Nvidia launched the Pascal GPU-based Titan X back on 21st July. We published a full HEXUS review of "the fastest consumer graphics card ever made," shortly after, at the beginning of August. We were impressed with the new Titan X performing 60 per cent faster than its immediate predecessor, and 20-25 per cent speedier than a well-overclocked GTX 1080. This beautifully built card delivered a new level of performance to the GeForce line, however its cooler design was seen to be holding back its full potential.
Now it is starting to look like there will not be any chance for us to see a third party branded or modified Nvidia Pascal GPU-based Titan X graphics card. If the industry sourced chitter chatter published by DigiTimes today is correct Nvidia is keeping the cream of the 16nm Pascal GPU crop for itself.
The new Titan X card is to become available in countries including Japan, China and Taiwan from next month. However it seems like Nvidia is denying its traditional AIC partners in Taiwan (Asus, Gigabyte and MSI) from any opportunity to profit from these highly priced consumer graphics cards. The industry sources say that Nvidia has so far only revealed plans to release its Founders Edition model in Taiwan via a distribution company called Synnex. This is effectively cutting out even partner branded/boxed versions for the first time.
With the physical launch so close, and AIC partners in the dark over any business opportunities they could have off the back of the new Titan X, it simply looks like they will be left out in the cold for this model. AIC partners were already annoyed at the Nvidia Founders Edition exclusivity periods seen recently.
Nvidia CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, went on the record at the end of September to assert that his company didn't want to "step into own-brand graphics card sales" and that Founders Edition cards were produced "purely to solve problems in graphics card design".
At the moment we can't be certain that the industry sources flagging the exclusion of traditional AIC partners for Titan X sales is correct. As usual, time will reveal the truth.
