Experience with B Grade Items

For all the advice on caution with monitors you can still get some good deals. My Acer Predator XB271Hu is going strong over 3 years later. It has a minor firmware fault that's fixed by a power cycle and only very rarely rears it's head. For £390 when the full retail price was £600 it was a bargain.
 
Monitors do seem to get some good discounts. But given that they get returned for dead pixels and bleed and other visual defects in the search for a 'perfect' display, they aren't one of the b grade items I would purchase myself.

Then again taking a gamble is fine since you can return them easy enough, so what I've said above really doesn't matter.
 
Been buying B Grade from OC/UK for years, the last two items being Zotac 1080ti Amp Extremes both of which are working fine to this day.

I registered mine with Zotac and even got an acknowledgement of the 5 year warranty, happy days!

My nephew (who had the other one) is delighted with it and has had no issues.

Bought CPU’s, GPU’s, RAM, Sound cards even a gaming chair.

No issues with any but great savings.

I’ve advised many of my friends to check out b grade too, only one had a problem with a dead item, refunded without quibble.

Ultimately if it’s an electronic item with a fault I’d say it’s highly unlikely that fault won’t present itself within the 90 day warranty period, some manufacturers still happily accept warranty registration despite the item being a b grade (Zotac wanted a scan of my receipt which clearly stated b grade when I registered my 1080ti)

What’s not to like?
 
Bought a B grade Alphacool DDC pump and I have no idea why it was B Grade - everything inside was present and correct, no marks or scratches, I don't even think the box was opened.
Also bought a B grade GTX Titan block which was filthy, still had a load of red coolant in it and somehow had fingerprint corrosion inside the damn thing. But it's just a chunk of copper so cleaned up perfectly.

I'd take a punt on B grade core components like mobos if the returns policy was good.
 
Never had any major issues with B grade.
My current motherboard was a B grade item, came in as new condition with all the bits & pieces.

Only minor issue I ever had was a 120gb msata drive who's box looked like it had been driven over by the delivery van, however the drive itself worked fine. :D
 
I've never had any issues with the quality of B Grade items but please remember - you have a 90 day warranty with anything you buy. I won't go over about £100 for this reason, especially with fragile components like graphics cards, motherboards, CPUs etc.

I also think a lot of it is priced very poorly taking the above into account and you have to be really on the ball to get a good deal.
 
Distracted said:
Monitors do seem to get some good discounts. But given that they get returned for dead pixels and bleed and other visual defects in the search for a 'perfect' display, they aren't one of the b grade items I would purchase myself.

Then again taking a gamble is fine since you can return them easy enough, so what I've said above really doesn't matter.
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The 90 day return is indeed key. I guess I was lucky that it was likely returned for the minor firmware issue (Acer were accepting them for fixes but it's infrequent enough not to bother me as an alt-tab out and back into a game usually solves it) as it's a good panel with no bleed and minor IPS glow.

A lot of the prices aren't great however, only a minor reduction coupled with miniscule warranty make them risky for more sensitive components.
 
Mixed bag but in general great.

Ive bought motherboards where the whole thing is totally complete and doesnt even look like its ever been opened to other ones were all the accessories were missing and wasnt really worth it.,

Bought two high end monitors on B grade for basically almost half new price and both have been perfect, no dead pixels or light bleed although the first one was missing the remote (no big deal)

Bought PSUs at huge discounts without issue as well.
 
had b grade asus 7970 matrix or something , had to return it back as it articafted on stock clock i think everyone had same problem
 
From looking at old orders, I've bought a few b grade items over the years. I've had no issues with a motherboard, 2 monitors and 2 GTX 980ti's. The only issue was with a 670 which was showing artifacts after a few weeks. I remember getting a replacement in the post which was fine while I still had it.
 
Got a 1070 a couple years ago and apart from a ripped box it was all sealed new inside, pretty sure it was almost 100 notes off the usual price, still going strong to this day.
Also got an Asus x470 gaming-F and other than being opened it was perfect, 200 quid board and i got it for 120!
 
B grade has been a lottery for me over the years iv had some really good bargains and some bad lots but overclockers have always made it right.
 
My B Grade 7950 is still running fine after all these years in my father in laws PC seeing daily use. I recently got a B Grade CPU cooler and it had a few missing fan mounting screws but OCUK sent me a pack of screws once alerted to the issue.
Even got an extra 2 packs of Haribo with the replacement screws.
 
Bought B grade once, dead on arrival, sent it back at my own cost and got a refund - won't ever buy B grade again...
 
GhostWKD said:
Bought B grade once, dead on arrival, sent it back at my own cost and got a refund - won't ever buy B grade again...
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You should have been refunded the postage for returning a faulty item.

At least that was my experience the last time I dealt with OCUK.

Albeit I had to pay for it initially but kept proof of postage and once OCUK received that they refunded me.
 
I would assume that if some item is returned with serious issue, OCUK wouldn't put such item for sale, as it still can be returned, but for a shorter period of time.
For things like CPU and GPU many people would return it simply because couldn't get a good clocking chip, or in GPU case, fan noise. Motherboards, simply because didn't like it, but there's a chance of parts missing.
More sensitive things as SSDs, HDDs and monitors, personally I wouldn't try my luck. Wrongly handled storage units may take a while to show the damage, if any happened. Monitors, you may not be picky, or your man cave don't highlight the issues, but more often than not they are returned for some "problem". Excessive light bleeding, issues with the screen uniformity, dead pixels. But as I've said, a monitor which shows excessive light bleeding at my office, using my specific calibration, may not show or bother you that much at your place.
Memory, I assume is due to incompatibility. Or at some extent people unable to overclock it, may try for a different model. Mine I had to spend few hours adjusting the CPU cooler to allow it to fit, but avoiding touching the side window.
Being as honest as possible, no one can tell you for sure why the item was returned, not even OCUK, as the customer may have feed them with wrong reason to return the item.
A clearly faulty item wouldn't be put for sale, if OCUK is aware of that.
If is just an open box item, or minor signs of use, fair enough, but the reduced price takes that into consideration.
And there's end of life items, great for those who want to give a bit of live to their systems, delaying a bigger upgrade.
 
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