Galax has issued an announcement to Chinese language tech journal IT House, denying that it has been repackaging and reselling used or refurbished graphics playing cards as new. The graphics card firm, often known as Galaxy – with the added ‘y’ – on its house turf, insisted that every one client retail components had been fully new. It defined that any PCB gold contact marks discovered by prospects are attributable to put on from its in depth product testing course of.
The supply article accommodates the photographs proven above. Sadly, the supply photographs do not include very clear close-ups of the a part of the PCB.
Allow us to take a look at the story in a chronologically smart method. What appears to have occurred is that IT House reported on complaints by its readers about receiving Galax graphics playing cards from client shops that did not seem like model new.
One reader ordered a Galax RTX 3070 Ti Steel Grasp OC from Taobao in China. Upon receipt, the individual did not open the anti-static bag instantly as they had been conscious of earlier Galax complaints. As a substitute, he appeared rigorously by the bag and noticed indicators on the gold contacts of the PCB that the cardboard was beforehand plugged/unplugged. Furthermore, he made feedback about “black marks” on the gold contacts, that are more likely to outcome from oxidization. Thus the client returned his RTX 3070 Ti with out additional unpacking and made his story identified to the media.
Galax seen these reviews and was clearly involved about unhealthy publicity, so it took a while to analyze the returned product. In a number of pages of study, which passed off throughout a number of firm departments, Galax decided that the GPU underneath scrutiny had a really current manufacturing unit manufacturing date of April 19, 2022. As well as, it discovered no points in performance and the RTX 3070 Ti carried out as anticipated.
Importantly, Galax defined that “the full-featured take a look at of the graphics card product earlier than cargo could trigger the product gold finger to put on.” This may clarify the scratches on the shiny gold, however it’s much less convincing that oxidization would happen from a comparatively transient take a look at interval.
Galax selected to self-investigate buyer issues, which is not the most passable or convincing kind of investigation. To clear itself of suspicion regarding refurbishing or reselling previous mining playing cards, it will have accomplished higher to rent a revered third occasion to take a look at its manufacturing and processes.
If you’re concerned about buying a graphics card right now, there are indicators that AMD is getting ready a refresh of its Radeon RX 6000 collection shortly. Intel can also be getting ready to enter the desktop market with its first Arc Alchemist discrete GPUs, and plenty of graphics playing cards are in the end priced at or very near MSRP.