FreeStyler

That's not what popped up first in my mind, but that's probably he occupation . You DO have a(nother) point there.

bizket

drive up costs? do you know how much it actually costs to make a 9600pro? it costs about £5 and they recover R&D costs in the first 2 months or less, think about that.

FreeStyler

material cost, transportation, working hours ... not too mention RMA. It's a bit above your rated price. I think about 10% of the total price is lost to profit somewhere. That's actual profits, all expenses paid.
Sure the material cost of the chip alone might be squat, but that's far from a card in your system.

But again this isn't my main problem. Working as a technician, I can tell you it's far from amusing.
And then there are the people that treat you for dirt because they couldn't cover up their own friggin' slipups. That's REALY pushing it.

bizket

thoughs are all things the company takes into account when pricing. for example something in america costs $300 if i was to convert that to £s its about £160 yet to buy that very same product in the UK its still £300 only they replaced the dollar sign with a pound sign. end of the story is companys make huge profits as its not just 1 or 2 countrys they ship to so the occasional card that goes back to them where sum1 buggered it up isnt even to going to get noticed if its repaired\replaced

FreeStyler

You don't even know the amount of RMA that they go trough. And most of that stuff gets tested and fixed, even if they have to solder a new chip (even BGA) on it.
Most pricing US <=> EU is a 10-20% difference. They may be peaks but that's what it comes down to. If you look at the difference between belgium and germany, that's not much.

Check OC.com they got some nice articles, I'm not even going to try to explain the concept of responsibility.

bizket

im not comparing belgium and germany im comparing UK and US as most things either get shipped from the US to here or vice versa thus thoughs two economies are the ones i used im my example as they reflect the market place the most accurately. so there. anyways im not going to get drawn into a debate about this.

FreeStyler

I've noticed a trend lately in the RMA procedured of suppliers I work with. RMA product are taking longer and longer to get replaced. For example I have a 5900Ultra from MSI that's been gone for over a month now, and I still haven't heard from it.
I'll have to ask around what exactly the nature of these delays are. Chances are very high that suppliers won't replace things outright because they too are noticing that certain items have been tampered with. Off course, this doesn't fall under warranty conditions, and this cost quite a bit to repair.
Now how would you feel if you're brand new piece of hardware broke down, and it takes well over one month to get it replaced. Especially in the fast evolving 3d market, this is not very favourable.

Apparently sometimes it's nessecairy to point people to the results of their actions that go beyond themselves. If you look around, statements like yours are getting pretty commonplace on OC and hardware forums. It's not just one guy doing this anymore...

k whatever, never mind my obsession of always getting the last word in

bizket

like i said im not getting drwan into a debate i still get the last word tho!