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B-Grade GPU concerns/questions

hobohouseparty

hobohouseparty

hobohouseparty

Associate
Joined
8 Feb 2015
Posts
22
Location
Shropshire
Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone has experience buying B-Grade gpus, as there's an extremely tempting offer on a G1 Gaming 980ti at the moment, but the whole "B-Grade" thing is holding me back a little.

Its a great saving, great version of the card etc, but it begs the question why people would send them back? I know some people may just have changed their minds but i'm guessing some are either awful overclockers/coil whine/loud fans etc, so i'm trying to weigh up the risk involved.

I know Overclockers have a 90 day warranty so I can send it back if its faulty, but do you get the rest of the remaining manufacturers warranty at all? I've heard some people say yes, others no, and others say it depends on the manufacturer.


So really, i'm just hoping some of you good people will reassure me that the risk is low, that you've had great experiences with B-Grade Gpus and that I should totally go for it! :)

Any help or advice is appreciated, thanks.
 
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I wouldn't touch B-grade personally, getting warranty issues dealt with is like pulling teeth, basically OCUK won't want to do anything past the 90 days and some manufacturers will only deal with the retailer

no the risk is not low, it is very very high, at the very least pay by credit card so that if anything does go wrong you can fall back on that

also, looking in the clearance section, the only G1 is a 980, not a 980ti
 
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I bought a b-grade 4870 from ocuk a few years back, and it seemed fine, until you tried stress tests and then green artifacts appeared. While this is just a single case and I'm sure some will be fine, it was enough to put me off b-grade stuff for life.
 
Thanks for the quick reply - and your honesty :)

Well a few minutes ago there were 10+ in stock on a G1 980ti (saw the offer through a deal site), now it says there's only 1 980(not ti) and its on pre-order, so maybe a mistake or error.

But anyway, thanks for your advice.
 
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I would have thought that buying a B Grade graphics card is risky.

I take it that "B Grade" means that it's a card that's been returned for some reason. It might be that it's been repaired by the manufacturer, which might not be a bad thing. What I`'d be concerned about is that you could get a card that was returned under DSR for coil whine, poor overclocking, poor cooling etc. These issues are probably not regarded as "faults" by retailers, and therefore they'll be advertised as "B Grade".

You might be lucky and get a "good" card that was simply returned because it was ordered by mistake, or maybe the packaging is damaged. However, I think it's more likely you'll get a card that someone else didn't like because of one of the issues I mentioned.
 
The G1 Gaming is one card I would not touch at B Grade, it is known for coil whine... I know, I returned one last month.
 
I bought a 6870 from Overclockers B-grade 3 yrs ago and still works fine..only thing was that there was no driver disc.
 
Dervious said:
I would have thought that buying a B Grade graphics card is risky.

I take it that "B Grade" means that it's a card that's been returned for some reason. It might be that it's been repaired by the manufacturer, which might not be a bad thing. What I`'d be concerned about is that you could get a card that was returned under DSR for coil whine, poor overclocking, poor cooling etc. These issues are probably not regarded as "faults" by retailers, and therefore they'll be advertised as "B Grade".

You might be lucky and get a "good" card that was simply returned because it was ordered by mistake, or maybe the packaging is damaged. However, I think it's more likely you'll get a card that someone else didn't like because of one of the issues I mentioned.
Click to expand...

Poor overclocker etc is probably best case scenario. My card was suffering an intermittent fault which was obviously why it got returned and this fault went unnoticed after the return or investigated and no problem found.
That's the worry. I was lucky that when I returned my card ocuk found the problem but if they hadn't it would have just gone straight back to B grade.
 
I had a B-grade Palit Jetstream GTX670 and it was a beauty. I wouldn't touch B-grade with a bargepole now though due to the recent warranty issues someone had on here. If the prices were much cheaper than they are then maybe, but at only a £20-30 saving I would go brand new everythime.
 
I'd buy B Grade things upto about £100 but beyond that i'd be struggling. No way i'd drop £300 on a graphics card with 90 days warranty.
 
Lokken86 said:
Poor overclocker etc is probably best case scenario. My card was suffering an intermittent fault which was obviously why it got returned and this fault went unnoticed after the return or investigated and no problem found.
That's the worry. I was lucky that when I returned my card ocuk found the problem but if they hadn't it would have just gone straight back to B grade.
Click to expand...

Yes. I owned a b***h of a card (GTX460). It locked up under load, but only in my PC. After hours of component/OS swapping it turned out it was the card (not my PC) and was swapped by Gigagbyte. The replacement didn't work at all in on a spare motherboard I owned, but it did work in my main system. When I upgraded my motherboard, it failed to work, and was repaired by Gigabyte. Soon afterwards I went back to AMD and tried to sell the card to a friend. It failed to work in his PC, and was dumped.

Had I sent the first card back straight away for a refund, rather than accepting the fact that OCUK told me they would test it in their system, and if it worked OK (which I guessed it would), they would send it back with a testing fee, then I would have savbe myself a lot of time, hassle and postage costs. Although, if I had DSR'd the card, some other poor soul might have had the same experience that I did.
 
I have only purchased sub £100 cards from the B Grade, all have been rock solid. (GTX 650 and a GTX 750 Ti)
 
pastymuncher said:
I had a B-grade Palit Jetstream GTX670 and it was a beauty. I wouldn't touch B-grade with a bargepole now though due to the recent warranty issues someone had on here. If the prices were much cheaper than they are then maybe, but at only a £20-30 saving I would go brand new everythime.
Click to expand...

Agreed ^

The pesky discounts they offer make them not worth the hassle.
 
Currently using a B Grade 780Ti purchased at a very reasonable price. You get 14 days to return the card no questions asked which gives you sufficient time to make sure there are no obvious issues. You then get 3 months further peace of mind with OCUK during which time if there is an issue that raises its head that you didn't initially find then you should be covered. After this time you may be able to take up any manufacturers remaining warranty but will likely need OCUKs help with this. For a saving of ~£20 I agree it's not worth it but I saved a lot more than this with my card and am happy with my purchase.
 
I got a B-Grade AOC 34" ultra wide monitor - it's a beauty. Monitor still had all the protective film over it and the power cable was still seale d- no idea why it had been returned but it looked like it hadn't been used at all.

I'd happilly buy a B-Grade gfx card - if at the end of the day it had coil whine or you weren't happy with it for some reason, you could still return it. After the 90 days, you could still return it to the manufacturer as well if it later became faulty.

And there probably were 10 in stock but they get snapped up VERY quickly - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/page monitor?hl=en&_category=extensions
 
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