Gigabyte strikes again, mixes copper with aluminium in its RTX3000 GPU open loop blocks

[Aretak]

Gigabyte hardware is crap nowadays.

@GIGA-Man have you disappeared off the face of the earth? Seems that way.

Of the non-FE Ampere cards I've tried, Gigabyte's have been comfortably the best because they've allowed much lower minimum fan speeds than the competition. Nvidia seem to have enforced a minimum 30% fan speed for all Ampere cards, and with the fans that at least MSI and Palit use that's ~1200RPM, which is very obnoxious in a quiet build. The MSI 3060 Ti Gaming X that I had would get to 60 degrees, crank the fans up to 1200RPM+ which would cool the GPU down rapidly, turn them off again and then repeat the cycle over and over again. No way to improve that behaviour since that's the slowest they could spin even with a custom fan curve. Gigabyte's go all the way down to ~700RPM, which is inaudible. Very happy with my current card from them as a result.

Also UK-based RMA, which is a huge selling point for me.

 

[Gerard]

You'd think gigabyte were total noobs to the pc scene with this kind of screw up

 

[pastymuncher]

Article says its due to aluminium, pastymuncher says there is no aluminium in it so im like???

I didn't say that at all. I was defending the owners of the cards after you and a couple of others were blaming them for not doing any research or using inhibitors (which they were). I then quoted the marketing material Gigabyte sent to reviewers stating it's nickel plated copper when it's now been found to actually be aluminium. Gigabyte basically lied about what their block was made of so this is 100% Gigabyte's fault and they should be making things right. It's not just the blocks that will need replacing either as the radiators are going to be in a right state.

 

[CuriousTomCat]

I've never watercooled a pc before so I don't understand why this is a problem. I do know how corrosion and galvanisation works though.

I do know that the central heating system in my home has a mixture of several different metals such as copper, iron, brass, lead, and tin etc so I added a corrosion inhibitor called Sentinal x100 Inhibitor to prevent corrosion and galvanisation. No signs of rust or corrosion in the water. I'm sure most central heating systems will have an inhibitor.

I'm guessing the issue in question occurs when noobs try watercooling for the first time without realising they need an inhibitor?

 

[heatonpkmassive]

Of the non-FE Ampere cards I've tried, Gigabyte's have been comfortably the best because they've allowed much lower minimum fan speeds than the competition. Nvidia seem to have enforced a minimum 30% fan speed for all Ampere cards, and with the fans that at least MSI and Palit use that's ~1200RPM, which is very obnoxious in a quiet build. The MSI 3060 Ti Gaming X that I had would get to 60 degrees, crank the fans up to 1200RPM+ which would cool the GPU down rapidly, turn them off again and then repeat the cycle over and over again. No way to improve that behaviour since that's the slowest they could spin even with a custom fan curve. Gigabyte's go all the way down to ~700RPM, which is inaudible. Very happy with my current card from them as a result.

Also UK-based RMA, which is a huge selling point for me.

There'll always be an outlier, but too many poor quality products in recent years and total arrogance when their kit screws up. Would I swap this 3080 FE for a Gigabyte 3080? Not a prayer. Wouldn't even swap it for a 3080ti Gigabyte variant. I prefer my cards to run fans at low speed as I prefer my silicon to idle at around 27 Celcius, it does no harm to fans, done this for years. And if you've had an FE, you'll know that the fans are totally inaudible at 30%.

Gigabyte and their products can get in the sea for me. RMA location makes no difference either, although it appears users have more chance of using that service with an AIB 30 series than an FE. Don't hear of many being returned over the life of the cards.

 

[Aretak]

There'll always be an outlier, but too many poor quality products in recent years and total arrogance when their kit screws up. Would I swap this 3080 FE for a Gigabyte 3080? Not a prayer. Wouldn't even swap it for a 3080ti Gigabyte variant. I prefer my cards to run fans at low speed as I prefer my silicon to idle at around 27 Celcius, it does no harm to fans, done this for years. And if you've had an FE, you'll know that the fans are totally inaudible at 30%.

Gigabyte and their products can get in the sea for me. RMA location makes no difference either, although it appears users have more chance of using that service with an AIB 30 series than an FE. Don't hear of many being returned over the life of the cards.

They don't produce any more poor products than any of the other major brands. It seems barely a month goes by when one of the likes of Asus, ASRock, EVGA, Gigabyte or MSI aren't being pulled up for one crap product or another. Gamers Nexus dumped on a terrible MSI prebuilt just a couple of days ago. Most of them react very badly to criticism too. Asus threatened to sue Hardware Unboxed over a bad review of one of their laptops and made personal insults towards Steve. ASRock have blacklisted a range of channels (including both Gamers Nexus and Hardware Unboxed) for calling out their crap motherboards. MSI have several dedicated videos for their shady behaviour, from scalping their own graphics cards to trying to bribe reviewers. EVGA deserve credit for generally trying to fix their mistakes, but they also make a bunch of crap products, including some extremely dodgy power supplies.

People who are slavishly loyal to or rabidly against any product based on the name on the box are fools. All of these companies make good and bad stuff. The single and only thing that matters is the individual product and how it performs. I won't turn down a good product because it has [BRAND] on the box and I won't buy a bad one because of it either.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Also depends on inhibitor. Crap quality one wont do much other than dye the water

 

[heatonpkmassive]

They don't produce any more poor products than any of the other major brands. It seems barely a month goes by when one of the likes of Asus, ASRock, EVGA, Gigabyte or MSI aren't being pulled up for one crap product or another. Gamers Nexus dumped on a terrible MSI prebuilt just a couple of days ago. Most of them react very badly to criticism too. Asus threatened to sue Hardware Unboxed over a bad review of one of their laptops and made personal insults towards Steve. ASRock have blacklisted a range of channels (including both Gamers Nexus and Hardware Unboxed) for calling out their crap motherboards. MSI have several dedicated videos for their shady behaviour, from scalping their own graphics cards to trying to bribe reviewers. EVGA deserve credit for generally trying to fix their mistakes, but they also make a bunch of crap products, including some extremely dodgy power supplies.

People who are slavishly loyal to or rabidly against any product based on the name on the box are fools. All of these companies make good and bad stuff. The single and only thing that matters is the individual product and how it performs. I won't turn down a good product because it has [BRAND] on the box and I won't buy a bad one because of it either.

So I'm a fool for buying several crap Gigabyte products and deciding not to buy from them again? Fair enough, I do the same with XFX as well having had a couple of awful products of theirs. Those two companies have far more form than the rest for cheaping out on stuff. And Gigabyte have a cheek cheaping out like in the original post here given they still have a decent market position, they've made enough dollar. EVGA and power supplies is another. Far too many different OEMS, I'd never have an EVGA power supply just like I wouldn't have a Gigabyte graphics card or motherboard again. I had a Gigabyte 3080 last year for a short time and sent it back as the cooler was shoddily mounted, the 3rd recent product from them that was crap and when I decided I'd no longer consider their hardware.

Look, if you're happy with your Gigabyte product then more power to you. Would I have a Gigabyte board or graphics card? Based on previous experience with them, nope.

 

[spike2011]

Bought Gigabyte products over last 30+ yrs never had any problems with motherboards or graphic cards.
Using two Gigabyte GPU cards and motherboard right now zero problems, my last PC build used Gigabyte products had it running for years with no problems.

Must be lucky not had any problems with PC builds since the 1980's using different branded products mainly Gigabyte, Corsair, Samsung and Asus, never needed to RMA anything.

Never bought MSI, XFX or Asrock and other lowest budget product brands and never will.
Probably stay with more Asus products in future Gigabyte seem to be going downhill fast but who know's really you can pay some reviewers to say anything good or bad, looking to buy a Asus Strix GPU card this year.