5 things PC component manufacturers really need to stop doing

Besides most of the silicon or memory on any given component, third party manufacturers control most aspects of how a product looks and feels, as well as its price. For example, NVIDIA makes the GPU, and a manufacturer like ASUS, Gigabyte, or MSI controls essentially everything else. The PCB, cooling design, power delivery—everything comes down to them. As a result, when things are poorly put together, it’s usually their fault. If something is priced or segmented poorly, that’s up to the big boys like NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel just to name a few. Here are 5 things both first-party and third-party manufacturers should really stop doing with their PC components.

5

Plastic backplates on GPUs

A bit of metal and a few thermal pads wouldn’t hurt

Including a backplate depends on the price of the GPU in question, but plastic GPU backplates are utterly useless, no matter the price. There’s especially no excuse to have one on a mid-to-high range card, like a 4070. You might think that having any backplate at all is better than nothing, but in most scenarios, a plastic backplate can actually act as an insulator, keeping more heat inside the GPU and its components. Ideally, you’d want a metal backplate with some thermal pads covering the bottoms of memory modules and power delivery components in order to help pull heat away from them.

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4

Using glue and plastic clips

Makes non-destructive disassembly a challenge

I think we can agree that serviceability and repairability of components by consumers is important. Being able to take something apart to make a simple repair like a fan replacement shouldn’t include making destructive changes to your product. Using glue and plastic clips in the assembly of a product makes reassembly much more difficult. Breaking a clip or working the adhesive too much can result in things not going back together the way they came apart.

A prime example of this is the Intel ARC A770, which was glued and clipped together in so many different ways. To their credit, Intel made sweeping changes to the construction of their new B-series graphics cards, which are much easier to take apart.

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3

Using non-standard screws

Screws customers over

I understand the need to keep things secure on a board or housing, but using a non-standard screw pattern to do so is also completely unnecessary. Torx is one thing, but using tamper screws or other proprietary drivers is really poor for repairability. If I had it my way, everything would be Phillips.

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2

Poor name schemes

Confusion is clearly the intended strategy

Companies have been running out of ideas in terms of how to name their new products. A higher number usually correlates to a better product in most people’s minds, but products aren’t always made that way. Take the latest AMD motherboards, for example. You would think that just judging by the name, the B840 chipset would be better than an X670, and in addition, would be close to a B850. Well, in reality, the B840 is closer to an A620 than either of those other boards, which is close the lowest board in the product stack. These name schemes cause a ton of confusion for novice builders, and often lead them to pay more for a product that doesn’t do more than the other, slightly older one does.

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1

Aggressive price segmentation

Borders on predatory

In addition to poorly named product schemes, segmenting products extremely aggressively is a strategy to push consumers further up the stack. The most relevant example of this is the RTX 50 series. Priced at $2000, the RTX 5090 is so much faster than the $1000 RTX 5080, some consumers will feel like the 5080 isn’t a compelling value. The next card down is the 5070 Ti at $750. This segmentation is aggressive in a way that pushes customers to spend further up the ladder, but only exists because of the lack of competition, unfortunately.

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These mistakes aren’t difficult to avoid

All in all, these missteps from manufacturers are avoidable, but I have faith that over time they will definitely be weeded out. I remember when the VRMs on most motherboards were woefully underpowered, and now, it’s difficult to find a board that doesn’t have well-equipped power delivery. Manufacturers can listen, it just might take them a few years to heed the calls of consumers.