Gigabyte's unethical business practice

M

mexicana_fresh

New member
I bought a Gigabyte H81M-DS2 board from Titan-Ice to build a PC for work.

http://titan-ice.co.za/gigabyte-h81m-ds2-motherboard.html


When I unboxed the board I noticed that there were discrepancies between what I got and the image advertised by Gigabyte/ Titan-Ice.

http://imgur.com/qWaP67j

There's quite a lot of capacitors missing in the board I got.

I did some research online and discovered I'm not the only one that got their "downsized" product.

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/669865-GIGABYTE-ripped-me-off

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/583...sions-present-markedly-different-test-results
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/2q6fwf/psa_gigabyte_motherboard_revisisons_present/

"Although Gigabyte is fairly honest about the differing versions on its website (even though changes like a lower number of phases are not to be found in the official specification lists), this is not an approach we are enthusiastic about. The reason for that lies in the way Gigabyte brings the new products to market, using exactly the same manufacturer and UPC codes as for the original versions. Thanks to that, distributors and online shops (who work with automatic links based on these codes) cannot tell the difference. Hence, they can receive - and thus, sell - a different product, without being aware of the change in the product. Of course for you, the end user, there is no way at all to tell the difference, until you receive the product and open the box."

Lazygamer also had an article about this:

http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/is-gigabyte-trying-to-obfuscate-inferior-hardware/

I don't think this is the distributor's fault, because they most probably use EAN codes to place orders without being aware there has been a change.

http://imgur.com/de6UsUn

This is very disappointing, as I've been a big fan of Gigabyte for all my life. The board works fine, but I feel like I've been cheated.
 
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It is interesting in that a board will get reviews and things and then after that they bring out a revision 2 board that doesn't have everything that the original board had. So yeah, I can see why he feels cheated.
 
Solitude said:
It is interesting in that a board will get reviews and things and then after that they bring out a revision 2 board that doesn't have everything that the original board had. So yeah, I can see why he feels cheated.
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What features does the rev 2 board not have when compared to rev1? does it have any performance loss? (hard to tell with MOBO sure, but still needs to be answered)
 
mottamort said:
What features does the rev 2 board not have when compared to rev1? does it have any performance loss? (hard to tell with MOBO sure, but still needs to be answered)
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I take it you didn't read the links that he posted in the first post? :)
 
Solitude said:
I take it you didn't read the links that he posted in the first post? :)
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He didn't write the posts in the links, so no. But apologies, I should've stated that I'm asking HIM these questions regarding his board... if it does indeed have notable discrepancies other than visual, then I 100% agree that it feels like they've cheated him and should likely either refund or replace, as he did not receive what was advertised.

If not though, those standard "actual product may vary from images shown" disclaimers are there for a reason :P
 
Solitude said:
It is interesting in that a board will get reviews and things and then after that they bring out a revision 2 board that doesn't have everything that the original board had. So yeah, I can see why he feels cheated.
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Rev 2 took away the now redundant dual bios, which was what made Gigabyte's boards slightly different.
 
Like I said though, it does seem unethical that the revision 2 boards are not the ones that are sent to reviewers and that according to the links in his posts actually perform worse than the revision 1 boards.

I mean he can't test the board himself and compare it to an earlier revision. What he does know though is he did not get the same board as the one he thought he was getting. It's similar but it's not the one that was reviewed. Sure, he should have checked the revision number and made sure. But maybe he is like me and didn't know that revision boards aren't like the previous ones.

One thing that this thread showed me is that I will have to check which revision I get before buying. And I thank him for posting it.

*edit*

The guy who did the review of two different revision boards said it better than I can:

Now however a shop or end user can order a board based on reviews of the original and receive a product that is clearly different and, as we illustrated in this test, potentially inferior. And that is very questionable indeed.

The analysis of the B85M-D2V is shocking as Gigabyte has removed a feature from the original list of specifications, i.e. Dual BIOS. It's like ordering a car from a catalogue and discovering a missing right hand side mirror on delivery: not acceptable.
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Glordit said:
Rev 2 took away the now redundant dual bios, which was what made Gigabyte's boards slightly different.
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The picture in first post of received product still shows the "UEFI Dual BIOS" marking, so unless OP can confirm he is missing dual BIOS, if thats the only supposed change then again, no issue. But agree with Solitude that at the very least its hella-confusing and potentially dubious from Gigabyte, if it is indeed a bait-and-switch.
 
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