EVGA’s non-graphics products include other desktop PC components such as power supplies (20 percent of remaining sales) and motherboards, cooling hardware and some cases, as well as gaming mice, keyboards, and video capture cards. EVGA has stated that it intends to keep the company together and is not seeking a merger or acquisition.

Existing EVGA graphics card owners will reportedly continue to receive customer service, and the company has GPUs and parts on reserve for RMA and warranty repair purposes. Although some technical samples of EVGA-branded RTX 4000 cards exist, no retail products will be manufactured or sold, and the existing range of EVGA RTX 3000 cards is expected to be sold out before the end of 2022.