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Gigabyte B3 Boards Really New?

Synomenon

Synomenon

Lifer
My brother and I have received our B3 boards. Mine is directly from Gigabyte. My brother's is from Newegg. Both our boards have a sticker with the new model number over the old model number.

Are these Gigabyte boards really new or is Gigabyte really just refurbishing boards and sending them out?
 
im sure they are new. they are not going to reprint new pcbs just because the chipset is a new revision. the printing is on the pcb already and just cosmetic anyway
 
I used to work in a fab plant as a bench tech. even new products have a certain failure rate and need to be repaired. If you think repaired board off the production line are going to be sold as refurbished, guess again. it would cost them too much. once they get to the customer, that is a different story.

what they most likely did is pull the affected boards back, repaired and repackaged as new since they were never delivered to the end customer in the first place. they aren't going to trash a perfectly good board.

also, if a board is modified for whatever reason, it gets a new rev. level and a sticker slapped over the old model # until the new silkscreen gets to the production line.

I used to work for Tandy when they made their own computers.
 
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I wouldn't be surprised if they just replaced the chips on existing stock that hadn't been shipped out yet. Not sure of the cost effectiveness of that, but I would assume it would be cheaper than just tossing completed boards in the trash.
 
I'd say it's a new board and they are just reusing the old packaging. I mean why go through the hassle of creating new boxes when you can just put a sticker over the old revision number.

Just download CPUZ and check the chipset revisio if you're unsure.
 
Does it say the board revision anywhere? I thought I read somewhere that the B3 boards would start being rev 1.1.
 
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I'd rather wait until we get "proper" new mobos.
Hopefully, the same shennanigans doesn't happen with S-2011.
 
It is a B3 board. CPU-Z shows this as does AIDA64.

I just get the feeling that it's not "new" because they simply slapped a sticker with the B3 model number over the non-B3 model number on the board.

Oh well, as long as it works and doesn't give me any problems.
 
smakme7757 said:
No their not: GA-PA65-UD3-B3 (rev. 1.0)

It's still considered Rev.1.0 on gigabyte boards
Click to expand...


I just looked at my GA-H67MA-UD2H-B3 board (with the updated model number on a sticker over the old model number) and it has rev1.1 silkscreened onto it. If they could silkscreen that on the board, why couldn't they silkscreen the updated model number onto it instead of using a sticker?
 
The “B3” Stepping is sold only as part of a chipset so it would take a company buying a new P67 or H67 chipset and throwing out all the other parts just to connect that single chip onto an old board. Also they wouldn’t get any return credit from us because they didn’t return the old “B2” Stepping boards to us. So overall I think it is a fairly safe bet that they will be selling “B3” with a totally new chipset on it.
Now about the board I would guess that Gigabyte is like Intel® in that we are not in the cardboard box manufacturing field, so they will outsource their boxes to some other company. The easiest way to keep costs down is to use the boxes that have already been done and just show the change with a sticker. That is what Intel has done in the past, I would expect that is what Gigabyte has done here to.
Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team
 
The boxes don't have stickers on them (at least not mine) they are printed with B3 all over them.
My board still says rev 1.0, but does have "P67A-UD3-B3" silkscreened on the board
 
Mine is opposite. The box for my GA-H67MA-UD2H-B3 also has the model number "GA-H67MA-UD2H-B3" printed on it like it was made that way (not stickers placed over it).

The actual board however does have a sticker with "GA-H67MA-UD2H-B3" placed right over the original "GA-H67MA-UD2H", BUT it also has Rev1.1 silkscreened right onto it. The "GA-H67MA-UD2H" (non B3) I had before had Rev1.0 silkscreened onto it.
 
Synomenon said:
I just looked at my GA-H67MA-UD2H-B3 board (with the updated model number on a sticker over the old model number) and it has rev1.1 silkscreened onto it. If they could silkscreen that on the board, why couldn't they silkscreen the updated model number onto it instead of using a sticker?
Click to expand...
The silk screen is done prior to any SMC or BGA work, so they most likely had stacks of PCBs that were in the queue at the time they halted production. The PCB didn't require any change at all, so there is no reason not to use it for the new chipset stepping. Rev. 1.1 may have been a planned revision, anyway.
 
tcsenter said:
The silk screen is done prior to any SMC or BGA work, so they most likely had stacks of PCBs that were in the queue at the time they halted production. The PCB didn't require any change at all, so there is no reason not to use it for the new chipset stepping. Rev. 1.1 may have been a planned revision, anyway.
Click to expand...

this.

I worked in a plant back in the 90's that manufactured motherboards for Tandy. If there was a slight design change that did not entail a new etching of the board, that revision was indicated by a sticker over the old revision. the initial run may be new but they will replace the chips on the b2 boards and slap a sticker showing the new revision. they are not going to sell them as refurbished as most never made it to the end costumer in the first place.
 
this.

I worked in a plant back in the 90's that manufactured motherboards for Tandy. If there was a slight design change that did not entail a new etching of the board, that revision was indicated by a sticker over the old revision. the initial run may be new but they will replace the chips on the b2 boards and slap a sticker showing the new revision. they are not going to sell them as refurbished as most never made it to the end costumer in the first place.
Click to expand...

If I can clarify what you're saying is that, they just replaced the chips on all the b2 boards that they manufactured or had before & after the launch of the P67, slap the sticker showing the new revision then not sell as refurbished, simply because it never made it to end consumers in the first place.
If I recall Intel has shipped around 8 million 6-series chipsets.

How many mobos w/ the b2 chipset was manufactured before & after the launch?

So maybe all mobos are not really "new" as in the sense of the word? I hope my board will not have any problems, lets say after the warranty have expired.
 
We don't know whether the boards had B2 chips replaced, or if they were empty boards that had never had any chips added yet.

There's no reason to believe there are any reliability issues either way.
 
supahnoobie said:
If I can clarify what you're saying is that, they just replaced the chips on all the b2 boards that they manufactured or had before & after the launch of the P67, slap the sticker showing the new revision then not sell as refurbished, simply because it never made it to end consumers in the first place.
If I recall Intel has shipped around 8 million 6-series chipsets.

How many mobos w/ the b2 chipset was manufactured before & after the launch?

So maybe all mobos are not really "new" as in the sense of the word? I hope my board will not have any problems, lets say after the warranty have expired.
Click to expand...

yup, that is exactly what I'm saying. they'd loose their shirt if they sold all those as refurbs.
 
supahnoobie said:
If I can clarify what you're saying is that, they just replaced the chips on all the b2 boards that they manufactured or had before & after the launch of the P67, slap the sticker showing the new revision then not sell as refurbished, simply because it never made it to end consumers in the first place.
If I recall Intel has shipped around 8 million 6-series chipsets.

How many mobos w/ the b2 chipset was manufactured before & after the launch?

So maybe all mobos are not really "new" as in the sense of the word? I hope my board will not have any problems, lets say after the warranty have expired.
Click to expand...

I really don't have a problem with this. Those boards never hit the end user and GB is offering advanced RMA. Hard to beat that. Plus I've been having stability issues with my particular UD4, so I'm getting impatient to switch it out. 🙂
 
Another point of view: the boards that say (BLAHBLAH) revision 1.1 and then have a sticker that says (BLAHBLAH)-B3 revision 1.1 may just be a marketing decision. Perhaps originally they figured that revision 1.1 would be enough to indicate that B3 is present but then marketing decided that they'd get rid of any possible confusion by just putting B3 right in the product's name.

Additionally (I think this has been said already) there are probably boards with older screen printing because they likely had stacks of already-printed but not populated boards on hand. Instead of tossing them, build them with the new components and then just sticker over whatever screen printing is incorrect.
 
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