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NVIDIA Ramps Up Battle Against Makers of Unlicensed GeForce Cards

T0@st

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NVIDIA is stepping up to manufacturers of counterfeit graphics card in China according to an article published by MyDrivers - the hardware giant is partnering up with a number of the nation's major e-commerce companies in order to eliminate inventories of bogus GPUs. It is claimed that these online retail platforms, including JD.com and Douyin, are partway into removing a swathe of dodgy stock from their listings. NVIDIA is seeking to disassociate itself from the pool of unlicensed hardware and the brands responsible for flooding the domestic and foreign markets with so-called fake graphics cards. The company is reputed to be puzzled about the murky origins of this bootlegging of their patented designs.

The market became saturated with fake hardware during the Ethereum mining boom - little known cottage companies such as 51RSIC, Corn, Bingying and JieShuoMllse were pushing rebadged cheap OEM cards to domestic e-tail sites. The knock-off GPUs also crept outside of that sector, and import listings started to appear on international platforms including Ebay, AliExpress, Amazon and Newegg. NVIDIA is also fighting to stop the sale of refurbished cards - these are very likely to have been utilized in intensive cryptocurrency mining activities. A flood of these hit the market following an extreme downturn in crypto mining efforts, and many enthusiast communities have warned against acquiring pre-owned cards due to the high risk of component failure.



Laptop versions of GeForce RTX cards are being adapted into desktop purpose form. For example 51RSIC has produced a card called the GeForce RTX 3070 TiM 8 GB, which appears to be a fictitious model name and its specifications point to it being based on a mobile variation. NVIDIA has requested, via its new partnerships, that graphics cards based on older GPU architectures - in particular the Turing and Pascal generations - ought to be removed from e-commerce sites. The latest GeForce RTX 40-series has not been spared from getting the clone treatment. 51RSIC offers a spirit-level equipped RTX 4090 card - this is purported to be a rebadged version of MANLI's custom cooled GeForce RTX 4090 Gallardo design.



NVIDIA has outlined a simple guide to a potential customer, in order to avoid the purchase of an ersatz graphics card. It first recommends that the buyer only consider the latest GeForce RTX 40-series, due to Ada Lovelace architecture debuting after the collapse of cryptocurrency, therefore GPUs from that range are not heavily associated with mining activities. The second suggestion is to only source a card from an official partner - prime examples for the Chinese market are ASUS, Colorful, Gainson, GALAX, Gigabyte, Injoy, MSI, Zotac, Renaissance, ASL, Maxsun, and Yeston - the customer will also gain a proper guarantee via these companies. The third and last bit of advice is aimed at a customer who does not have the budget to reach for the RTX 40-range - NVIDIA recommends only purchasing newer SKUs based on its Ampere architecture, with good candidates in the GeForce RTX 3060 8 GB and GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X models.

It is encouraging to see NVIDIA's new focus on eliminating unlicensed products from online retailers, but the endeavor has only targeted one regional market. The Chinese hardware sector is massive and hard to regulate, but the distribution of counterfeit and poorly refurbished cards has spread internationally. This is not a brand new problem, but Team Green will need to address it in order to fully satisfy its customer base.

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Considering Nvidia has implemented signed firmware for years precisely to combat these, one can infer some official AIB has "leaked" the necessary know-how to the makers of counterfeit tools. If they're not building them themselves. Because once you temper with the vBIOS, you can't load an official driver anymore.
 
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Considering Nvidia has implemented signed firmware for years precisely to combat these, one can infer some official AIB has "leaked" the necessary know-how to the makers of counterfeit tools. If they're not building them themselves. Because once you temper with the vBIOS, you can't load an official driver anymore.

Counterfeits seem to be entirely using pre-signing GPUs, with the bulk of them being Fermi and Kepler designs which cannot run the latest driver branches anymore. That's primarily why the scams are becoming evident much faster now. Maxwell can technically boot and run without a signed VBIOS, but my guess is that there aren't enough of them in Chinese warehouses to bother with or the components required for these cards remain too expensive. Another concern for the fraudsters is that due to customer protection on Aliexpress and eBay, PC gamers have figured out that they can use that to effectively get a free GPU, albeit one that barely, if at all works - still, a lot of folks aren't wise to the fraud and will fall victim to the scam until it's far too late for them to do anything about it.

On that subject, AMD really needs to do something about the sheer volume of unlicensed/counterfeit Polaris GPUs that are coming out of Chinese bitcoin farms by the millions. I support NVIDIA's endeavor here, and it is one that AMD should follow closely.
 
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Yep, and they will just "ramp up" their already obscene prices to cover the costs of this "battle" ...:mad:.:cry:.:eek:
 
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"NVIDIA has outlined a simple guide to a potential customer, in order to avoid the purchase of an ersatz graphics card. It first recommends that the buyer only consider the latest GeForce RTX 40-series"

Of course they did, build cards for miners, build a ton for maximum profit, Crypto dies, Market gets flooded with used cards...... oh dear...thats going to hurt the wallet, ermm ohh look they are counterfeit, just buy our new cards!

what a crap company
 

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"NVIDIA has outlined a simple guide to a potential customer, in order to avoid the purchase of an ersatz graphics card. It first recommends that the buyer only consider the latest GeForce RTX 40-series"

Of course they did, build cards for miners, build a ton for maximum profit, Crypto dies, Market gets flooded with used cards...... oh dear...thats going to hurt the wallet, ermm ohh look they are counterfeit, just buy our new cards!

what a crap company
And what would be a proper guidance, in your opinion?
 
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Hi,
Wait where does nvidia manufacture gpu's again ?
And with that nv is surprised clones/ knockoffs exist :kookoo:
 
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"NVIDIA is also fighting to stop the sale of refurbished cards - these are very likely to have been utilized in intensive cryptocurrency mining activities. A flood of these hit the market following an extreme downturn in crypto mining efforts, and many enthusiast communities have warned against acquiring pre-owned cards due to the high risk of component failure."

I bet we'll get GeForce Experience as a must in the future, registered to your account, and the only way for you to register the new graphics card is to buy it at an official dealer that can confirm your purchase and enable your driver? That would certainly put a stop to such a criminal activity as using a card you haven't paid a full price for!
 
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They teach them to fish instead of giving them fish. What did they expect?
 
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That happen when you sell boatload of chip to miners trough the grey market.
Big farms had no problem producing unofficial drivers and firmware (no one remember the magical LHR hack that popped out as soon as crypto crashed?), maybe thanks to the mega hack Nvidia had in 2021 or maybe with a little help directly from Nvidia, we will never know.

Good luck demonstrating those are not legit chip now when you sold them trough unlegit channels in the first place...
 
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Market gets flooded with used cards...... oh dear...thats going to hurt the wallet, ermm ohh look they are counterfeit, just buy our new cards!

Let's not combine two different issues. Random counterfeit cards are a different and real problem contrary to simply mining cards (which can also be a problem, but only in the sense of buyer beware and caveat emptor)

Although they used the opportunity to promote the usual FUD over used mining cards (and used market in general) that is not what this is about
 

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"NVIDIA has outlined a simple guide to a potential customer, in order to avoid the purchase of an ersatz graphics card. It first recommends that the buyer only consider the latest GeForce RTX 40-series"

Of course they did, build cards for miners, build a ton for maximum profit, Crypto dies, Market gets flooded with used cards...... oh dear...thats going to hurt the wallet, ermm ohh look they are counterfeit, just buy our new cards!

what a crap company
That’s the dumbest thing Iv ever read.
 
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While there are a lot of fake cards floating about (and by fake I mean some GTX460 or something masquerading as a 1050Ti), it sounds like this is more about stifling the used market. Don't try to buy a used GPU, only buy the latest Ada series!
 
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While there are a lot of fake cards floating about (and by fake I mean some GTX460 or something masquerading as a 1050Ti), it sounds like this is more about stifling the used market. Don't try to buy a used GPU, only buy the latest Ada series!
I loved the one where Nvidia is telling you to buy a 40 series so you don't have to get a so disgustingly bad 30 series. Give me a break.
 
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Good luck...

Considering nVidia themselves feed that thieving stalinist regime for 15 years. Now they suddenly realized they got burned when dealing with fire. Seems like The Special Leather Jacket is not so genius.

Make no mistake. Before 1990s what little came out of China was of superior quality (what I had in hand and of course it wasn't computer hardware). Now its just kleptocratic competition who will steal it fastest from overseas.
 
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Buy AMD instead and avoid any chance of buying these problematic cards. Better be sure than sorry.
 
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Buy AMD instead and avoid any chance of buying these problematic cards. Better be sure than sorry.
I see it as dont buy a GPU from a dodgy source.
 
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And what would be a proper guidance, in your opinion?

same things all companies do to help consumers know if they are dealing with fakes and I have never seen a company say "just buy our new stuff, its better for you and secretly REALLY great for us"

That’s the dumbest thing Iv ever read.

really? ever? you must not have a lot of interaction with humans then.
But instead of empty insults, why dont you provide some actual arguments?
 

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same things all companies do to help consumers know if they are dealing with fakes and I have never seen a company say "just buy our new stuff, its better for you and secretly REALLY great for us"
So, considering you can buy a fake Rolex, Gucci, Adidas and pretty much anything you can think of, Nvidia should also do nothing. Noted.

Buy AMD instead and avoid any chance of buying these problematic cards. Better be sure than sorry.
AMD's problem is even worse, since they haven't locked down their firmware, afaik. Of course, AMD still gets praise for being open, even if you can find on TPU a ton of "how do I flash a new BIOS on my fake AMD card".

Hi,
Wait where does nvidia manufacture gpu's again ?
And with that nv is surprised clones/ knockoffs exist :kookoo:
This has nothing to do with clones. This is existing (legit) inventory that is being sold as a different GPU than it actually is.
 
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I too find it puzzling that diving in water gets you wet...
They found it easy to sell chips to companies with absolute knowledge of where they were going or no knowledge. Since they provide after sales support for a large portion of the devices these would end up in……..

The almighty dollar, yen, ruble, or coin speaks the truth clearly.
 
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