NVIDIA is Apparently Restricting AIBs From Working with Intel on Battlemage

PRO Hi-Tech, courtesy of Videocardz, reports that NVIDIA is supposedly refusing to work with board partners that are to manufacture Intel’s next-gen GPUs. As per this rumor, the situation is so dire that NVIDIA is outright denying such AIBs access to its chips. Team Green is going so far as to restrict board partners from manufacturing Battlemage GPUs.

NVIDIA Banning AIBs

It has almost been one year since EVGA decided to part ways with NVIDIA. This incident unveiled many essential aspects of NVIDIA’s behavior with AIB partners. Things are getting to a point where NVIDIA is, reportedly, punishing AIBs for siding with team blue.

PRO Hi-Tech mentions that something similar happened with AMD, though not of the same scale. NVIDIA strictly told its board partners that GeForce products can not be named identical to AMD’s Radeon GPUs. This can explain why GeForce and Radeon GPUs from the same AIBs are given different names.

Whatever the case may be, this is a massive claim by whoever revealed this information to PRO Hi-Tech. As per sources, this incident is currently taking place in China though we have no proof of this.

Not the First Time

While AMD might not have suffered much from the naming restriction, Intel can lose a huge chunk of vital market share. Videocardz reports that the GeForce Partners Program or GPP was announced by NVIDIA back in 2018.

This initiative allowed AIBs to establish a closer relationship with NVIDIA, though it was widely criticized. The essence of the argument was that NVIDIA was indulging in anti-competitive behavior. This board partner restriction incident, however, is far worse than anything we have seen before.

Intel is not a huge player in the GPU market as Arc Alchemist still lacks behind Ampere, let alone Ada Lovelace. However, the company is keen on making its mark in the GPU department. Alchemist still offers better price-to-performance ratios than most Ada Lovelace and RDNA3 products. Alongside that, Intel has put all the ‘next-gen’ bells and whistles on Arc such as AV1 encoding etcetera.

If NVIDIA is actually restricting AIBs, Intel can effectively take legal action against NVIDIA. However, everyone, currently, strongly doubts the authenticity of this claim. We’ll keep you updated as more information arrives.

Source: PRO Hi-Tech