UK users - ASUS offers up to £300 for your old GPU

[joker_josue]

ASUS is running a campaign offering users up to £300 for the old GPU if they buy an RTX 40.
+Info: https://asuspromotions.com/paidtoupgrade/en-GB

Eligible graphics cards:
GTX 1060 (£ 90)
GTX 1070 (£ 90)
GTX 1070TI (£ 100)
GTX 1080 (£ 100)
GTX 1080TI (£ 130)
GTX 1650 (£ 55)
GTX 1650 Super (£ 65)
GTX 1660 (£ 80)
GTX 1660 Super (£ 100)
GTX 1660TI (£ 120)
RTX 2060 (£ 150)
RTX 2060 Super (£ 180)
RTX 2070 (£ 200)
RTX 2070 Super (£ 230)
RTX 2080 (£ 265)
RTX 2080 Super (£ 280)
RTX 2080 TI (£ 300)
RTX 3050 (£ 180)
RTX 3060 (£ 200)
RTX 3060 TI (£ 230)
Radeon VII (£ 200)
RX5500 (£ 50)
RX 5500 XT (£ 60)
RX5600 (£ 75)
RX 5600XT (£ 100)
RX 5700 (£ 120)
RX 5700XT (£ 150)
RX6400 (£ 85)
RX 6500XT (£ 110)
RX6600 (£ 150)
RX 6600XT (£ 170)
RX 6650 XT (£ 200)
RX Vega 56 (£ 125)
RX Vega 64 (£ 150)


You'll have to buy one of these GPUs:
ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 4080 16GB
ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 4080 16GB OC
ROG STRIX RTX 4080 16GB BRANCO OC
ROG STRIX RTX 4080 16GB BRANCO
ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4080 OC
ROG STRIX RTX 4070 Ti OC
ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 4070 Ti
TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti OC


If you are eligible for this campaign, maybe it's good to take advantage of it. 

[FP91G]

Radeon VII (£ 200) 
I don't know the price of graphics cards in the UK, but I recently sold my GTX 1070 for $150 and GTX 1080 for $210. I had to buy a cooler or lubricate and clean and replace thermal pads.
But if you can give away a problematic video card, then this is a good offer. Where does ASUS sell old video cards?

[joker_josue]

But if you can give away a problematic video card, then this is a good offer. Where does ASUS sell old video cards?

The only information I found in the terms is that the board is in perfect working condition.
It could be to recondition and sell to more "poor" markets, I don't know. Or else to recycle the materials.

[rdluffy]

I've never seen such an offer with gous, only with cell phones.
It seems to me that they are a little desperate to sell the 4XXX series cards.
The market is not the same anymore after the end of ETH mining, gpus are more expensive and there's no AAA games like CyberPunk 2077 to sell new GPUs to gamers.

I'm curious to know what they are going to with these cards, my guess is recycling.

[FP91G]

But if you can give away a problematic video card, then this is a good offer. Where does ASUS sell old video cards?

The only information I found in the terms is that the board is in perfect working condition.
It could be to recondition and sell to more "poor" markets, I don't know. Or else to recycle the materials.

Perfect working condition is a very abstract statement
I saw video card miners with holes in the video chip because the cooling system exploded, but the video card continues to mine perfectly. I have seen video cards with a non-working cooling system, where there is no gas, and repair is impossible.
And some users may not know that this is a video card problem, and they will not receive a discount?

[joker_josue]

Perfect working condition is a very abstract statement

I agree. According to the terms, the user has to send the plate and then it will be evaluated.
That is, it will always be a risk for the person to sign up and not receive any reward.

Still at your discretion, collect it in 5 days or leave it free for recycling.

[adaseb]

I think it is smart. Because many people don't want to go thru the hassle of selling their old GPUs on eBay or on Facebook market place and dealing with the headache. Generally what they will most likely do is take the GPU and they will be auctioned off and some resellers will be bidding on those.

They do this with smartphones. Its a good way to upsell people a new phone. Obviously you sell for less than selling it privately but many people don't want to sell electronics second hand because its a pain dealing with certain buyers. You know how it is. You want $100 for a phone and they offer you $20, because "its got 1 scratch I gotta replace screen for $80", etc.

And this is also proof that GPU sales must be suffering.

[JayDDee]

I think it is smart. Because many people don't want to go thru the hassle of selling their old GPUs on eBay or on Facebook market place and dealing with the headache. Generally what they will most likely do is take the GPU and they will be auctioned off and some resellers will be bidding on those.

They do this with smartphones. Its a good way to upsell people a new phone. Obviously you sell for less than selling it privately but many people don't want to sell electronics second hand because its a pain dealing with certain buyers. You know how it is. You want $100 for a phone and they offer you $20, because "its got 1 scratch I gotta replace screen for $80", etc.

And this is also proof that GPU sales must be suffering.

The returned GPUs will likely be destroyed to take them completely off the market to prevent them from competing with new products. Many tech companies do this.
Cisco was notorious for buying their unsold products at retail for the sole purpose of destroying them to prevent them from being sold to anyone else.

I'm surprised the 3060ti is included in the buyback as it's the newest available in it's class. I thought they'd wait for the 4060ti to be out.
I'm not in UK but I have a couple of cards on the list would trade.

[adaseb]

Are you sure they are going to be destroyed? If it was Nvidia or AMD doing this promo then I can see them being destroyed to keep a tigger supply and they would get more sales since gamers might buy new instead of used.

However this is only ASUS doing this. If they destroy the GPUs there is some benefit for them by reducing supply but they would also be helping out the rest of the GPU manufacturers at the same time and I don’t think they care whether their competition gets sales or not.

For example if you trade in your phone at your cell phone provider, they will most likely send it to auction since they only make money off the service.

If you trade in your phone at Apple store then they might destroy it or use it as a refurbished models for warranty purposes to keep supply tight.

[joker_josue]

However this is only ASUS doing this. If they destroy the GPUs there is some benefit for them by reducing supply but they would also be helping out the rest of the GPU manufacturers at the same time and I don’t think they care whether their competition gets sales or not.

The fact that they only accept GPUs in "perfect working condition", is proof that their goal is to give the equipment a second use.

It can even be to recycle board components. With the lack of materials on the market, it might be a strategy to get some. But will you give £300 to recycle material? I also think it will be for reconditioning and selling in smaller markets elsewhere in the world.

[FP91G]

However this is only ASUS doing this. If they destroy the GPUs there is some benefit for them by reducing supply but they would also be helping out the rest of the GPU manufacturers at the same time and I don’t think they care whether their competition gets sales or not.

The fact that they only accept GPUs in "perfect working condition", is proof that their goal is to give the equipment a second use.

It can even be to recycle board components. With the lack of materials on the market, it might be a strategy to get some. But will you give £300 to recycle material? I also think it will be for reconditioning and selling in smaller markets elsewhere in the world.

I don't think Asus will sell old hardware. Perhaps they will sell it all to another company that will replace the cooling system and sell "new video cards" on aliexpress
For a graphics card manufacturer, components are very cheap because of bulk purchases, so they definitely won't buy video cards for components.

[joker_josue]

I don't think Asus will sell old hardware. Perhaps they will sell it all to another company that will replace the cooling system and sell "new video cards" on aliexpress
For a graphics card manufacturer, components are very cheap because of bulk purchases, so they definitely won't buy video cards for components.

Of course, it won't be ASUS dealing with these cards. They are just the promoters of the promotion.
I'm sure they are working with a company that will check and validate the cards sent, according to the established criteria. Afterwards, this company will recycle the equipment or recondition it. Hence it is very difficult to know what will happen, if it is not said directly.

[JayDDee]

Are you sure they are going to be destroyed? If it was Nvidia or AMD doing this promo then I can see them being destroyed to keep a tigger supply and they would get more sales since gamers might buy new instead of used.

No, not sure. It's been done before where a company buys back and destroys their unsold stock so they can sell more of their new stock at higher prices.
This seems like a variation with the same purpose.

Nvidia doesn't sell many anyway so it's more attractive for the OEMs to do it.

Edit: If Nvidia had such a promotion, regardless of the disposition of the returned cards, the OEMs would be screaming. The main reason EVGA dropped
GPUs is because Nvidia sell directly and compete with them.

[adaseb]

I know that with certain Luxary clothing brands like Gucci or Prada they actually destroy the clothes instead of discounting them. They do this because they want their products to be in low supply and get more sales.

With GPUs however I don’t think it’s similar situation. There are millions of GPUs out there. Many people are trying to unload them. Buying back 1000 or 2000 units won’t really make a big effect in the market. It’ll only cost Asus tons of money.

[joker_josue]

The company organizing this promotion is OPIA - https://www.opia.com/

It seems that they are experts in doing these types of promotions, as they handle the entire process.
https://www.opia.com/sales-promotions/sales-promotion-solutions/trade-in-promotions/

[FP91G]

I know that with certain Luxary clothing brands like Gucci or Prada they actually destroy the clothes instead of discounting them. They do this because they want their products to be in low supply and get more sales.

With GPUs however I don’t think it’s similar situation. There are millions of GPUs out there. Many people are trying to unload them. Buying back 1000 or 2000 units won’t really make a big effect in the market. It’ll only cost Asus tons of money.

In your country, there is no sale of these brands from China several tens of times cheaper? In Russia, there were many cases when a Chinese fake was sold in the official store.

[joker_josue]

In Russia, there were many cases when a Chinese fake was sold in the official store.

Sold in official stores? That was the owners of these stores wanting to earn extra money with this fraud.

How was this resolved? How can the user be sure that the product is really original?

[JayDDee]

The company organizing this promotion is OPIA - https://www.opia.com/

It seems that they are experts in doing these types of promotions, as they handle the entire process.
https://www.opia.com/sales-promotions/sales-promotion-solutions/trade-in-promotions/

Not likely associated with ASUS at all so my speculation was wrong. Might be a good idea to change the subject.

[joker_josue]

Not likely associated with ASUS at all so my speculation was wrong. Might be a good idea to change the subject.

The promoter of the promotion is ASUS. This OPIA company just generates this entire campaign.
That is, ASUS hired a company to manage all the logistics of this promotion.

ASUS is not reconditioning products, they want to sell new products and create campaigns for that purpose, like this promotion. They then leave that task to other companies.

[adaseb]

In Russia, there were many cases when a Chinese fake was sold in the official store.

Sold in official stores? That was the owners of these stores wanting to earn extra money with this fraud.

How was this resolved? How can the user be sure that the product is really original?

From my understanding with luxury clothes, usually there is some certificate of authenticy with it. This certificate has some security features. Whether those can be faked or not is another question.

However unless you are familure with the product, it’s hard to tell whether it’s legit or not. Some pretty good looking fakes out there.