BFG & the big screw?

[red1776]

According to reports BFG is starting to send back RMA'd cards without being repaired, and a letter stating that they are out of business.

I know there are folks here who know more about this situation, so if you would please.
BFG is made up of several other companies other than the GPU division correct?

So this is just a decision to screw people on their warranty?

 

[mailpup]

Maybe not intentionally but the effect is the same. Even though this may affect only their GPU division, it would make me think twice about buying or recommending any of their other products considering there are many other good brands. In fact, a quick google search reveals some stories that BFG might be quitting business completely.

 

[dividebyzero]

BFG is RIP. That goes for their prebuilt systems (Phobos?) as well.
BFG is blaming it's woes on nvidia, although no one seems overly sure whether it's because nvidia were late to launch the GTX4xx series, or whether it was because nvidia locked BFG out of selling the cards.
As I linked to in another thread, BFG have been looking down the barrel for some time. Loss of market share linked with high DOA/RMA rates for some of their model lines (OCX, H2OC in particular), probably due to issues with QC/speed binning in conjuction with their lifetime warranty and trade-up programs all probably undermined their financial footing.

The high RMA rates would seemingly be borne out if, as have been reported, they have already depleted their RMA inventory-considering it has been less than three months since the announcement that BFG were ceasing production/sale of graphics cards. There is something decidedly off about that particular situation. If I were to speculate, I'd say that BFG had resorted to selling off their RMA inventory in the hope that nvidia and Best Buy wouldn't notice the backround problems.
As an example. GeCube ceased as a graphics card vendor about a year ago (I think, when Gigabyte ditched the company), yet I've heard of no problems with dishonoured RMA's.

 

[red1776]

I just noticed I forgot to link to the story at Hexus I read. Here it is
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=25943

 

[Leeky]

Thats tough on owners of their products.

In the current climate its hard to trust where your money is safe in component purchases really. I can't believe they have run out of RMA stock inside 3-4 months though surely? This must have been a decision that was on the cards well before the originally announced date.

 

[dividebyzero]

I doubt BFG ran through their RMA inventory that quickly as well. If you look at the dateline ( Jan 28th, 2009) in the story I linked to, you'll see that the cracks started appearing well over eighteen months ago, long before Fermi (or even the GTX2xx die shrink from 65nm to 55nm for that matter).
I think a lot of this is down to the extended warranty/sweetheart trade-up program (BFG offered free trade in's from AGP to PCI-E versions of their cards at one point) and getting into a performance/marketshare war with EVGA, which was always going to end badly. You could afford to do one or the other, but not both. I think BFG's haphazard distribution in some markets (Asia, Australasia and Europe) would have exacerbated their problems.

 

[red1776]

well then that's why I asked. I thought that BFG was made up of several companies. If they are RIP, I guess my original question is moot, and that is the chance you take when you purchase anything.

 

[dividebyzero]

I think it was a standalone (and die alone) company. I wouldn't hold out much hope for warranty on their prebuilt systems or their power supplies- given the company's status, the PSU's look a little overpriced! (lifetime warranty though!!!)

I originally thought that BFG was a subsidiary company-but it turns out that BFG just sourced it's cards from larger volume manufacturers (including, ironically, Galaxy)

 

[DDG4005]

I still have one their cards running in one of boxes as a PhysX card. It's the Eco-Intelligence 9800 GT with 1GB of RAM. So far it's been running without any issues and hopefully it stays that way.

 

[dividebyzero]

Seems as though BFG were playing every card possible....even ones that weren't in their hand.

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