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Are b grade cards worth it?

Whenever I have really looked the prices have always made me think what the hell, sometimes cards are even a higher price than the new version of it, I've just left chasing up as too much bother
 
The warranty imo is a joke, 90 days and you SOL if something goes wrong, unless it happens to be an evga card. And a lot of the time the b grade are barely any less expensive than the new cards.
 
Just think of it as buying used privately or from certain 2nd hand stores just with some warranty, if a retail place such like OC sells B grade then it either had a fault and been refurbished or it's missing something.

The grading systems for retailers and shops/the bay shops also can be quite a good system though to be wary as in one shop I saw 2 identical phones on same network and one that looked like it had more scratches on screen etc was an A and the better looking one was a C, wasn't going to enquire so wouldn't know what was included with either and so on.

I buy used all the time unless I got the money for new and it's particular items, I never go in blind, but I do tend to take gambles.
 
Gerard said:
The warranty imo is a joke, 90 days and you SOL if something goes wrong, unless it happens to be an evga card. And a lot of the time the b grade are barely any less expensive than the new cards.
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Exactly, if OCUK (or any other company) had faith that the product was good for the money they are asking or if the product would last long enough to give you value for money they would at least offer half the normal warranty, in the case of some of the recent GPU offerings £400 - £500 for a 90 day warranty is insulting considering the full retail was £60 more expensive and came with 2 year warranty.
 
I've had a decent experience on b-grade items so far.

I bought a windforce 780ti for £150 in Feburary 2016 which came rather dusty and with a noisy fan. The dust wasn't a problem and luckily my previous card was a windforce 760 so I swapped the fans and all was good. It worked just fine and I later sold it on.
Next is my current monitor, it's 144Hz and I got it for £120. Unfortunately no freesync and needs DVI but it was cheap, no dead pixels or anything, very good condition.
A friend also bought an Asus matrix 980ti and has had no problems.
So yeah, it may be a bit used if it's really cheap but should work fine. Though I see most of the b-grade items aren't very good deals most of the time.
 
Gerard said:
The warranty imo is a joke, 90 days and you SOL if something goes wrong, unless it happens to be an evga card. And a lot of the time the b grade are barely any less expensive than the new cards.
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or if it is MSI or Gigabyte a(not sure about others). RMA is based on serial number which when entered tells you how much time left.
 
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I bought a b-grade 295x2 which unfortunately didn't work when I plugged it in. OCUK accepted the return and gave me the money back without any fuss. So it's a gamble really as to whether yours breaks within the 90 day window.
 
It depends on the price for me. Some of the B Grade stuff doesn't get much of a price drop and then there's the 90 day warranty. I wouldn't be spending many hundreds on a card with a three-month warranty no matter what it is.

Having said that i've happily bought some cheaper, slower cards from B Grade in the past and everything has been fine. I would just expect more of a safety net on a £500+ card, for example.
 
Two things in relation to this:

1) How do Overclockers set the prices? Often they're literally about 5% less than a new item with a rubbish warranty.....? Their used CPU prices in particiular are terrible, often they are just a pound less than new! Yet other times they're 50% the new price (much more rarer admittedly, but still) There's no consistenty at all.

2) I wish companies, not just OCUK, just put in a brief note beside the item eg "Repaired by manufacturer under warranty" or "Customer returned item - change of mind", etc. Would make people more likely to buy. Because too many companies take back stuff and seemingly just sell it on without any testing whatsoever - Dabs were the worst hands down, but Amazon not spectacular either.
 
Terrorfirmer said:
Two things in relation to this:

1) How do Overclockers set the prices? Often they're literally about 5% less than a new item with a rubbish warranty.....? Their used CPU prices in particiular are terrible, often they are just a pound less than new! Yet other times they're 50% the new price (much more rarer admittedly, but still) There's no consistenty at all.

2) I wish companies, not just OCUK, just put in a brief note beside the item eg "Repaired by manufacturer under warranty" or "Customer returned item - change of mind", etc. Would make people more likely to buy. Because too many companies take back stuff and seemingly just sell it on without any testing whatsoever - Dabs were the worst hands down, but Amazon not spectacular either.
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This!
Does my head in that you have to buy it to find out what the condition is!
In all honesty I've never bought a b grade and don't think I would.
Josh.
 
WhereHere1 said:
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?
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B grade is a gamble. 90 day partial warranty, unspecified issues with the product. Maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe not. I'd say that B grade is generally not worth it unless it's something you can't get new or the price is a lot lower on B grade.

My last 2 experiences with B grade:

1) Motherboard. Cost less than half what I could have a comparable motherboard for. Works perfectly. I'm not even sure why it was B grade, since it came with everything and is undamaged. There was a very faint trace of dust on it, so maybe it had been used a little bit. Lucky.

2) Case. Front panel missing. Both side panels damaged (retaining clips smashed flat or broken off). Chassis significantly bent, so side panels don't fit anyway and top radiator mount is blocked by the bent and distorted case. To get it working, I had to buy a new front panel from the case manufacturer (they were very good about it) which reduced the saving over new even further (posting one large fragile item from Germany to the UK isn't that cheap), do some careful beating and bending on the chassis to get it as close to true as possible and duct tape the side panels on. Unlucky. Overall I saved maybe £15 over buying it new (£60 instead of £75, roughly), but if I'd bought it new I'd have had less fuss and a case that doesn't need duct tape to hold it together. Unlucky.

Graphics cards in particular don't usually look to me as though it's worth buying B grade because the prices at B grade aren't much cheaper than new and in some cases are actually more expensive than new or more expensive than a comparable card from a newer generation. £300 for a 780ti, for example. Why would anyone pay £300 for a 780ti that is used, damaged or both?
 
What a great price. Too bad I missed it.

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Dont let the price advertised for B grade items put you off. Its been said many times the price in there is not necessarily reduced and that the items in there are not kept in line with pricing. If there is an item in there and it looks near the original price or just plain wrong just post in the CS forum the item and whether it is to be discounted anymore and you will often find it gets reduced further. Problem you have is then someone else comes and nicks it.

eg I was interested in the force feedback vest in there advertised at £98.99 when the new ones were £74.99. Posted in the CS forum and they reduced the b grade to £64.99 for me. Changed my mind about it tho but you get the drift. If you dont ask you dont get.
 
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