Rebranding

[John P. Myers]

I'm bored so decided i'd post something some of you hopefully find educational :)

So i was sitting here thinking about Dell. As many of you know, i absolutely detest this company :p But specifically i was thinking about their monitors. There's no denying monitors with Dell's name stamped on them are pretty decent and i began to wonder exactly why that was. I had never really looked into it before. First i should point out that Dell makes nothing of their own. They buy parts in bulk, slap on a hefty markup and sell them as their own. Basically all they do is configure and assemble and offer 1 year warranties on computers who's parts were warrantied to them for 3 years. Not that i'm slamming Dell. HP, Gateway, etc. are the same, though HP do at least employ their own software coders, as does Apple. This also helps to explain why their tech support is so horrible. They know nothing and can help so little because none of them know anything about the parts in their computers because none of the parts were even made by either company, and is then contracted out to people in foreign countries where, again, the parts aren't even made, and the company that contracted them has no physical presence.

The only name-brand companies that actually make the computers they sell are Asus (kinda), Lenovo (IBM), Toshiba, Samsung and Sony. If you own a PC/laptop with anyone else's name stamped on it, it's just a stamp. This is why you usually get a better product from these companies that make their own, as well as more features or better warranties, for the same price. Apple, while not making their own parts, also doesn't even assemble their own products. They contract out everything, and boy oh boy at the markups. At least Dell and HP will still screw things together for you.


Anyway, Dell monitors. Knowing Dell buys in bulk (as anyone would), and knowing they prefer the cheapest parts they can find, i was wondering how they were pulling that off with LCD/LED panels. There are only so many companies in the world that can make them so it would be very difficult to find an off-brand unheard of corporation when it comes to those. Turns out Dell has played favorites with basically all of them, revealing why their monitors get such high marks. So who makes Dell's monitors for them? LG, Samsung and BenQ/AU Optronics. Yep. Surprise! :D

Speaking of rebranding, Alienware is a rebranded Dell.

Recent Nvidia rebrands:
The GeForce 605 (OEM) card is a rebranded GeForce 510.
The GeForce GT 610 card is a rebranded GeForce GT 520.
The GeForce GT 620 (OEM) card is a rebranded GeForce GT 520.
The GeForce GT 620 card is a rebranded GeForce GT 530.
The GeForce GT 630 (DDR3) card is a rebranded GeForce GT 440 (DDR3).
The GeForce GT 630 (GDDR5) card is a rebranded GeForce GT 440 (GDDR5).
The GeForce GT 640 (OEM) card is a rebranded GeForce GT 545 (DDR3).
The GeForce GT 645 (OEM) card is a rebranded GeForce GTX 560 SE.

All AMD 7000 series GPUs from the 7670 down are rebrands from the 6000 series.

Liquid CPU cooler rebrands:
Corsair H60/H80/H80i/H100/H100i: CoolIT
Enermax ELC240/120: AVC
Corsair H50/H55/H75/H90/H105/H110: Asetek
NZXT: Asetek
Thermaltake: Asetek
Intel: Asetek
AMD: Asetek
Arctic Accelero: Asetek

Antec makes their own.
Swiftech makes their own.

Ok i guess i'm done now :p Maybe you care, maybe you don't, but hopefully you found it interesting.

[Mad Matt]

Ok i guess i'm done now :p Maybe you care, maybe you don't, but hopefully you found it interesting.

Not only interesting, also pretty much entertaining. :D I'd love to see you having a go at PSU brands. ;)

Btw: I could add NV 8800GT ->9800GT (more or less). Never found the difference, tbh. ;)

[GregK]

I enjoyed your post! :) thanks

[John P. Myers]

I'd love to see you having a go at PSU brands. ;)


Alright, but i warn you this one might come as a shock :p

BTW, HP monitors are made by Chi Mei and InnoVision and thusly aren't rated quite as reliably as the LGs, Samsungs and BenQs with "Dell" stamped on them :)

PSUs...hope you're sitting down.

Enermax: They make their own. (The new Revolution Xt series is made by Channel Well)

Kingwin: The ABT series is made by Kingwin themselves. The rest are made by Super Flower

***************
All of these are actually made by SeaSonic:

Corsair AX650, AX750, AX850, HX450, HX520, HX620, HX650, TX650v2, TX750v2, TX850v2, CX400 (models not listed were made by Channel Well)

Antec NeoECO, NeoECO C, TruePower Trio, TruePower New, HCG-400, HCG-520, HCG-620, HCG-M (models not listed were made by Andyson, Delta, HEC, Fortron or Channel Well)

NZXT Hale82 (others by Topower or Casing Macron)

All XFX

PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610W, 750W, 760W, 910W, Silencer Mk. III (others made by Sparkle and Win-Tact)

**************

Thermaltake:
The Toughpower XT units are actually made by Thermaltake. These are the ones i personally use and recommend.
The Toughpower units are made by CWT (aka Channel Well), and are still excellent PSUs. However they also make these exact PSUs branded as Corsair.
The low-end TR2/Purepowers are made by Compucase (though the higher end of this low-end series is also made by CWT) and i strongly suggest they are avoided at all cost.

Asus: Made by AcBel, Asustek or Delta

BFG: Made by Andyson, ATNG, Enhance, Fore Point or Topower

Cooler Master: Made by AcBel, Enhance, Hipro or Seventeam

Cougar: Is a division of HEC, so technically it's made in-house.

Dell: Hipro, Lite-On, and an unknown manufacturer with an invalid UL number (good job)

EVGA: 1000W and under made by FSP. Above 1000W: Etasis

Foxconn: Deer or Lite-On

Gigabyte: Channel Well

LEPA MX F1 series: Channel Well (low-end garbage. Avoid)

Lian-Li: Sirtec

Masscool: Seventeam

MSI: Solytech

OCZ: 3Y, Channel Well, FSP, Impervio, Sirtec and Topower

Rosewill: ATNG, Solytech, Wintech, and Youngyear

Silverstone: Enhance, Etasis, Impervio and Seventeam

Tyan: Made by Mitac

Zalman: Enhance and FSP

[Fire$torm]

Thx JPM for all the great info. Question: Who makes Cougar PSUs? They look like SeaSonic units, at least to me.

[John P. Myers]

Thx JPM for all the great info. Question: Who makes Cougar PSUs? They look like SeaSonic units, at least to me.

added to the list. Was actually HEC :)

[John P. Myers]

More rebranding!

Today's topic: RAM
I got interested in researching this one after discovering HardOCP did a walk-through tour of Corsair's factory and found no RAM testing equipment, providing an "ah-ha!" moment for many who were wondering why the Corsair fail rate was so high.

Crucial: Makes their own (a brand owned by Micron - 12.1% of marketshare)
Elpida: Makes their own - 12.0% of marketshare
G.Skill: Makes their own
Geil: Makes their own
Hynix: Makes their own - 23.3% of marketshare
Kingmax: Makes their own
Kingston: Makes their own, but also uses chips from Nanya, Winbond, ProMOS and Elpida
Patriot: Makes their own
Samsung: Makes their own - 44.3% of marketshare
Super Talent: Makes their own
Team Group: Makes their own
Toshiba: Makes their own
Transcend: Makes their own, but also uses chips from Elpida

AMD: Made by Patriot and VisionTek (yes, the desktop RAM, rare as it is :p )
Apple: all Macs, iPads, iPods and iPhones other than most recent models: Samsung (yeah buddy!), Hynix
Most recent models (iPhone 5, etc.): Samsung, Toshiba, Elpida and Hynix

Corsair: Hynix or Elpida
Dell: Samsung, Hynix, Micron, Kingston
Mushkin: Nanya, Hynix, Samsung
OCZ: Nobody. They quit 2 years ago to focus on SSDs, but when they sold it, they did make it theirselves.

GPUs - GDDR5 (AMD, Nvidia, Intel (Knight's Corner)): Samsung (overwhelmingly), Hynix, Elpida

*HP: Does not rebrand memory. If you find Hynix RAM in an HP computer (which is likely), it is clearly marked by Hynix as Hynix.

[zombie67]

To be clear, "makes their own" means just assembling the DIMMs. The actual chips used on the DIMMs come from only about 3 suppliers. The split is roughly 41% samsung, 25% hynix, 25% micron, and the balance niche suppliers. So there are DIMMs from many different suppliers, all made from the same parts.

[John P. Myers]

To be clear, "makes their own" means just assembling the DIMMs. The actual chips used on the DIMMs come from only about 3 suppliers. The split is roughly 41% samsung, 25% hynix, 25% micron, and the balance niche suppliers. So there are DIMMs from many different suppliers, all made from the same parts.

No when i say "makes their own" i mean they actually manufacture chips and own their own manufacturing facilities. And most of these manufacturers are in a niche market - RAM. Companies like Samsung make memory for nearly everything, like the PS3, everything Apple, etc. Hynix is a split-off from the Hyundai car manufacturer and of course they use their memory in the cars' onboard computers. And of course Micron, Toshiba and Elpida too. These are the guys making the RAM in alarm clocks, coffee makers, automobiles, radios, watches, cell phones ...nearly everything in existence. Trillions and trillions of devices. The companies like Super Talent and Team Group are the ones who only do 1 thing - computer RAM - and are lucky to find themselves in a couple million devices. These guys don't even have contracts with OEMs.

As matter of fact, Team Group currently holds the record for fastest DDR3 RAM out of the box (3000MHz). That along with other original products, as well as other "for the first time in history", makes it pretty obvious they manufacture their own stuff. If they didn't, everyone would have what they have. Of course i still checked anyway :) Also, they were so niched, they only started making ECC memory this past May :p







Also my marketshare stats are from Q4 2011 so maybe yours are more recent.

[zombie67]

No when i say "makes their own" i mean they actually manufacture chips and own their own manufacturing facilities. And most of these manufacturers are in a niche market - RAM.

Yeah, there's the problem. There is no way those DIMM manufacturers make their own chips, aside from the three (was 4) chip manufacturers who also make their own DIMMs (samsung, hynix, micron/Elpida). No way they can afford a full blown chip factory, for the very small amount of DIMMs they sell. They either buy from one of the three, or subcontract the chip manufacture to one of the very very few remaining independent chip fab factories.

Edit: Check out the chart here:

http://www.dramexchange.com/weeklyresearch/post/2/3027.html
http://www.dramexchange.com/img/content/weeklyinfo/marketview_20120508A.gif

[John P. Myers]

Yeah, there's the problem. There is no way those DIMM manufacturers make their own chips, aside from the three (was 4) chip manufacturers who also make their own DIMMs (samsung, hynix, micron/Elpida).

Right. You've got the top 8 manufacturers right there. I used the exact same chart for my marketshare data, except it was from the quarter before that one :/

As for Micron and Elpida, they are still 2 separate manufacturers. Elpida has accepted Micron's $2.5bil offer, but the sale doesn't close until the first half of next year.

In the "Others" category, you've got your little guys like Team Group, Super Talent, Toshiba, etc. It really doesn't cost a whole lot to make a RAM factory or take up much space. It's far simpler and cheaper than etching CPUs and GPUs. Way faster as well. Hell, the 2 of us could start a DRAM factory :D But then we'd get bent over the kitchen table by the big boys :(


Manufacturing costs as of Feb. 2012

2Gb DDR3 were quoted at US$0.90 - slightly above the cash cost for the chips built using a 3Xnm process - for the second half of January, according to industry observers. Costs for 2Gb DDR3 built using a 4Xnm process now stands at US$1.20-1.30, and ramping up output using 3Xnm will further drag down the cost level to as low as US$0.80