nVidia backstabbing partners?

It appears that recently only bad news regarding nVidia is released. Last week it appeared that the GeForce GTX 285 card was granted the end-of-life status and that the GeForce GTX 275 and GTX 260 are to follow shortly. Hardware.Info research confirmed that there are indeed availability problems with the chips. It seems that the GeForce GTX 285 can no longer be ordered (for now),  and that the GTX 275 and GTX 260 are distributed among partners scarcely. The result is that nVidia-partners such as Zotac, EVGA and Point of View will hardly have any mid-range and high-end cards available in the coming months.

It seems that when there's a large shortage of chips, nVidia prefers to keep its large OEM-customers happy, rather than its retail partners. Dell's website still shows the XPS 730x game-PC, which is equipped with a GeForce GTX 285. Contacting Dell told us that the system can still be ordered without any issues. While in the retail market, no sign of a GeForce GTX 285 is to be found, Dell appears to have them in stock.

A press release of HP also reached us today, reporting on its new Pavilion Elite High Performance Edition. HP claims that this system will exclusively feature the GeForce GTX 260 Special Edition up to January 2010. Contacting the manufacturer revealed that the GTX 260 card is a model with 1792 MB of memory, a version that can not be ordered by nVidia partners. While several brands have trouble acquiring thecards, HP sees it as an opportunity to claim exclusivity.

By the looks of it, the last quarter of 2009 will be harsh for several nVidia partners. The management of XFX appears to have had a perfect timing when the manufacturer started cooperating with AMD/ATI earlier this year.

Looking for a GeForce GTX 285? Consider trying Dell...

Tags: geforce gtx260 gtx275

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