Asus kills its recently formed Arez brand for AMD Radeon graphics cards
Asus is putting a fork in its Arez brand a mere four weeks after announcing it, presumably because it's no longer necessary to create a different graphics card series for AMD-based cards.
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That might not have been the case before Nvidia pulled the plug on its GeForce Partner Program (GPP), which would have rewarded companies like Asus with additional marketing support and other perks for aligning a gaming brand exclusively with GeForce
The affiliate program became a point of controversy after Kyle Bennett at HardOCP posted an article on the topic. In the article, Bennett said that of the companies willing to speak with him anonymously on the subject, they all voiced the exact same concern—that Nvidia would hold back allocation of GPUs if they chose not to participate.
It was never made clear which companies had planned to participate, though a few of them did release new brands specifically for AMD-based cards. One of them was Asus.
"The new Arez brand underlines the strong working partnership between Asus and AMD that spans decades," Asus said at the time. "Gamers and enthusiasts will enjoy a combination of exclusive Asus innovations and technologies and AMD's Radeon graphics processors and software."
It was assumed that Asus would dedicated its Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand to GeForce products, hence the creation of a new and separate Arez brand for AMD Radeon cards. Since GPP is dead, there's no need for a separate brand, or at least that's the assumption. Either way, Arez is being retired after barely a month of service.
