Asus Stands By 'Arez' AMD Graphics Card Branding (Updated)
Updated, 5/22/2018, 9:10am PT: Asus has confirmed that the company is not making any changes to its Arez brand.
Updated, 5/22/2018, 7:55am PT: The Asus Arez Twitter account cited in this article has been exposed as a fake account and taken down. As such, there is likely no change to the Arez branding. We have followed up with Asus for more information.
Original article, 5/22/2018, 11:10am PT:
Asus announced that it would no longer be releasing Arez-branded AMD graphics cards, and that Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand is here to stay.
The announcement was quietly posted on the company’s Arez brand Twitter account over the weekend, just a few weeks after Nvidia pulled the plug on its notorious GeForce Partner Program, which some pinned as the cause of Asus’s (and other OEM’s) new all-AMD graphics card branding. The Arez lineup was announced last month, but the new branding will never see the light of day.
“#ASUS #AREZ is coming to an end,” stated the Asus_Arez Twitter feed. “#ROG is here to stay.”
Although Nvidia has maintained that the GPP was intended to keep brands and communication consistent and transparent, some conjectured that the program would place an unnecessary burden on partners to create new brands or face a potential backlash (language in the published GPP materials stated that partners would get “early access to our latest innovations,” whereas non-partners wouldn’t).
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Several companies have made similar branding changes, with MSI announcing a new AMD-based GPU brand after the GPP was shut down. However, Asus is the first AIB partner to reverse course on the AMD-exclusive branding, and it’s hard to argue that these changes aren’t remotely connected by a large, green thread.
Derek Forrest was a contributing freelance writer for Tom's Hardware. He covered hardware news and reviews, focusing on gaming desktops and laptops.
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justin.m.beauvais With companies dropping their AMD centered product lines before they even got off the ground is there ANY question left that these re-brands were a requirement of the GPP? I really hope someone sues NVidia over the GPP, they probably caused harm to these companies that were suddenly forced to design new product lines just to keep selling AMD cards.Reply
EDIT: Well it looks like it was all a fake. Thanks for that Internet. I still hope someone investigates and/or sues NVidia over the GPP. Everything we heard about it makes it highly suspect. Let the market decide and don't automatically assume that people who buy graphics cards are idiots. -
redgarl Asus, MSI, Gigabyte... etc... and AMD, should sue Nvidia. This was monopoly tactics aimed at squashing AMD.Reply
AMD should work on a super VEGA APU rending the 1050 TI obsolete. Cutting the bread an butter of Nvidia in mobile and desktop would be a huge blow. -
Martell1977 I wonder how far ASUS got with the renaming. I'd imagine they would want some form of reimbursement if they had spent hundreds of thousands for new labels, boxes, marketing materials, etc. But if it never really got that far, they are probably just glad the stupidity is over. If you don't know the difference between nVidia and AMD cards, then you probably don't care which you end up with and using different naming schemes wouldn't impact you anyways.Reply -
bit_user Wow, that lasted almost as long as New Coke.Reply
Edit: Okay, I forgot that New Coke did last a while. I was thinking more of how quickly they had to bring back Coke Classic. -
cmsvmylo This is fake news Tom's Hardware!Reply
https://wccftech.com/no-asus-hasnt-killed-off-its-arez-branding/