NVIDIA Begins Selling Self-Branded Cards at Best Buy

Over the weekend, it became known that Best Buy in the US began selling NVIDIA graphics cards, and it’s not quite what you think. No, these weren’t EVGA, PNY, or some other vendor, but rather equipped with pure NVIDIA branding. Many questions were immediately raised, and after purchasing a couple of the cards himself, Kyle Bennett from [H]ard|OCP decided to delve deeper and see what was really going on.

The fact that NVIDIA would sell its own cards raises some important questions, such as what it means for its board partners, the AIBs. Clearly, if NVIDIA is going to begin selling its own cards, then companies such as EVGA, which has built up an incredible business around doing the same, wouldn’t be too happy. So what’s NVIDIA’s story here?

According to Kyle, the company is simply keeping quiet right now. On a conference call last night I had with NVIDIA, the company simply stated that the move was purely for marketing reasons. That seems likely, given that NVIDIA has been adamant about getting its technologies in the faces of the public, such as 3D Vision, PhysX, and something like this could help.

It still seems like a strange direction to go, though, and AIBs aren’t going to be too pleased… that much is certain. According to the current pricing at Best Buy for these cards, NVIDIA’s offerings are a tad more expensive, so the overall appeal is not quite certain. Other brand names have excellent support services and nice overall packages, so who are going to buy official NVIDIA cards?

If there’s one thing NVIDIA has going for it, it’s that its box and card designs are excellent. For someone who likes simple designs, I consider them a huge win. But still, it’s not generally that kind of thing that sells a card, and if people are going to buy NVIDIA, they’re going to need a reason for it.

What are your thoughts on this? If you wanted to buy a GeForce card, would you pay a bit more for an official NVIDIA-branded card, or even the same price?

When we explained to NVIDIA that we purchased NVIDIA video cards from Best Buy on Monday the 4th, NVIDIA explained that it “did not expect that.” It seems that a least a few Best Buy stores in North America have been selling the cards before the “official” date. We asked for an official statement in writing about NVIDIA entering retail directly and it took NVIDIA two hours to supply us with that. Here is NVIDIA’s complete reply to HardOCP about it entering the retail market direct.