The topic of lesser-known Chinese GPU brands is becoming increasingly relevant, and it’s not uncommon for these companies to emerge seemingly out of nowhere, often with distinctive designs. However, there is more to the story than meets the eye.
It has always been a mystery why NVIDIA hasn’t taken any action to prevent companies from selling unlicensed and often counterfeit GeForce GPUs. However, it turns out that the situation is more complicated than we initially thought. Companies such as JieShuo, Bingying, 51RSIC, Corn, Mllse, and others are not official partners of NVIDIA and should not be selling GeForce GPUs at all.
These GPUs are easily accessible to gamers through Chinese e-commerce websites, as well as popular international platforms such as AliExpress, Wish, Amazon, Newegg, and eBay. However, if the products are listed as ‘shipping from China,’ it may be difficult to make an after-sale claim.
Sometimes, people buy a bunch of cards from popular brands in large quantities and for cheaper prices. Then, they put new stickers on them and resell them. One instance of this is the MANLI RTX 4090 GPU that has a spirit level built in. The company that makes it claims that the GPU we thought was called ’51RISC’ is actually their own creation and that 51RISC just used their pictures without permission.
There’s another situation where mobile GPUs are being sold as desktop GPUs. While these GPUs are special and could be seen as a cheaper option to more expensive desktop GPUs, they shouldn’t really be sold at all. NVIDIA, the company that makes the GPUs, has never given permission for anyone to sell mobile GPUs to regular consumers as desktop GPUs. In the end, NVIDIA won’t provide any help for these mixed-up designs, so even if they’re working now, they could lose support for drivers later. On top of all that, some companies are sending out these GPUs with drivers that have malware in them.
Lastly, there’s the issue of post-mining GPUs. Nowadays, there are a lot of businesses that focus on refurbishing and selling graphics cards that were previously used for cryptocurrency mining. Some of these cards are easy to recognize as being previously used, but others aren’t so obvious. The problem is so widespread that there are companies out there that even paint over the memory modules to hide the yellow discoloration that often happens with post-mining GPUs.
To tackle this issue, NVIDIA has partnered with well-known Chinese e-commerce platforms to put an end to it. Merchants on these platforms are no longer permitted to sell used, second-hand RTX 20, GTX 16, or GTX 10 GPUs. Four widely used Chinese platforms have agreed to enforce these new regulations.
NVIDIA is teaming up with these e-commerce platforms to strengthen its connections with authorized partners (such as ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, etc.) and give priority to newer GPU series, like RTX 30 or RTX 40, which are less prone to these issues. However, it’s hard to understand why it’s taken years for action to be taken on this problem, which has been around for quite some time now.
Via Videocardz
Pictures Credit: Videocardz