Sketchy ebay cards

[IamBored]

Sketchy ebay cards are... well sketchy. I keep seeing these all over the place. Is there any chance at all that they are real?

 

[another random person]

2 minutes ago, ANOriginalName said:

Sketchy ebay cards are... well sketchy. I keep seeing these all over the place. Is there any chance at all that they are real?

 

I wouldn't trust it. Just buy from Newegg or Amazon. Or even better a reputable local store. 

[wonderforest]

NO GTX 970 ever had a 1gb buffer , they are all 550 ti or 650.

[Lord Nicoll]

Most of these cards are actually mid end 500 or 600 series cards. The 1GB frame buffer gives it away. Depending on your market, they might be the same price but it's hard to tell what card it was originally, they usually flash custom BIOSes on that change the name. 

[IamBored]

6 minutes ago, another random person said:

I wouldn't trust it. Just buy from Newegg or Amazon. Or even better a reputable local store. 

 

Just now, wonderforest said:

NO GTX 970 ever had a 1gb buffer , they are all 550 ti or 650.

I've managed to find a single review in Russian. They are working graphics cards but they are 550 ti's. So 40 USD might-not-work 550 ti's for all?

 

[another random person]

1 minute ago, ANOriginalName said:

 

I've managed to find a single review in Russian. They are working graphics cards but they are 550 ti's. So 40 USD might-not-work 550 ti's for all?

 

Nopee! I'd rather buy other things like...food...and more food.....I digress.

[aisle9]

34 minutes ago, ANOriginalName said:

Sketchy ebay cards are... well sketchy. I keep seeing these all over the place. Is there any chance at all that they are real?

 

No, they're almost all Fermi cards, maybe a Kepler or a Tesla thrown in for good measure. They've had a custom BIOS flashed that makes the card appear as a 970.

 

Up until recently, the hot new thing to do was buy one of these, get it, immediately file a claim with eBay that it's not genuine, then get a free GPU. Apparently eBay is onto that, and I've heard a couple anecdotal stories from the last week or so of eBay calling buyers out for purchasing what they knew what a fake then trying to claim it. YMMV

[Droidbot]

3 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

No, they're almost all Fermi cards, maybe a Kepler or a Tesla thrown in for good measure. They've had a custom BIOS flashed that makes the card appear as a 970.

 

Up until recently, the hot new thing to do was buy one of these, get it, immediately file a claim with eBay that it's not genuine, then get a free GPU. Apparently eBay is onto that, and I've heard a couple anecdotal stories from the last week or so of eBay calling buyers out for purchasing what they knew what a fake then trying to claim it. YMMV

Best way to get these is to try Wish.com or other sites. Their support is handled 3rd party and always refunds you to keep this 'good support' aura

 

You can flash them back to 550Tis using a SOIC-8 clip and a USB BIOS programmer, a Raspberry Pi, or a BeagleBone Black.

[AugOwnz]

They are all gts 450s or gtx 550s with custom BIOS that is hard to turn back to original.

[ItsBlck]

if these were real, I'd have a hundred of them.

[TechyBen]

6 hours ago, aisle9 said:

No, they're almost all Fermi cards, maybe a Kepler or a Tesla thrown in for good measure. They've had a custom BIOS flashed that makes the card appear as a 970.

 

Up until recently, the hot new thing to do was buy one of these, get it, immediately file a claim with eBay that it's not genuine, then get a free GPU. Apparently eBay is onto that, and I've heard a couple anecdotal stories from the last week or so of eBay calling buyers out for purchasing what they knew what a fake then trying to claim it. YMMV

How does that work in a Store though? I walk in, see something that's obviously "fake", open the packet, it's empty/swapped item, and the store says "nope your fault", I think not!

[aisle9]

1 hour ago, TechyBen said:

How does that work in a Store though? I walk in, see something that's obviously "fake", open the packet, it's empty/swapped item, and the store says "nope your fault", I think not!

I'm not eBay and I can't speak to the logic, or even how true the anecdotal stories are. My uneducated guess would be that anyone whose claim was denied was someone who had scammed the scammers in this way multiple times, and eBay finally said enough was enough.

[AngryBeaver]

9 hours ago, another random person said:

I wouldn't trust it. Just buy from Newegg or Amazon. Or even better a reputable local store. 

I have contacted those sellers. They claim is is a modified card that is similar to what they are advertising.

 

One of the big red flags for these is the fact they have a VGA port, which none of the cards they are claiming they are come with a VGA port. These are much older low end cards which have had a aftermarket fan/heatsink assembly placed on them and then had a bios flash to make them appear like they are legit.

 

Some of these providers mess up and give you a good shot of the back of the boards... and you can look them up and see they are like old 420gt's and such.