ASRock Issues Statement Regarding Video Card Availability

ASRock Setting the Record Straight

Claims of AMD restricting ASRock‘s video card sales to certain regions surfaced via Tom’s Hardware Germany recently. Specifically mentioning that they are not serving the EU market, but are limited to APEC countries due to prior agreements. This market limitation also includes Taiwan and Hong Kong, but includes the majority of Asian countries as well as North America and Australia. According to Tom’s Hardware, they have received information from an ASRock employee who contacted them after they reviewed the ASRock Phantom RX 580 graphics card.

However, now ASRock has issued an official statement contradicting the matter. The official statement is available below, unedited in full:

A leading global motherboard and graphics card manufacturer, ASRock, announced entering the graphics card market with the Phantom Gaming range – a strong line up of AMD Radeon™ RX500 series graphics card in April 2018. Initially, ASRock will roll out graphics card business in various regions based on internal planning. Regions with first priorities are APEC and Latin America. Then ASRock will gradually launch the business in other regions. Thanks for all media friends recently putting attention on our Phantom Gaming graphic card business and giving them massive coverages.

Understandably, Tom’s Hardware has now removed the original quote from the ASRock employee as per that person’s request. In order to protect them from further problems with AMD.

Why Were There Regional Restrictions in Place?

Like I mentioned in a previous article, there are various reasons why this could be. Although ASRock vehemently denies that AMD is not restricting them and that this is just part of their roll-out plan, the initial statement from the employee is hard to take back. Especially since AMD is careful not to damage their reputation following the “freedom of choice” pledge.

It is not out of the realm of possibilities that AMD could be restricting ASRock since they are a new partner. They would have to account for how their other long-time partners would feel when a big new player enters the market. Especially when it can into the partner’s profits. Also, the supply of AMD GPUs available is an ongoing concern. Especially when it is highly sought after by crypto-miners. So the limited supply in combination with ASRock being a new partner could be two key reasons for this decision.

Either way, ASRock says they will roll out to other regions eventually and we have to take their word for that. Whether it is going to take several months or several years of course, is the real question.