AMD has reportedly brought down the banhammer on ASRock, forbidding the company from selling its recently minted Phantom Gaming Radeon GPUs in the EU. The ban was made known by Tom’s Hardware’s Igor Wallossek in Germany, when ASRock itself had called him to inquire about a review on its RX 580 Phantom Gaming X card.
During the call, Wallossek said that ASRock wanted to know where he had gotten the card since the company was not allowed to sell any of its card in Europe by AMD. Information about AMD’s ban on ASRock is scarce, but it’s clear that the ban doesn’t fall in line with the “Freedom On Choice” stance it took weeks ago.
It’s also possible that AMD’s ban could be a move to limit the number of “China-based board” from entering the EU market. Case in point; the Chinese brand Colorful is an NVIDIA-exclusive GPU manufacturer, but it is banned by NVIDIA from selling its hardware in the EU.
(Source: Hot Hardware via Tom’s Hardware)
