EVGA and Nvidia Fallout, RTX 4090 Leaks & YouTube Ads

The EVGA and Nvidia Breakup

EVGA is ending its partnership with Nvidia and will exit the GPU market entirely. This is a monumental shift for the industry.
The decision was largely emotional and principled, citing a prolonged lack of respect and transparency from Nvidia.
EVGA expressed frustration over Nvidia withholding pricing and product forecasts until public announcements, making it impossible to forecast finances properly.
Nvidia's practice of enforcing price ceilings on flagship cards while simultaneously launching their own Founders Edition cards created an untenable situation where partners could not control their own margins.
EVGA is not moving to AMD or Intel, preferring to maintain professional standards rather than seek immediate alternatives.

The podcast highlights that Nvidia's control freak approach is universal, impacting retailers, system integrators, and independent media alike.
The Hardware Unboxed scandal is cited as a prime example of Nvidia attempting to pressure media outlets to align with their marketing narrative.
The discussion explains how Marketing Development Funds (MDF) are often used as tools of control, forcing companies into toxic relationships to remain competitive.

The Ethereum merger to Proof-of-Stake was successful, significantly reducing global power consumption, though it has impacted GPU mining profitability.
New leaks regarding the RTX 4090 reveal massive specs, including 16,384 CUDA cores and a 450W Total Board Power (TBP), along with confirmation that SLI/NVLink is functionally dead.

YouTube tested a "bumper ad" experiment that showed users up to 10 consecutive ads before a long-form video. While testing has concluded, the concern remains about future ad density and user tolerance.

"I have spent my entire career in media trying to reduce my reliance on industry titans like Nvidia. I do not need their money." - Linus Sebastian