We raised quite a bit of dust with our Nvidia partner cut stories recently. It turns out Nvidia will not cut all but six partners any time soon. However, that doesn't mean the others are in the clear, on the contrary.

The six AIB partners we talked about, EVGA, PC partner (Zotac), Asus, MSI, Palit and XFX, will get preferential treatment. It's still unclear what exactly constitutes preferential treatment. The six could eventually end up getting design kits, chips and other goodies a bit earlier than other partners.

Obviously, this is not good news if you're not on the list, but it's still better than getting cut off completely. In spite of that, such a move on Nvidia's part could spell the end for many partners. They won't be cut off, but they will be forced to do business under unfavorable conditions.

Considering Nvidia's woes and rather low margins on the AIB side of the business, this could be the final nail in the coffin for some smaller partners, if not all of them. Basically, Nvidia won't kill off the other partners, but it could very well leave them in the cold to wither and die slowly, especially if Nvidia doesn't dethrone ATI with its next generation of GPUs.