GoKawiilEx-EVGA manager details how Nvidia's Founders Edition squeezed partner margins
Former EVGA product manager Brendon Ray Hedrick, who worked there from 2016-2019, described how Nvidia's Founders Edition cards forced EVGA to keep a money-losing 'loss leader' model at Nvidia's advertised price to preserve chip allocations. He said profit had to come from pricier custom cards, but as Nvidia's own designs and clock management improved, the performance edge of those premium cards shrank while the cheap models sold out fast. Hedrick also described learning specs alongside the public and Nvidia tracing leaks via colored dots on retailer images.