Asrock is not allowed to sell graphics cards in Europe

Component maker Asrock is best known for its motherboards and many were therefore surprised when it was rumored that the company had plans to enter the graphics card market. Shortly afterwards, the rumor was confirmed by the company unveiling the Phantom Gaming graphics card series, where all of the series’ graphics cards to date are based on AMD’s Polaris architecture and the circuits in the Radeon RX 500 series.

The problem for me is that AMD has not agreed us to sell in EU, that is really a pity.

Now the German section of technology site Tom’s Hardware reports that Asrock’s graphics cards will not be sold in the European market, which the manufacturer says is a regrettable decision made by AMD. The information emerged in connection with a review of the RX 580 Phantom Gaming X, where Tom’s Hardware noted that the product is not commercially available.

No underlying reason is stated, but the Dutch website Hardware.info (Dutch) writes that it may be because AMD intends to strengthen its position as a graphics player in Asia. The company’s position in the said area is stated to be relatively weak, which is partly due to few Radeon-exclusive third-party manufacturers being active there.

Update 2018-05-07

The decision of sales region for ASRock VGA card is based on the planning of mutual channel agreement. So far the first priority is Asia Pacific and Latin America. No confirmed schedules in EU markets yet

Tom’s Hardware has now received more information from Asrock, which writes that the graphics cards will initially be marketed in the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America. At present, there are no plans for expansion into the European market.