Nvidia Reportedly Runs Sting on Fake Chinese GeForce GPUs

GEFORCE
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The matter of fake GeForce graphics cards floating around Chinese e-commerce platforms has been a widespread issue for some time now. However, a new report from MyDrivers suggests that Nvidia is finally doing something about it. The news publication claims that the chipmaker is working with the top Chinese e-commerce companies to eradicate counterfeit GeForce gaming graphics cards, which are common tenants on our list of best graphics cards.

Obscure graphics card brands, including 51RISC, Corn, or MLLSE, were previously trapped in China's domestic market. However, these brands have silently crept into the U.S. market over the years through platforms like eBay or, more recently, via third-party marketplaces at Amazon or Newegg. Most of the time, consumers will find GeForce graphics cards from these Chinese brands at lower prices or sometimes with ridiculous price tags. Common sense would tell you to avoid them and stick to Nvidia's official partners. However, every once in a while, a less-experienced consumer would fall for the lower prices.

The end of the Ethereum mining boom left remnants of overused mining graphics cards on the market. Some sellers are repainting the memory chips on old graphics cards to sell them on the second-hand market. Others are repurposing mobile graphics cards into desktop form and creating phony names like the GeForce RTX 3070 TiM. 

According to MyDrivers, Nvidia has reportedly denied its relationship with these bogus brands, highlighting that they're not official partners. Furthermore, the report claims that the chipmaker allegedly doesn't know how the counterfeit brands produce the knockoffs. As a result, Nvidia is seemingly working hand-in-hand with e-commerce platforms to remove the fake GeForce graphics cards.

It seems that Nvidia's efforts have immediately yielded positive results. Big-name Chinese platforms, including JD.com and Douyin, have cleaned house and restricted the sales of second-hand, refurbished, and falsely advertised GeForce RTX 20-series (Turing), GTX 16-series (Turing) and GTX 10-series (Pascal) graphics cards. Pinduoduo and Tmall have followed suit, implementing new second-hand and refurbished sales policies.

Nvidia shared three valuable tips to help consumers prevent buying counterfeit graphics cards. First, the chipmaker purportedly recommends users buy a GeForce RTX 40-series (Ada Lovelace) graphics card. The logic is that since Ada launched after the mining boom, there shouldn't be any recycled GeForce RTX 4090 or GeForce RTX 4080 mining graphics cards around. Secondly, consumers should buy from Nvidia's official partners, such as Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and Zotac - to name a few. Finally, for consumers who understandably don't want to spend lots of money on a GeForce RTX 40-series product, the GeForce RTX 30-series (Ampere) is still pretty good. However, to avoid fakes, Nvidia ostensibly suggests consumers pick up a post-mining boom SKU that has enjoyed a facelift along the lines of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X or the GeForce RTX 3060 8GB.

It's excellent that Nvidia has acted on fraudulent GeForce graphics cards. However, we hope to see the chipmaker's crackdown extend to the U.S. market because there are still some residues of graphics cards from 51RISC or MLLSE around.

Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • Metal Messiah.
    Apart from 51Risc, Corn (what a funny name though!), Mllse, and Peladn, these are some more graphics card brands from China that cannot be trusted, and should be avoided like a plague. They have no official website, got no product reviews/ratings, and obviously have fake specs.OcamoFullColorMacyGraphicsPlayerVeinedaXHVGAHongsunVameryFolonBingying Jieshuo But AX GAMING, Dataland, Vastarmor, and MAXSUN brands are not fake.
    Reply
  • Avro Arrow
    "However, to avoid fakes, Nvidia ostensibly suggests consumers pick up a post-mining boom SKU that has enjoyed a facelift along the lines of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X or the GeForce RTX 3060 8GB. "
    So... to avoid fakes, nVidia recommends buying what amounts to one of their own fakes, the RTX 3060 8GB:
    tPbIsxIQb8M
    I don't know how Zhiye Liu managed to not notice this irony because if I had written the article, I'd have been ALL OVER THAT!
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    Metal Messiah. said:
    Apart from 51Risc, Corn (what a funny name though!), Mllse, and Peladn, these are some more graphics card brands from China that cannot be trusted, and should be avoided like a plague. They have no official website, got no product reviews/ratings, and obviously have fake specs.OcamoFullColorMacyGraphicsPlayerVeinedaXHVGAHongsunVameryFolonBut AX GAMING, Dataland, Vastarmor, and MAXSUN brands are not fake.

    Only mention I have heard of MAXSUN was not very good.
    Reply
  • emike09
    GPU miners have moved from ETH to Kaspa, so we're seeing less miners trying to offload their GPUs.
    Reply
  • Metal Messiah.
    thisisaname said:
    Only mention I have heard of MAXSUN was not very good.

    Well I didn't say it's a very good GPU brand, but at least it is far more trustworthy than other Asian/Chinese brands. It's not a fake company though. In fact, some of their models are pretty much rock solid in build quality, especially the iCraft series, and even MGG.

    Maxsun is actually a sub-brand of the Shangke tech Group which sells many PC products, including GPUs, motherboards and storage solutions. This group owns two brands: MaxSun and Soyo, both well known to Chinese customers, but some cards are even sold on Newegg.

    They are well reviewed cards and perform similar to mid-range/high-end cards from MSI, Gigabyte, and even Asus in some cases. Check this company profile for more details.

    MAXSUN

    Here is the list of some of the well known models from MaxSun.

    https://videocardz.net/browse/maxsun
    Have you seen a GPU with 5 fans, lol. Check this funky card design from MaxSun
    . :D Even the edges are smooth and curved hardly seen in any other GPU brand's SKU.
    MaxSun unveils GeForce RTX 4080/4070 Ti Mega Gamer GPU with FIVE fans - VideoCardz.com

    Reply
  • ThatMouse
    "eBay or, more recently, via third-party marketplaces at Amazon or Newegg." Does more harm to these places than anything. Amazon and NewEgg both have a "marketplace" that is just as bad a ebay.
    Reply
  • RedBear87
    The logic is that since Ada launched after the mining boom, there shouldn't be any recycled GeForce RTX 4090 or GeForce RTX 4080 mining graphics cards around.
    The logic is really that they want you to buy their new/newish stuff, instead of the GPU chips that they've oversupplied to miners during the peak of the crypto frenzy. Whether this results in a hassle free experience for the average consumer is completely incidental for Ngreedia. What they want is your money and they don't get a single cent from those laptop chips repurposed into frankestein desktop GPUs that require modified drivers.
    Reply
  • dk382
    Has anyone actually tested Peladn cards? They're always among the cheapest 30-series cards on Newegg, but they're not unrealistically cheap. I thought maybe they were a known chinese brand that I never heard of before, but are they actually scammers?
    Reply
  • geok1ng
    I think the word fake does not means what the author of the text thinks It means.

    If a chinese hardware manufacturer take an OEM or a partner card, refurbishes It and tries to sell its not fake. Its refurbished.

    I can not vouch for every chinese "brand" on Aliexpress, but many of the names mentioned here and on the article are respectable sellers on Aliexpress with thousands of reviews from buyers on YouTube.

    Colorful is probably one of the best mainland china gpu brands.
    Maxsun and to a lesser degree Soyo cards are not behind Colorful in quality. I place these 3 brands way above the crap gigabyte sells under their Eagle line.

    Jieshuo sells good refurbished cards with their coolers and stickers. There is nothing fake on the 2080ti they sold me.

    Cctng, peladn, mllsse, 51risc sell mid to low end refurbished cards. I have seen a few reports of DOA cards from them, but i never saw a truly fake card out of their stores. Quite the opposite, their official stores on Aliexpress are honest enough to refund DOA cards , more so after the buyer uploads a video on YouTube about it. I recommend their rx 5500 5600 5700xt cards from the red side and their 2060 super from the green side.

    There are many chinese cards priced above my 2080ti, but i have not seem them priced as well as the 300 dollars i payed on mine.
    Reply
  • Stesmi
    Soyo brings back memories. Back when 440BX and GX were a thing, I had a very solid dual slot Soyo 440GX board. Had first two P3-450 and then P3-700 CPUs on it. The only downside was that the slots were a bit close together, so one CPU ran a bit hotter than the other. Yes, slot, not socket, not a typo.
    Anyone remember the time you actually had to enable SMP support in your Linux kernel?
    Reply