AMD spins GPP in its favour with promise of more Radeon-only brands

In the wake of Nvidia’s exclusive GeForce Partner Program (GPP), AMD has confidently announced that add-in board partners will be launching their own Radeon-only brands within the coming weeks, starting with ASUS and its AREZ line-up. Designed for “openness” and “transparency,” AMD is dedicated towards redefining the current trend of obscurity behind business practices, placing gamers’ choice at the top of its list of priorities.

AREZ has been leaked and teased for quite some time, remaining about as ambiguous as GPP itself until AMD’s recent announcement, which promises more add-in board (AiB) partners in the coming weeks.

AMD is keen to remain ahead of the curve, pulling no punches against Nvidia’s closed GPP initiative by revealing it will take a no-nonsense approach that will “reignite freedom of choice when gamers choose an AMD Radeon RX graphics card,” remain dedicated to “open innovation” and commit to “true transparency through industry standards.”

The ‘Red Team’ emphasises on collaboration within the industry, stating that it works alongside “JEDEC on memory standards like HBM and HBM2, Microsoft on DirectX, Khronos on Vulkan and GPUOpen for access to a comprehensive collection of visual effects, productivity tools, and other content at no cost.”

“AMD works closely with AIB partners on equal footing, so that our customers are empowered with the best, high-performance, high quality gaming products and technologies available from AMD,” the statement reads. “No anti-gamer / anti-competitive strings attached.”

Of course, all of these fall in line with the narrative that Nvidia’s GPP partners have been strong-armed into an exclusive deal with the company in order to avoid the potential of being withheld GPU allocation. There have been claims that this is not a part of any GPP contract in writing, but it understood across the industry that this is the risk companies take when forgoing the new program.

Nvidia's GPP receives no direct mention throughout the email, however AMD’s shots at “technology taxes” while praising its own cost-effective FreeSync feature almost certainly targets its rival for the premium cost on G-Sync technology.

One thing is certain moving forward: AMD isn’t backing down from the threat of Nvidia’s GPP and has instead crafted its own system in which it claims gamers are the priority. While it is likely we will see many of the other mainstay companies weighing in with their own exclusive branding soon, nothing is official until partners launch units under the new banner.

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KitGuru Says: I will always encourage more competition in any field, as it inevitably creates a healthier market. Hopefully AMD manages to hit the nail on the head with its Radeon-only cards, giving gamers the choice that they deserve. What do you think of AMD’s latest efforts?

 

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