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Are b grade cards worth it?

WhereHere1

WhereHere1

WhereHere1

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Joined
10 Jun 2017
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290
I couldn't figure out if b grade cards were poor quality 2nd hand cards. However I think they are just cards with minor faults?

Are they actually worth it?
 
Hit n miss. 9.99/10 hit more than miss.

I've had one miss in the past and living offshore and the faff of sorting leaves me usually preferring to spend a few pennies extra on new unless it's a bargain/worth the risk

But usually ok
 
Never had issues with b-grade stock. I'm pretty sure parts of me are even b-grade and I'm working within (quasi)optimum parameters. But seriously speaking I'd agree with the 99% success odds, and in any betting those are the best odds you can ever have. My b-grade oc-uk 1440p 27" Iiyama has had over a years worth of 16+ hours a day use with freesync and not a single anything has ever given me issues. No dead pixels either, a very big pet peeve/worry of mine. B-grade oc-uk 280x I have mining is pumping out 15mg/h at 67c and 70-80% fans and before that was used by my game-addicted nephews overclocked 5-8% on games like GTA. I could name more but you get the point.
 
You get 3 months warranty with OCUK so if there is anything wrong with the card you can return it. Some manufacturers such as Gigabyte will still honor the manufacturers warranty based on the date of manufacture on these cards. I bought a B Grade 780ti and had zero issues with it I have since sold it on and it is still going strong, I got it for a very good price which was a big factor in my decision to chance a B grade card. I've seen some B grade offers which are hardly any cheaper than new in which case I would definitely go with new.
 
They can be but only if there is a significant saving which seems to be rare these days. More and more you see that there is a £20-50 reduction when compared to a brand new card and when you are still paying several hundred pounds for a gpu I would rather pay the extra for a brand new card and have the full warranty rather than a pathetic 90 days on a B-grade card.
 
If it's cheap enough, it's worth it. I've had a few b-grade graphics cards over the years, most have been fine. Usually just come in a white box, so I guess they're RMA replacements from the manufacturers that came back too late so the owner already had a refund. If you've got time to try it and send it back if it's faulty, and the saving is decent, I would say try it. If it's DOA or got issues, send it back and buy one full price - what have you lost?
 
If the discount is big enough then definitely so long as you don't expect a retail box every time and maybe some slight marks from being handled.

That being the case I've bought several over the last few months and had zero failures. Most annoying thing is sometimes the B grade stock doesn't match what's in the warehouse which I've had happen a couple of times on other items.
 
pastymuncher said:
They can be but only if there is a significant saving which seems to be rare these days. More and more you see that there is a £20-50 reduction when compared to a brand new card and when you are still paying several hundred pounds for a gpu I would rather pay the extra for a brand new card and have the full warranty rather than a pathetic 90 days on a B-grade card.
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This. Whenever I've looked the savings have been tiny. Like "save a tenner on this £300 card and get no warranty". LOL.
 
B grade cards are fine but don't expect them to be great at overclocking. Also the pricing is a bit weird on them, £300 780ti?
 
only had one 7970 asus matrix , one of my friends also got that one both of ours artifacted from the box and we returned it back
 
Confused Stu said:
If it's DOA or got issues, send it back and buy one full price - what have you lost?
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This. I've bought several B-grade cards and not had any issues with them until the most recent, which had a faulty pump. OCUK took it back and gave me a full refund right away, no messing about. I've saved hundreds of pounds over the years with B-grades, so I'm certainly up for buying more in future.
 
Graphic Cards generally no. I had a Gigabyte 780ti and a Gigabyte AMD 7850 b grade off OCUK and they were from the "bad batch" that was floating around at the time. They had 10+ in stock. then again I bought an EVGA 580 for a song from them and it was superb and had full 3 year warranty from EVGA.

Monitors definitely no. Anyone remember the guy on here who bought the hanspree monitor (I think it was) from OCUK when it turned up there was just a stand in the box. Also in the monitor thread a long while ago someone bought one and the screen turned up with huge scratches on it.

Saying that bought a few motherboards off B grade and they were a bargain! You get your money back when they are rubbish but its still the hassle.
 
Most of the B-grade are open box returns. It's illegal to sell returned goods as new so a large company like overclockers needs some way to clear the distance selling regulation (DSR) returns. How many times have you seen it in a UK forum, get it, test it, then DSR it if you don't like it.

The other source are warranty repairs which can be a little more iffy, though usually if it works when you get it, it should last just as long as any other. As ever, good airflow through your case and a mid to good quality PSU and it should be ok.

Monitors a little tricky as usually retuned for a stuck pixel, which to most people isn't noticable unless you test with software.

Have to look at the warranty though, as above, all to often you only save the price of a couple of beers which in't great on hardware you're keeping for any time.

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