9800pro 128bit: Sapphire will replace with 256bit card !

[Rob G]

ATI shipped you a replacement fan? They wanted me to send
them the card for a fan replacement. Screw that, I went and bought
a third party heatsink/fan combo instad.

 

[Mike P]

Yah, it's kinda remincent of the first Honda Interceptor motorcycle a couple
decades ago. There was a problem with the oil journals being misaligned and
subsequent oil starvation and premature wearout of the camshafts. Honda
extended their warrenty past the expiry and fixed the problem in the
production line/design. I didn't lose respect for the company, quite the
opposite...

Mike

 

[mudz]

So they made a marketing mistake, exhanging the card, used or otherwise for
a replacement 256bit version for a reasonable $25 fee puts them towards the
top of my list in terms of reputable people to deal with.

Their response could have been "screw you".

Ben

A marketing 'mistake'? Someone in that company made a conscious decision to
take a low end card, that they were already selling in a PROPERLY labeled
way, and rename it to make it appear to be a higher end card. Where is the
freaking mistake? Their only mistake was in getting caught at it.
True...they could have said screw you...they could also have been
successfully sued. They could have lost more customers than they already
have. Instead they did some self-serving damage control. They did what every
petty criminal does when they get caught (ie a shoplifter), and said the
equivalent of, "can't I just put it back?"...
As I have said in other posts, a couple of days ago I held my properly
labeled Sapphire 9800 pro card in my hand and compared it to what (two
months ago) Sapphire was selling labeled as a 9800SE card...except NOW this
9800SE card had the very same (can we say IDENTICAL boys and girls) label as
was on my true 9800 Pro card! Mistake?...hardly. Fraud?...definitely.

Anyone silly enough to look at this as a mistake is a potential victim, just
waiting to be cheated...

my two cents worth.....

M

 

[Ben Pope]

A marketing 'mistake'? Someone in that company made a conscious decision
to take a low end card, that they were already selling in a PROPERLY
labeled way, and rename it to make it appear to be a higher end card.
Where is the freaking mistake?

The mistake was not making it clear enough wht they did. I do also disagree
with the practice of calling them Pros, but I didn't realise that the boxes
had "128bit memory interface" written on them either. Not that that helps
the average consumer.

Their only mistake was in getting caught
at it. True...they could have said screw you...they could also have been
successfully sued.

In which country? If the box says 128bit all over it, then they're hardly
lying.

Ben

 

[mudz]

The mistake was not making it clear enough wht they did. I do also disagree
with the practice of calling them Pros, but I didn't realise that the boxes
had "128bit memory interface" written on them either. Not that that helps
the average consumer.


In which country? If the box says 128bit all over it, then they're hardly
lying.

Ben

It certainly IS lying. ATI has certain standards for a card to be named a
9800 PRO. Sticking a tiny label on the box that says 128 bit does NOT then
permit you to call a 9800 SE card a 9800 PRO card. And I would suggest that
in the US of A a class action lawsuit would work very well...


The problem is that the 128 bit was NOT written on every package. Putting
that larger 128 bit label on forthcoming boxes is their supposed remedy for
this situation. Here is the problem as I see it. To the average consumer 128
bit does not mean much...after all that is double 64 bit and could be
misconstrued as being an 'improvement'. What the average consumer DOES
understand is 9800 PRO...*that* they can relate to, because that means
something...they see it printed on retail boxed products, and they know that
a pro is better than a plain 9800, and that a 9800SE is a lower grade than a
9800. The specific card that I saw was an OEM product..absolutely NO mention
of 128 bit interface anyplace...and it had the very same label as my genuine
9800 PRO....a purchaser...and indeed the seller...had NO way to know this
was a lesser card. *That* is fraudulent marketing...end of story...

What Sapphire did is no different that a jeweller taking a one carat
crystal...labeling it as a one carat diamond and selling it for thousands of
dollars. It is still a piece of crystal and the purchaser HAS been
cheated....this is soooooo simple.

M

 

[patrickp]

It certainly IS lying. ATI has certain standards for a card to be named a
9800 PRO. Sticking a tiny label on the box that says 128 bit does NOT then
permit you to call a 9800 SE card a 9800 PRO card. And I would suggest that
in the US of A a class action lawsuit would work very well...


The problem is that the 128 bit was NOT written on every package. Putting
that larger 128 bit label on forthcoming boxes is their supposed remedy for
this situation. Here is the problem as I see it. To the average consumer 128
bit does not mean much...after all that is double 64 bit and could be
misconstrued as being an 'improvement'. What the average consumer DOES
understand is 9800 PRO...*that* they can relate to, because that means
something...they see it printed on retail boxed products, and they know that
a pro is better than a plain 9800, and that a 9800SE is a lower grade than a
9800. The specific card that I saw was an OEM product..absolutely NO mention
of 128 bit interface anyplace...and it had the very same label as my genuine
9800 PRO....a purchaser...and indeed the seller...had NO way to know this
was a lesser card. *That* is fraudulent marketing...end of story...

What Sapphire did is no different that a jeweller taking a one carat
crystal...labeling it as a one carat diamond and selling it for thousands of
dollars. It is still a piece of crystal and the purchaser HAS been
cheated....this is soooooo simple.

M

Depends what the crystal is. If it's a diamond, then what's the
problem? If it's a Sapphire, of course... ;-)

patrickp

(e-mail address removed) - take five to email me

 

[mudz]

Depends what the crystal is. If it's a diamond, then what's the
problem? If it's a Sapphire, of course... ;-)

Ha ha...good one...very well put!

M

 

[chrisv]

Yah, it's kinda remincent of the first Honda Interceptor motorcycle a couple
decades ago. There was a problem with the oil journals being misaligned and
subsequent oil starvation and premature wearout of the camshafts. Honda
extended their warrenty past the expiry and fixed the problem in the
production line/design. I didn't lose respect for the company, quite the
opposite...

Not an analogous situation. Honda didn't intentionally mis-align the
oil journals.

 

[GMAN]

<[email protected]> wrote in message

Maybe I misunderstood, did you pay SE price for an SE masquerading as
a 9800pro or the full whack [ non SE full 9800pro ] price ; or;

Was the card a re-marked chipset ?
BoroLad

What Sapphire have been doing is taking their 9800SE cards...labelling them
as 9800 Pro cards...and selling them for about 25 dollars (US) less than the
genuine 9800 Pro. Since I saw one of their 9800SE cards about 2 months
ago...and saw one of these same 9800SE cards, sold to a customer as a 9800
Pro card, last night...I know these cards are one and the same. I saw this
at a computer parts shop...and until yesterday the guys at this shop did
not know they were unwittingly cheating their customers. They ordered 9800
Pro cards and received this mislabeled crap. They are VERY concerned,
because they have sold about 100 of these over the last month or so...

HTH to clarify the situation..

M

The sad part about this is that while a few will find out and bring them back
to the store or take Sapphire up on the replacement deal, but the other 95
owners will most like never know squat that they dont have what they paid for
or assumed they paid for.