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BFG Exiting Graphics Card Market
thsoundman writes news that BFG appears to be giving up on the graphics card side of its business. The company's chairman said in a statement:
"After eight years of providing innovative, high-quality graphics cards to the market, we regret to say that this category is no longer profitable for us, although we will continue to evaluate it going forward. We will continue to provide our award-winning power supplies and gaming systems, and are working on a few new products as well. I'd like to stress that we will continue to provide RMA support for our current graphics card warranty holders, as well as for all of our other products such as power supplies, PCs, and notebooks."
Oh well, shit happens.
Who the fuck is BFG?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
BFD
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Why would the Big Friendly Giant be making graphics cards in the first place? One would think that his hands would be too big to assemble the highly miniaturized components. Also, it's a pretty cut-throat industry, his remarkable friendliness wouldn't be too profitable.
... and then they built the supercollider.
BFG cards were often priced 20-50$ more than other video cards of the same model, but with a small boost in clock speeds, something that takes less than 5 minutes to setup yourself. It doesn't surprise me that they had a hard time selling them.
BFG products are the few to be found at stores like Best Buy and other chains you can hop in a car and drive to. This lack of marketplace presence only makes the GPU less and less relevant to the normal PC owner.
Yeah the graphics card I got from walmart that is in my wife's computer was BFG.
Maybe there's the profit problem right there
Best Buy is mostly exiting the computer-geeks business to have more room for more profitable whole systems, laptops, and video games. Another electronics store near me has a table of 12 netbooks, all based on the same Atom processor... style choice, but no substance difference.
I've never owned one of their cards but HardOCP always seemed to think highly of their products, from quality to support.
I've bought three BFG cards over the years. I figured "Oh cool, a pre-overclocked card. That'll save me a bit of effort". But all of them burned out in less than a week. I have excellent cooling, I had all of my settings correct, I didn't push the card any further than it was already clocked and temps really didn't seem that bad. But they all died on me. All of the cards I replaced them with lasted MUCH longer, and always gave me better performance after overclocking them myself. And honestly, they were just about on par with the BFG cards performance wise even BEFORE overclocking, at the same or lower price. Last card was the last chance for BFG in my eyes, I swore to never buy a card again. A few months later and they stop selling the cards? Coincidence? Probably, yeah. But still.
More Profitable? In most stores such as that computers themselves have negative margin... yes they lose money on each PC.
The profit comes from selling that overpriced mouse and the $150 system optimization or the $75 install on that BFG video card.
lesbians!
Maybe it's because they all eventually crap out before the warranty does (or at least a very high percentage). Not just this vendor (BFG) but all of them. nVidia's chips may hold up, sometimes, but the fans fail and once the chip overheats....its toast. This problem even applies to ATI/AMD cards. Not to mention the power supply requirements of the higher end cards and it all adds up to more and more people being satisfied by 'acceptable' performance versus those who want to see insanely high frame rates. Vendors (such as BFG) who sell JUST the higher end cards of the currently released chip, are not selling as well as say XFS, or PNY that make a full range of cards. But even those vendors have turned to making more than just the video cards. Plus there are tons of 'unknown' brands available on places like NewEgg and such that you can find a decent card for $150 and not have to shell out $400 for the card and another 200 for a power supply that will properly power it. BFG was on one of the few who had lifetime warraties on their cards and upgrade options if you owned a previous card of an older chip.
I've nothing of importance to say, now go away before I taunt you with a second sig!
What the hell else do they do?
Never liked BFG cards very much, they were the worst at maintaining nVidia reference spec and they didn't have a very watercooling friendly warranty which is a problem for anyone who mods.
I was reading somewhere that BFG was in some ugly financial straits as well....They're just dumping one of their not-so-lucrative lines....
i have to post anonymously as i am (unfortunately) a GS employee, but yes.
to be fair, however, "optimization" is no longer a service we offer. but you're right- accessories is pretty much the only place money lies. well, and services. but only kind of, if you really know how much money the Geek Squad promise is costing the company on the bottom line through both employee incompetence (GS and sales floor alike).
i realize the prices you list are "jokes" but you exaggerate to the point of FUD. which is not to say we don't charge too much for a few of our services, but i dare you to try even a month of working for GS. i'm in a fairly computer literate city, but i kid you not when i say i've said "drag and drop" only to a genuinely confused stare and reply of "what do dragons have to do with this?" on more than one occasion. as much as i hate to say this as a very, very honest and reputable human being among tech folks, the lottery isn't the only stupidity tax.
i hate the add-on to sentences, "going forward". it makes me sick. BFG made some nice slightly overclocked cards. having bought three of them myself over the years that still function, i feel they are not junk. i'm no BFG fanboy, just needed to post about "going forward". "going forward" man, whomever you are, stop it. why didn't you stop the sentence at "we will continue to evaluate it." sorry folks, that phrase "going forward", literally made me feel sick. i needed (it's not like i abuse the privilege) to type about that "going forward" thing.
I use a BFG Geforce GTX 285 (2gb). I hope Nvidia keeps them driver updates coming!
So if BFG can't make money on video cards, what CAN they make their money on? The only thing I think of when I think of BFG is high end computer parts. Is everybody just buying el cheapo atom-with-video-card-built-in systems now?
That's where you point out that you're using an install wizard.
It was hard for a BFG card to 'crap out before the warranty does' as BFG was the first gfx card manufacturer to offer a true lifetime warranty, instead of the *shelf life* of the part.
Excellent manufacturer, I waited for years for them to start selling in the UK and was very happy when they did.
Incredibly sad to hear they're pulling out, and I really don't know what to replace them with.
There's a LOT of eVGA going about on these stories it's hard to imagine it's not a marketing campaign atm, is their hardware actually high quality and very long lasting? The last time I looked at them (3 years ago, maybe more) they were not held in high regard.
Let's hope BFG don't just close up shop a few months from now; If they can't make money on graphics cards, I'm not sure they will be able to make it on even thinner margin products like PCs, notebooks and power supplies.
As a side note, of course I *had* to buy one of their cards a few weeks ago... and of course my computer is now hanging randomly (I'm not positive it's the card's fault yet as I also upgraded other components, but it seems very probable).
Well, at least they *say* they are going to honor their lifetime warranties. Unfortunately I think I'm going to find out how well that's working Real Soon Now (tm).
Best Regards,
Durval Menezes.
I have never met a computer that didn't like me.
I don't believe you. If they had burned out, I don't believe you'd of just happily replaced them with some other card, as all BFG cards have a lifetime warranty.
The only way I might believe you is if you bought three 9600s, as every manufacturer had problem with that chip (Black Screen of Death), including the BFG GeForce FX 9600 I bought for my wife. BFG happily replaced it for me free of charge, however.
So yeah, if you honestly just did go buy three new cards, can I buy the broken ones off you for $5 apiece? I'll even foot the shipping.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Libertarians!
You, sir, will likely also live to be 102 and b perfectly healthy other than a few minor hiccups while the go green eat healthy guy will keel over with cancer at 56. Live strong, mate. Live STRONG!
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
With so many companies making identical cards for nearly identical prices, eventually a few of them were bound to drop out due to loss of profit. It is a shame it had to BFG to drop out first. Their cards held up to noob overclocking very well.
eVGA is great. If they weren't before, they are now. They were the first to offer a double-lifetime warranty, which makes no sense until you find out it means that you have a life-time warranty until you sell the card, then the person who bought it from you now has the lifetime warranty. Now if that person sells the card, the third person does not get the lifetime warranty.
The DVI->HDMI converter and HDMI cable were missing from my BFG video card a few months ago. It their place was a note saying that if I wanted said parts, I'd need to go register on their website, even though the package exterior clearly stated the parts would be in the box. Is that even legal?
So I went through with the registration, and the website decided it didn't like the serial number on my card. One long email thread later, I was eventually shipped the parts that I should have had in the first place.
I'm glad BFG is out of the video card market. Now if only someone would revive Canopus...
There's only so much money to be made spinning reference boards... nobody actually designs a video card. They just spin the reference artwork provided by the chip manufacturers, with maybe a couple of modifications like silk screen color, heat sinks, and stickers. It's just a race to the bottom to see who can do it the cheapest.
Since you mentioned PNY, let me just say, don't buy anything from them. They have a lifetime warranty on flash products but require a receipt for RMA. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Installing new hardware isn't relevant to the normal PC owner. Geeks buy online and don't need brick-and-mortar stores.
It would appear that BFG cards sucked, hence lack of geek support.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Librarians!
lol
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Liberians.
heck, I've had a usb flash drive and some desktop memory that went bad days after the warranty expired... "no support for you!" is the response I got.
It's XFX that has the double lifetime warranty. EVGA has a lifetime warranty and the StepUp upgrade program (which I personally think is of little use to most people, having used it myself).
StepUp only gives you back what you originally paid for your card, and charges you full retail for the new card. If you got a smoking deal and snagged a GTX470 for $100, you get back the $100 to put toward a $500 GTX480, completely negating the original deal you got. Plus you get to pay shipping on both the new card coming to you and for the old one going back to them. To top it all off, you have to send your old card back before they send you the new one, which means you'll be without a card for a bit. StepUp is handy if you really need to buy a new card right now, but a new model might be coming out in the next few months and you're planning on paying full price for it. Other than the shipping costs, you can essentially undo your first purchase and buy the new card for MSRP. I used StepUp on my mobo to get a new release that was only available at MSRP, plus the original was bought in a combo, meaning I got credit for the full MSRP while retaining my good deal via the other items in the combo. The downtime and shipping sucked, but the pricing worked out ok for me.
XFX's double lifetime warranty can increase resale value though. If I sell my used XFX card to you, you can have your own full lifetime warranty. You don't have to mess around with sending it back to me to have me return it for you (if I decide I'm nice enough to do that for you), you simply send it in yourself. Since you have a full valid warranty from the manufacturer, you don't have to worry as much about what I did to it before selling it to you - as long as it's not physically damaged, you're covered by your own warranty if it does die. In my eyes, this is a lot more useful than a 90-day window for upgrading your part at full MSRP plus double shipping and downtime.
you'd be surprised. Years ago when the sims 2 system requirements came out, teenagers the world over were flooding the forums trying to figure out how to ask their parents for a graphics card, which one they needed and how to install it. Since it was the best selling PC game at the time, I'd say that is a fairly significant part of the market.
Thanks! I was going to recompile SPECViewPerf so I could do the graphics stressing under Linux, but it will be much more practical to run PCWizard on the WindowsXP partition I keep for the games that still don't run well under Wine.
Best Regards,
Durval Menezes.
I have never met a computer that didn't like me.
Given the prices on video cards, I find it difficult to believe that it's not profitable. Hell, they don't even have to design their own card if they don't want to, only adding a bigger cooler if they want to overclock it. They write no drivers as they are all provided by the GPU mfg, etc.
OTOH they're probably unable to compete with the likes of eVGA, misc. OD(/E)Ms(e.g. ASUS, MSI, etc.), and the bargain basement "brands".
I've got a 10y old bargain basement brand(forget which ATM) GF2 MX card that is still kicking. Ran 24/7 for the better part of 7y.
Also have old ATI Rage Pros, 3dfx cards, Rendition Verites, etc. that were still running as of 4 or 5y ago, and actually now that I think of it a Voodoo Banshee in my server which must be the tops.
Misc. GF 6200, 7600GT etc. still running (MUCH newer obviously).
Not bothering to mention notebook GPUs, oddly enough all ATIs, but only one recent 4870 all of these are passively cooled though or connected via heatpipe to the CPU heatsink/fan.
Yet to see a fan fail on one of these puppies yet. I've lost more PSUs/hdds than component fans. (I NEVER OC unless it comes from the factory OCed as I never saw much point in stressing the hw for such little gain in actual apps/games. i.e. I prefer hw longevity over a few extra FPS that, generally, end up making no realistic difference in the long run and by the time it would it's just time to upgrade the old GPU anyways which, for me, is almost always a hefty performance boost.
Also have seen similar circumstances in larger numbers of business systems although most systems got upgraded every 3-5y so they never took the beating that I gave to my home machines, and let's face it most people in businesses simply do NOT stress their hw as their work does NOT require them to.
So in summation, a "lifetime"(and there are variable definitions of lifetime, read the fineprint carefully) is more or less useless to me IME.
It would appear that BFG cards sucked, hence lack of geek support.
Heh. If only it were true that technically superior products succeed, and inferior ones fail. The real world is driven by things such as marketing, margin, unfair competition, collusion, and a million other aspects of business that have nothing to do with the actual performance of the product delivered to the consumer.
What it was that killed BFG from Video cards, who knows. But I don't see much of anyone saying they're glad the company is dead because of a sucky product.
AccountKiller
Reminded me of this:
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/flash-tub/wizard-flash-cartoon.php
Karnal
BFG - named for the Big F@&#ing gun from Doom, was made by gamers for gamers and set the standard in the industry for the product warranty and return. For years it was the only brand of card I would buy. As ATI began to equal nVida chips and the BFG standard warranty became the norm, it was easy to find cheaper yet comparable cards. I swore by BFG as they swore by gamers. Somewhere this broke down perhaps for some or all of the reasons mentioned here may be why, but I want to thank BFG for setting a higher standard for the industry years ago when they entered the market.
When a Ball Dreams, It Dreams it's a Frisbee.
Nothing new there. I worked at Best Buy from '94 to '99, and the story was pretty much the same back then. The employee discount usually didn't save a huge amount on hardware (best I managed was $40 or so off of a $450 laser printer; it was usually a good bit less effective), but I could buy a $30 printer cable for maybe $3.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Yet another nVidia OEM bails out.
Reports on new Fermi cards arriving at OEMs are that they do not work unless under-clocked.
Uh-oh.
nVidia bails out of the chip sets for mother boards business.
The end is getting closer for nVidia.
Libertines!
I have a EVGA 9800GT, compared to my friends BFG 8800GTX the EVGA heatsink is a complete joke.
The BFG heatsink has a nice heatpipe set up and all the ram chips are in contact with the heatink. The card looks like it could take a hit or two from a hammer on the heatsink side without killing it.
The EVGA heatsink connects to the GPU only. It has a fairing system that makes it look like the type of heatsink that is on the 8800, but its not nearly the same.
Then again the 8800 when it was purchased was the top of the line and went for around $500, my EVGA was closer to $125 and a was generation old.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Only recently did I discover the greatness of BFG's graphics cards. I just bought a BFG GeForce GT 220 back in December and I absolutely love it. Plays all my Source games flawlessly (that's all I really play anyway). Why, oh why, did I ever waste my time with other manufacturers? Maybe I'll upgrade my card again soon just to have another one before they back out of the market...
Which curiously is how BFG got its start, buy selling veideo cards in stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA. The problem was how BFG got its start. It did so by sabotaging the original VisionTek that made nVidia graphics cards. They violated confidentiality agreements, stole trade secrets, saved plenty of files they should not have from VisionTek, used previous contacts illegitimately, managed to get Visiontek's old suppliers, including nVidia, to dump them, and got customers (like Best Buy) to dump them as well. It is disgusting behavior that no one did any jail time for and for which very little money was recovered from BFG, or anyone else in the end. It also appears "John Slevin" is mentioned in the press release in TFA, and is probably the same guy mentioned in the complaint in US Bankruptcy Court documents as being a part of the slime that made up BFG from day one. Interestingly, nVidia and Mitac (the board manufacturer) were sued and settled as well.
The amended complaint:
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B--kPjOMTMyPNGQzYzdjYmUtYjI5ZC00NzJlLWE3N2MtZTM2MWQ5MjAwNWVl&hl=en
Article in Forbes that mentions Visiontek, but not BFG by name:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0901/048b.html
I suppose Advanced Equities will soon be able to add BFG in as a failure.
A Chapter 7 bankruptcy should not take this long, but it did here (includes payments):
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B--kPjOMTMyPNTg4NmVlZmMtMzRjYy00YzUwLWJhNDQtYzExMmZhNDczMjk3&hl=en
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
Heh. If only it were true that technically superior products succeed, and inferior ones fail.
I've been repeatedly assured by /.'ers and others that the best product always wins with never an exception. Period. End of discussion. This is what we're all taught in economics too - so it must be true.
Realistically, nothing could be farther from the truth. The simply fact is, you are absolutely right. No reputable economists believes the world works that way. Furthermore, all branches of the government, save one, anti-trust, acknowledges markets and economies don't work that way.
The simple fact is, markets and economies are very, very, complex creatures. Without a doubt, the highest priced widget is rarely the best value or heck, even the best in any category. The simple fact is, if this were true, we would never need to advertise (outside of market introduction), advertisements would be completely ineffective, packaging would generally not matter, and everything would be drastically cheaper as a result. This also completely ignores emerging markets and/or emerging products within an established market; so on and so on.
The simple fact is, its extremely common for superior products to not be on top and to not be the highest priced item. This also turns on its ear the traditional definition of "value"; which is also traditionally taught. The fact this is true is one of the largest reasons competition can exist in a free market.
Long story short, if you know anyone who insists on paying the highest price for every item in any given category, they are without a doubt completely ignorant of how economics work. I can't tell you know many times I've seen people consistently insist the best value is always obtained by paying the highest price in a given product category. Sorry, the world just doesn't work that way.
I've only gotten a native English speaker on the phone twice in the last ten years when calling a company's support line and one of those two times was when calling BFGTech (the other time was when I called Nordic Track - man given that service always buy Nordic Track if you have the option). It turned out my problem was a minor misunderstanding on my part and the service rep was very helpful and very geeky. In fact she solved my problem by hitting up wikipedia instead of using a script!
I don't know about you guys, but that shit counts for something with me. It's too bad they're quitting, all my cards would have come from them in the future.
One of the ways BFG differentiated itself from all the sweatshops turning out copies of nVidia reference designs was to factory overlock with better than typical stock cooling - but factoring in the inherent unreliability of these chips and the lifetime warranted BFG offered, its easy to see how it wasn't sustainable.
For great justice.