NVIDIA is reportedly reaching out to its AIB partners, the companies that make custom GeForce RTX graphics cards like ASUS, MSI, GIGABYTE, and others -- to NOT make next-gen Intel graphics cards.

What would NVIDIA do? Well, the report suggests that NVIDIA could completely ban some of its partners from making next-gen GeForce RTX series graphics cards if they do decide to make next-gen Intel graphics cards. In China, partners are ramping up to the launch of a next-gen Intel GPU... which is now making waves.

The rumour itself is coming from PRO Hi-Tech, a Russian media outlet, where they're reporting that many companies have told them the news that NVIDIA is strong-arming its partners over an up-and-coming threat from Intel and its next-gen Battlemage GPU.

This isn't a new move by NVIDIA either, with the company pushing out its GeForce Partner Program (GPP) back in early 2018, acting as a program to work closely with its hardware partners and promote the GeForce brand and its technologies. But, if you remember... it wasn't met with love, but rather a hefty amount of hate from the community and canceled in the end.

Then, NVIDIA was forcing its AIB partners to exclusively work with NVIDIA on its GeForce RTX graphics cards and not offer competing products in the form of AMD Radeon RX series graphics cards. This is anti-competitive, to say the least, and now we're looking down the same barrel: this time, NVIDIA is pointed at Intel, which represents a far greater threat than AMD in the GPU business.

The report reads: "Magpie on the tail brought that Intel is already looking for partners to manufacture their next generation video cards, naturally in China. But as soon as they turned to the first-tier manufacturers we knew and NVIDIA became aware of this, NVIDIA began to threaten its partners that if they took on Intel, then NV would no longer work with them and they would not receive chips".

"You have to remember that this has already happened, only with AMD. Then NVIDIA said that their video cards and AMD video cards cannot be called the same, the model needs to be called differently. Then the high rose and ASUS already kind of made a separate brand, but NVIDIA gave back under public pressure, once again".

"So now the story is even worse for Intel, because the first tier for their video cards, apparently, will not be taken and they are looking for partners in the second. The public could shame NV this time as well, but the situation is developing at the level of company relations and I learned about it, one might say, by accident, thanks to an employee working in a company that apparently will sign a partnership with Intel. She's unlikely to come out".

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