B grade Cards

[mationman]

Does anyone have any experience buying B grade graphics cards is it a big no no or are they ok?

And what about websites own cards are they any good or just white box OEMs?

 

[MrCommunistGen]

my general thoughts are: 1) you get what you pay for & 2) Its your money. If its a big difference in $ its probably more risky. the potential savings is greater, but its probably also a greater chance that it'll break. If the difference is small then I'd probably not risk it because for a bit more money you can get a name brand.

Don't know how helpful this is.

-mcg

 

[MrCommunistGen]

I just realized something... what exactly do you mean by B grade? do you mean something like PowerColor/TUL, Connect3D, or Rosewill? I bought either a PowerColor/TUL or a Connect3D X800XL for a budget gaming rig and as far as I know it still runs fine and performance is on par with what an X800XL should be. I've never gotten whitebox graphics cards before and have never seen a website branded card.

-mcg

 

[mationman]

By b grade I mean a card thats been used or repaired (sorry should have been clearer) but its from a website I have bought from before, hell this puter here was bought from there.

And there seems to be a lot of websites own cards out (in the UK anyway) overclockers.co.uk, novatech and tekheads have them but I you never get any reviews or benchs of them due to lack of numbers of them

 

[illicitsc]

i agree. many noobs think used = crap + repaired. thats y they are noobs that blow too much money on XX component and have s h i t t y systems

 

[lindochico]

Ok, allow me to ask this: what about "refurbished" cards? You know, like the ones you can find at the bottom of any Newegg search page... I know they are repaired by the manufacturer when a little failure is found, but then, how good are they?

You know, refurbished items have very attractive prices but how risky is it to buy them?

 

[sirheck]

in my experience a <brand b>or refurbished from a reputable website
should do fine as you will get atleast some kind of warranty

but just remember just because its new does not mean its good.

i say this from 19 years in the automotive buisness


some of the electronics on cars <modules, coilpacks, O2 sensors,
tps sensors, or even blend door acutators,> are rediculous in price

i bought an onkyo surround sound reciever refurbished from the
onkyo website for my mom it worked great for 3 months or so
and the dts and dolby decoder went out but the pro logicII and
evrything else worked
it was at the time a 399$ and i got it for 230$ with a 1 year warranty
that i paid 30$ for plus the standard 2 year
so i spent 40$ to ship it back to onkyo and they shipped it back
non repiared do to voltagestrike warranty void all warranty
so iwas upset nothing else fried <big screen pc dvd directtv all hoked up to the same surge protector its still jamin today but no dts or dolby surround

anyway anything you buy well you never know till you try it

 

[MrCommunistGen]

I'd be careful of buying a "repaired" card but I'd be much more comfortable with buying used or refurbished. Used would mean that I'd have to trust the seller. Buying refurbished would probably be best/safest since it comes from the manufacturer and has a warranty.

To sirheck: way to go! I have 2 Onkyo receivers myself. A TX-8511 (stereo) and an SR-700 (6.1). The SR-700 originally retailed for about $800 I think... I got it for $400 because it was on clearance and it was the floor model in the store (the last one they had). Sadly the powered second room feature doesn't work. I was going to use it at a party once where a guy was going to hook his guitar amp up to my receiver using the powered second room, and have the CD he was playing along with play on the main stereo pair. When I turned the second room on (before I hooked up his amp) all I got was a REALLY loud electronic hum/buzz. Thankfully I had beefy speakers hooked up or they would have blown. I later tested this again on some speakers I DID want to blow up for the fun of it (some old car speakers) and they blew out rather nicely but left a stench of electrical burning (the speakers not the receiver). I should have sent it back under warranty but I never got around to doing it since I only rarely want to use the feature and the receiver works fine otherwise. The warranty is expired now...

-mcg

 

[mationman]

Thanks for all the replies, I think i'll steer clear of refurbished cards.

I've been searching for ages for a decent card because I havn't got any money till the end of this month. So I've explored about every possibility.
I've settled for a X1800XT I was gonna go for a 7600gt but then I thought that I might aswell buy a better card because it'll last longer and the X1800xt isnt that expensive and ATI plays oblivion better than Nvidia.

 

[illicitsc]

refurbished is not just used. its busted and repaird. used is a step up

 

[MarkG]

Indeed. When some bozo RMAs a card that works perfectly, it generally still has to be resold as used or refurbished, even though there was nothing wrong with it in the first place.

 

[GeneticWeapon]

I bought my neighbor a 9550 from neweggs refurb section, and when it arrived, I would swear it was new.

It was half off.

 

[bigsby]

I haven't had much experience with refurbished items (especially computer crap) but I do know that they can't just sell you somethign that doesn't work. I bought a refurbished psp for over a hundred dollars off the normal price and I haven't had any problems with it. I'd just make sure you get an extra good warranty with it, 'cause they can screw you over with that. Make sure to read over the warranty because they might say that it has a 5 year warranty but somewhere in the fine print they might say something like "warranty void if taken out of box" or something stupid like that. Luckily my warranty for my psp basically says "if anything at all happens to it, you drop it, you run over it with your car, you drop it in the water, or anything else, as long as you have most of the pieces you can bring it back and we'll hand you a new one".