XFX has long been famous for its double lifetime warranty service which it offered on its graphics cards. Essentially it allowed owners to sell their card onto someone else and the person that bought that card would also get a full XFX warranty.

This warranty policy also added to the resale value of these cards. It allowed buyers to tamper with the supplied cooling solution (heatsink), by replacing them with their own without voiding warranty, it even gave lifetime warranty coverage to the original buyer, as well as to the person buying the product pre-used from an original buyer.

XFX however have finally scrapped the whole idea. Stating to Hardware Canucks that it is no longer financially viable to offer the double warranty service. The new warranty service which will replace the double warranty one comes into service as off the HD 7900 series graphics cards.

This is what the warranty policies of XFX’ HD 7900 graphics cards look like:

• Cards with Double Dissipation (Double D) or whose product number ends in “R” get Lifetime warranty if registered within 30 days.
• All other cards (ex: HD 7970 Core Edition; FX797ATNFC) get 2 Year Warranty

Source: HardwareCanucks

Yesterday saw the clarification of a serious problem associated with Gigabyte’s X79-UD3, X79-UD5, and G1.Assassin 2 motherboards when enthusiasts subjected their boards to voltage-assisted overclocking with stress-testing which resulted in burned CPU VRM.

A press release from Gigabyte clarified the extent of the situation and as a remedy they offered to the existing owners an update for the motherboards’ BIOS to the latest “F7″ version (posted on the company’s website), or for those who prefer, they can send their boards back for free replacement. This is only applicable in the area of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu.

Although it’s not mandatory to send your board back, if the users wish to keep their boards, Gigabyte is now offering a lifetime product warranty as an extension of the limited warranties the product comes with.

As for the cause of the problem, according to Gigabyte, several of the faulty motherboards were shipped with bad BIOS firmware that didn’t have “overclocking limits”, which motherboards by other manufacturers did.

So according to Gigabyte, “japan0827″, the overclocker from XFastest community who burned his X79-UD3, would have been running his setup way out of spec electrically.

As for the UK owners, as reported, an update for the boards will suffice in resolving the issue, no recall of the board has been issued, neither will a free replacement and an extension of warranty will be provided.

Here is a link for the correct BIOS update for the boards:

• GA-X79-UD3 – update to BIOS F7
• GA-X79-UD5 – update to BIOS F7
• GA-X79-UD7 – update to BIOS F7
• G1.Assassin 2 – update to BIOS F7

Source

Military Class II: Certified for Military Quality Assurance
The launch of the Military Class standard has changed the IT industry, and although competitors followed suit immediately, military-class components are only found in the highest tier of products. As a quality

perfectionist, MSI has equipped all the latest Intel Z68/P67/H67 mainboards and AMD 9-Series mainboards with Military Class II components, including Hi-c CAPs, SFCs and Solid CAPs to meet the rigorous US Military Standards.

These include the low pressure test, high temperature test, low temperature test, temperature shock test, humidity test, vibration test and shock test. In either extreme OC or severe environments, MSI mainboards can always fulfill the performance and quality expectations of users.