Monday, March 26th 2012
EVGA Gives Away Free High-Flow Bracket to First 200 Registered GTX 680 Users
EVGA is giving away High-Flow Brackets to the first 200 people in North America and Europe who register their EVGA GeForce GTX 680 graphics cards. The replacement expansion bracket, designed by EVGA, has more perforations than the one on NVIDIA's reference design board, its makers claim it shaves off an extra 3°C from the GPU temperature. It should be listed on the EVGA web-store for purchase separately, soon. For more information about the offer, visit this page.
36 Comments on EVGA Gives Away Free High-Flow Bracket to First 200 Registered GTX 680 Users
That's what I was thinking.
lol
Really i agree i think it would have been better if EVGA just used it on their cards normally like some of the XFX cards that have that XFX logo bracket but i could understand if that would increase long term production costs more than the increase in profits from selling these separate including giving 200 away.
Even though the amount is relatively limited it's still a good move as we all like the idea of free stuff .
Reference design cards are what vendors are selling, they don't "have" to give you anything if they are selling it at MSRP pricing. If evga were to provide the hi flow bracket, expect a $15 premium, and then more bitching from consumers, am I right?
Why yes, yes I am.
www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163023
I think this stupid marketing (unless they only had say 180 initially for all US/EU which could have been the case give there all on backorder today). It just screwy marketing I buy a $500 EVGA, and know they have a better part that significantly improves cooling and may improve the performance given clock speed is regulated on temperature and if I didn’t sign up quick enough I might not get one but they will have all my info! Wow, remind me not to invest in an EVGA right out of the gate.
Let’s say you order some brand new 911 Turbo and take delivery. Several weeks later your finding-out that those who waited and bought off the lot got a different rear intake grill on the wing. That enhancement was implement to improve cooling and Hp. Now you go back to both the Porsche dealer and factory and they are saying... sorry can’t give you that $250 part even though it's a direct bolt on. Porsche I don’t believe would ever do that, they know the value of a customer and would probably come to the house or business to install it. A $500 card is no different than a 100K Porsche, when it comes to send you a 1o cent bracket!
I see this as BAD P.R. for EVGA... not good, while in the USA a product manufacture cannot withhold warranty because it wasn't registered. :shadedshu
below is the pic of their SC-signature part having the high flow bracket as standard.
so why do they have a limited 'number' offer & why not limited period? the reason is simple, they probably dont have enough inventory of these cards.. so ppl will call it unfair if there are no stocks during the limited 'period' offer..
when reference cards are essentially the same sold under many brand names, this is just a marketing initiative to sell their stock as soon as possible.. thats all.. it is NOT that they has some cancelled part which they are re-using..
PS if you have a "how to" link on the voltage overclocking please share. Ty. I know it's possible but most sites warn against it for beginer OC'ing so havn't tried it yet.
These manufacturers are not required by law to roll those improvements to buyers of previous year models, unless any of these changes address a manufacturing defect that can endanger their buyers, or a quality issue that makes a component break during normal use during it's desired life expectancy, then they have to issue a recall as required by law.
In my opinion I don't think that's the case for this improvement, granted, it may only cost a few cents to produce these improved grills, but the graphic card market is a cutthroat place to be, and card manufacturers receive very small profit margins in the first run of any new GPU, as low yields force them pay a premium to either Nvidia or AMD for each new GPU, sure GK104 is a very small die sized GPU, but that doesn't mean Nvidia is transferring those savings to video card manufacturers, most likely they keep their savings between themselves and TSMC. Just adding a few cents to the cost of each card cuts the margins when you're talking about hundreds of cards.
Oh, and you're not required to register your card on purchase day to ask for the warranty, but of your ever need to RMA your card and it's still covered by the warranty, then you'll have to register it, the same holds true for all video card manufacturers out there.
You can also opt out of their spam list when you register your card :)
As for the EVGA's GTX 680, that logic doesn't apply at all. EVGA doesn't make the cards, they sell them. Along with selling the cards that NVIDIA provides, they sell replacement/add parts like ventilation brackets and back plates, both of which are not required for the card to achieve marketed performance numbers. See where I'm going now?
When you add a performance part to a car that improves performance beyond stock levels, even if its made by the OEM, it doesn't mean they should give it to you for free just because you bought one of their cars two months ago. Same goes for EVGA, just because you bought one of their cards, doesn't mean they should give you a performance enhancing part for free. EVGA already give us one of the best warranties and customer support around and getting a free bracket by simply registering your card is just another added benefit of picking EVGA over say... Zotac or Galaxy.
PS if i was gonna OC these cards heavy (especially in SLI) I'd spend the extra $15.00 per card to lower @3 degrees C per card. Well probably wouldn't be that if in SLI cause limited airflow space between cards but could still help.