Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Why Are There SO MANY Graphics Card Makers?”.
If you’re in the market for a new graphics card, you probably know that, for the time being, you have only two options when it comes to a GPU, AMD or NVIDIA., But once you’ve made your decision and you go to buy the actual graphics card. You’Re inundated with a ton of options from different companies like Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and a bunch of others.. Why are there so many and why don’t AMD and NVIDIA just make the entire card themselves? And yes, obviously, both companies make their own reference design cards. You can buy, but cards from add-in board or AIB partners remain the most popular choice..
Let’S start by looking at this from the perspective of the chip maker., For example, CPUs for a desktop PC are sold separately from motherboards., Although it wouldn’t exactly be difficult for Intel or AMD to make their own PCB and slap a CPU on it. The issue is that manufacturing a complicated processor, whether that’s a CPU or a GPU, is a lot more involved than putting together a PCB with some traces on it.. But if manufacturing the board is simple, how does that then tip the scales in favor of outsourcing that work to an AIB partner? Unsurprisingly, cost is a big consideration., Because the GPU itself is the big determining factor of performance for a home.
Gamer and the high-performance models are difficult to design and produce margins on GPUs are quite high.. By contrast, a PCB is a rather low-cost low-margin product.. It’S not hard to turn out lots and lots of them, but the amount of profit a company makes per board just on the board. Itself is quite low., But how about from the AIB partner’s point of view? The calculus is similar, but just works.
The other way. Around., These companies are rarely just making graphics cards and are already in the business of making PCBs for lots of other components.. Just think about how many AIB partners, you know, also make motherboards, which of course are just PCBs with capacitors and slots soldered on as well as power supplies, mice cases et cetera things that also need PCBs, albeit smaller ones., So doing this makes economic sense for both Parties. NVIDIA and AMD get to pour money and resources into innovating where it really counts in the GPU itself. .