Wednesday, October 11th 2017
EVGA Caught Sending Golden Samples of the SuperNova B3 to JonnyGuru
An Overclock.net member, "shilka", posted late last month over the failure of power protection in EVGA's SuperNova B3 power supplies, specifically the 450 and 850 W models. This adds to the concerns first raised by Tom's Hardware, one of whose review units created fireworks. Normally, for a product that has been on the market for some time, as the B3 series has, one could chalk up such incidents to a faulty batch. But it appears that might not be the case, considering JonnyGuru also reviewed EVGA's B3 and did not encounter any fire hazards.
It has subsequently emerged that the sample provided by EVGA to JonnyGuru was manufactured by Super Flower, whose Leadex platform is well known for its performance and high quality. Aris of Tom's Hardware (and TechPowerUp), however, bought their review sample from a retail outlet. The manufacturing of the latter had been outsourced to RSY, with (in this case) a resulting decline in build quality. It remains unclear whether Super Flower outsourced its production, or if EVGA is using multiple suppliers or switched manufacturers all together. Regardless, lesser quality PSUs would appear to be in stores in comparison to what was reviewed at JonnyGuru, arguably the most influential review site for PSUs.
After several days of silence, EVGA made a boilerplate statement (to Legitreviews):
"EVGA stands behind its full line of products, and the 5-Year Warranty on each B3 power supply demonstrates the confidence EVGA has in the quality and safety of each product shipped. If anyone has questions or concerns, please contact EVGA Customer Service and we are more than happy to assist. In the rare instance that a replacement unit is necessary, EVGA will support with a free Advanced RMA on all EVGA SuperNOVA B3 Power Supplies.
In addition, the EVGA SuperNOVA B3 review samples, as well as the production, were all built at the exact same qualified facility."
Does not exactly clear things up, does it? EVGA has a responsibility to ensure that its products remains consistent in features and performance across different production lines. The company has an excellent reputation for customer service, but offering to assist customers in those "rare instances" when "a replacement unit is necessary" is somewhat problematic. Not only is there no mention of coverage for hardware damaged by a malfunctioning PSU, but the SuperNova B3 line has been on the market for approximately six months now, so there are potentially a lot of units out there that might constitute a danger. On the other hand, these could be isolated cases as one would expect other reports of trouble to have emerged in the past six months.
Update (October 11, 2017): EVGA did respond to our email and provided the same statement seen above. In addition, they also mentioned they have not had a report of the PSUs going faulty under normal operating conditions, assured us that it would not, and they would stand by their warranty terms to where if it happens and affects other hardware (our query), they would review all the hardware as part of the RMA process.
Source:
Legitreviews
It has subsequently emerged that the sample provided by EVGA to JonnyGuru was manufactured by Super Flower, whose Leadex platform is well known for its performance and high quality. Aris of Tom's Hardware (and TechPowerUp), however, bought their review sample from a retail outlet. The manufacturing of the latter had been outsourced to RSY, with (in this case) a resulting decline in build quality. It remains unclear whether Super Flower outsourced its production, or if EVGA is using multiple suppliers or switched manufacturers all together. Regardless, lesser quality PSUs would appear to be in stores in comparison to what was reviewed at JonnyGuru, arguably the most influential review site for PSUs.
"EVGA stands behind its full line of products, and the 5-Year Warranty on each B3 power supply demonstrates the confidence EVGA has in the quality and safety of each product shipped. If anyone has questions or concerns, please contact EVGA Customer Service and we are more than happy to assist. In the rare instance that a replacement unit is necessary, EVGA will support with a free Advanced RMA on all EVGA SuperNOVA B3 Power Supplies.
In addition, the EVGA SuperNOVA B3 review samples, as well as the production, were all built at the exact same qualified facility."
Does not exactly clear things up, does it? EVGA has a responsibility to ensure that its products remains consistent in features and performance across different production lines. The company has an excellent reputation for customer service, but offering to assist customers in those "rare instances" when "a replacement unit is necessary" is somewhat problematic. Not only is there no mention of coverage for hardware damaged by a malfunctioning PSU, but the SuperNova B3 line has been on the market for approximately six months now, so there are potentially a lot of units out there that might constitute a danger. On the other hand, these could be isolated cases as one would expect other reports of trouble to have emerged in the past six months.
Update (October 11, 2017): EVGA did respond to our email and provided the same statement seen above. In addition, they also mentioned they have not had a report of the PSUs going faulty under normal operating conditions, assured us that it would not, and they would stand by their warranty terms to where if it happens and affects other hardware (our query), they would review all the hardware as part of the RMA process.
45 Comments on EVGA Caught Sending Golden Samples of the SuperNova B3 to JonnyGuru
I have a soft spot for some brands, but it's sad that few make their own shit.
Let me simplify it for you. Don't buy rebranded PSU's from companies who just throw their labels on products - buy from those who make their own.
Besides that, some of the brands that don't make their own stuff still might design them and provide a lot of input. So the lines are blurred a bit.
I also have a Z170 Stinger M-ITX mainboard that is top notch too.
I have to admit that if I had a PSU do "Fireworks" at my house I would hesitate to buy that brand again.
Thumb of rule buy at least 80plus gold or if bronze then seasonic or some brand which is known using seasonic as oem.
Blind ignorance is truly bliss.
You must have missed who was responding to this thread. Otherwise, you would not have assumed I don't know what I'm talking about. I know that has an air of arrogance to it, but for Christ's sake there's just as many assumptions made by people in this discussion thread than are made in the article itself.
Super Flower does the same thing for their own branded products than they do for everyone else. Their factory has one line which limits their output capability. They will OFTEN outsource. Not only for their clients, but for their own branded product.
And Seasonic isn't too different. They have outsourced on many occasion (more often for their own products than for whomever they're building products for) and, like Super Flower, don't do their own PCBA. PCBA can come from one of a dozen other factories.
I would actually RATHER buy a product from a factory that doesn't nearly everything in house from PCBA to magnetics to final assembly. Better quality control is achieved overall when you're not chasing down issues happening at a dozen different sub assembly factories.
Buying from a company that slaps their own label on a product versus someone else's means NOTHING. NOTHING. It has ZERO IMPACT on HOW the product is made. ZERO.
You guys talk you know how this stuff works... but clearly none of you actually do.^^^ By far best list out there.
But remember: Simply knowing the OEM doesn't tell you much. The product could be a particular factory's design, but you don't know who did the PCBA or the assembly. And even if it is a bigger factory that does everything in house, those bigger factories have multiple lines with equipment of varying age and capability. The same factory that can put out top notch stuff can put out absolute crap simply because an older line was the only one available for a last minute rush order or because another line was down for maintenance or training.
Any way... Going back to the article.
Here are the facts:
We don't know who built Jeremy's (jonnyguru.com) sample. We don't know who made Aris's. Assumptions were made because Super Flower frequently outsources due to limited output capability. This is not an uncommon practice for smaller factories that only have one or two lines. This isn't news.
We don't know if Aris's PSU's blew up due to quality issues or poor design. Frankly, Jeremy's sample could have blown up just the same IF he had tested the same way. He did not. For all we know, Aris could have had a beautifully soldered sample direct from the Super Flower engineering lab, did his OPP test and it would have blown up just the same.
The only "conspiracy" here is that a lot of companies will "cherry pick" review samples and will withhold from sending review samples to certain reviewers if they know that particular reviewer's methodology may expose a products weaknesses. But this is not new and is hardly news. HardOCP jumped on reporting this originally because they like to make it a frequent practice (and a good one at that) to buy review samples from retail and championed around Seasonic's decision to ship reviewers samples directly from retail by "breaking" that "exclusive" news as well. That's what this is. Nothing more.
I don't stress-test my home PSUs. I buy a little more than I think I'll need for my build and just use them.
Brands like Corsair and Seasonic, and even a few Rosewill (go ahead and cringe) PSUs are seeing service at my house.
I have a Corsair HX PSU for the most shallow reason: It matches my case.
doesn't reviewer always get "golden sample" or "special selection", under the common "name" of "we test the last product of XXX brand that will hit the market in a few weeks/days"?
for sure ... i've never seen any product acting like they did in reviews (temps/clocking/perfs/durability) maybe i am not lucky at all for lottery .... :laugh:
i.e.: how a 1070 is a 1440p 144hz or even 60hz card when they barely reach 60fps in 1080p o_O (well .... they do reach and passe above it in reviews .... ) tested games in mind, i'd say TW3 and ROTTR (they do feel smooth but monitoring the fps give an other impression than reviews )
i.e.: hellblade? 81fps in very high? more like 50 with constants -30 dips :laugh: (live test :D even with Vsync active .... the fps never reached Vsync threshold ) and it's not the difference in min/avg fps induced by a 4C/4T over a 4C/8T that would explain that :p
or, how come that a Razer product never break in reviews where the reviewer got his hand on it for more than 1 week .... that's wizardry ....
conclusion: "you don't read review to have an idea of how a product would work for you, you read review to see which golden sample from which brand is superior to the others, since they are all golden samples"
do not take that too seriously :laugh:
:lovetpu:
"EVGA does not “fake” reviews or send out products with “tweaked” clockspeeds to reviewers."
Source: www.evga.com/articles/01022/evga-wysiwyg/
I guess EVGA never thought this would backfire at any point... LOL
And now this PSU issue? They've really gone downhill IHMO. Powergate.
Apparently, no one listened. Thank you for the backup from a respected name.