Well-known overclocker Vince “Kingpin” Lucido said that there will be no new cards under the KP brand in this generation. A year ago, he talked about the possibility of cooperation with the PNY company, but these plans did not come true.
Image source: VideoCardz
Kingpin has been collaborating with EVGA for a long time. Under his leadership, the manufacturer produced a series of video cards and motherboards that were calibrated to the smallest detail and had increased overclocking potential. However, soon after the announcement of the GeForce RTX 40 series accelerators, EVGA quarreled with Nvidia and even left the video card business. Since then, the overclocker has been looking for opportunities to collaborate with other companies.
Some EVGA card models of different generations developed by Kingpin. Image Source: EVGA Forums
At some point, Asus was interested in collaborating with the famous overclocker, but it didn’t work out. Lucido did not go into details, but noted that at that time Asus was more interested in the US market. The overclocker also talked to MSI about cooperation, but they showed no interest. Ultimately, Lucido met the PNY company, which immediately wanted to work with the famous overclocker. But again nothing came of it. The collaboration between the two parties was limited to an unofficial nature. Lucido tested the GeForce RTX 4090 XLR8 video card sent to him and the manufacturer’s software. But the matter did not progress further than this.
Image Source: PNY
In a recent video, Kingpin stated that it has no plans to release a GeForce RTX 50-series graphics card under its brand. He did not explain the exact reason for this decision, citing only his past contractual obligations.
«This generation will not have my video card. For the fifth generation this turned out to be impossible. There are too many problems here. And if I joined in so quickly, it would create even more problems. I can’t talk much about it. This is due to my previous contract matters.”
At the same time, Kingpin noted the time factor that contributed to the final decision. He didn’t want to sign a contract with a Taiwanese video card manufacturer (we’re talking about PNY) and invest significant resources, since he would have to stay in Taiwan. After 15 years in Taiwan, Lucido plans to move back to the United States.
The overclocker said that now he pays all his attention to his family. He doesn’t sit without money. In addition to video cards, Kingpin has been modifying electric bicycles for many years, and also produces thermal paste under its own brand. According to him, moving to the United States will open up opportunities for direct cooperation with American companies. He also did not rule out the possibility of a Kingpin video card appearing as part of the future generation of accelerators.
«I love video cards. I love collecting video cards and I am sure that all this will not die just like that. But I think we’ll all have to wait for the next generation. Who knows, maybe [the new Kingpin card] won’t be from the green team, but from a team of a different color,” Lucido said.
From Kingpin’s words, we can assume that he is considering the possibility of releasing a Radeon or even Intel card.