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ECS Video cards.

N

Nostram

Gawd
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I have never owned one but have seen quite a few people insist on NOT using ECS video cards. Why, other than the price, is this?

Curious is all.
 
ECS quality has never been good on anything even their motherboards that are their main items. I have never had anything but problems with their products so that is probably why.
 
Like I said, I have never owned one, but I can get an insanely good deal on a GTX 560 made by them and was curious what the actual issues with ECS specifically were.
 
when a company only makes cheap products, that usually means corners are cut, whether it be in the components, the fabrication or the quality control, tech support, somewhere there are a lot of corners cut at ECS and many choose to stay away from them.

on the other hand, i remember people thinking the same thing about some big time brands now, such as MSI in like 2004/05, ASRock in that same time period, and probably more that are just escaping me now.

you may be rewarded handsomely for taking a chance on a cheap product, but you may be causing yourself a huge headache that isn't worth the money you saved.
 
ECS is fine. I've owned several of their products and haven't had any issues. A lot of people will tell you otherwise, but I doubt any of them have ever seen an ECS video card and are just spewing their usual "if its not EVGA/MSI/ASUS don't buy it" shit.
 
bigted said:
on the other hand, i remember people thinking the same thing about some big time brands now, such as MSI in like 2004/05, ASRock in that same time period, and probably more that are just escaping me now.
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Perhaps anecdotal, but I'm pretty sure ECS has been around for as long as these other companies and haven't really taken the initiative to improve their reputation until recently. It probably doesn't help that their claim to fame is "that terrible motherboard freebie that Fry's bundles with their CPUs" either. Their RMA policy doesn't look like it's anything special, and the one bullet point that does stand out is that it says they don't guarantee service if the product's been purchased from a non-authorized distributor.

In their defense, they have been making an effort recently with their higher end Black Series products, and owners of those apparently receive complementary VIP RMA service that they guarantee will provide a replacement product within a ninety-nine hour window. Sounds good in theory, but I don't have any personal experience with this manufacturer either, so maybe someone else can provide a first-hand experience with the company.
 
Thank you all for your input. Does anyone actually have a GTX 560 by them that can report on specifically?
 
the one bullet point that does stand out is that it says they don't guarantee service if the product's been purchased from a non-authorized distributor.
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I don't know a company that does. EVGA, XFX, MSI, Gigabyte, Powercolor, Diamond, Visiontek, HIS.. none of these will honor a warranty if you bought them from a non-authorized retailer.
 
lloose said:
I don't know a company that does. EVGA, XFX, MSI, Gigabyte, Powercolor, Diamond, Visiontek, HIS.. none of these will honor a warranty if you bought them from a non-authorized retailer.
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I know MSI doesn't even ask you where you purchased something from when RMA'ing, so yeah, they do honor warranties on items purchased from non-authorized retailer.


As far as ECS is concerned, never had a problem personally, but have known a few people that have. Their products are cetrainly no-frills basic offerings.
 
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ryan_975 said:
I know MSI doesn't even ask you where you purchased something from when RMA'ing, so yeah, they do honor warranties on items purchased from non-authorized retailer.
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EVGA's warranty policy is also based on the manufacturing date of the product itself and not its original owner or where it was originally purchased.
 
XFX Had their "second owner transferrable warranty" that they did good with. Had to get the transfer code from the first owner though.
 
With a graphics card, if its a reference with an ECS sticker on it I wouldn't worry. If its a custom PCB I might take a chance if the price was really low.
 
Worst RMA experience ever was through ECS. They tried to deny warranty, after that failed they tried to send a downgrade product, when that was refused I was stuck in limbo for 3 more weeks until finally getting a comparable replacement. The whole process took just over 2 months.

I personally don't think their products are definitively worse than anyone else's comparable offerings, but my experience with their warranty dept. was awful and I no longer buy or recommend their products. That is my anecdotal .02's worth ;)
 
lloose said:
ECS is fine. I've owned several of their products and haven't had any issues. A lot of people will tell you otherwise, but I doubt any of them have ever seen an ECS video card and are just spewing their usual "if its not EVGA/MSI/ASUS don't buy it" shit.
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I haven't seen any problems with their video cards (they are building from a standard reference board after all, my brother in-law has had a few), but their motherboards have been crap since I worked on them in 2002, when a CMOS is wiping the BIOS and you have to reload it every six months, yeah that's not good. I would do my upmost to replace the board with something good off the floor like MSI, or Asus, something that was the cheapest cost to the company and do the job, but not an ECS board.
 
I'm very pleased with their Z77H2-A2X mbo. No problems so far, bought it 6 months ago... superb build quality, great price-performance ratio and 3 years warranty... At first I was skeptic but now i don't have any doubts.
 
Nostram said:
I have never owned one but have seen quite a few people insist on NOT using ECS video cards. Why, other than the price, is this?

Curious is all.
Click to expand...

Personally I avoid ANYTHING made by ECS. though I only have had experience with thier low-end motherboards and video cards. They could be like Asrock and have superb high-end products, but shoddy low-end design.
 
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