EU [suspect] Intel X540-T2 29€

Someone on eBay is selling Intel X540-T2 dual 10G Ethernet adapters for 29€ each:

Intel-chipsets-x540-T2-10G-PCI-Express-dual-RJ45-ports-Network-Adapter Intel | eBay

Hard to believe given the average price of this card!

I ordered one and will update if it's genuine or not.

Edit: hard to believe this is legitimate... the photos are taken from another seller who is selling the same card for $135. Let's see, may have to invoke buyer protection when I receive a brick in a box.

 

The pictures are from the seller Items in fzecn store on eBay! and he's from China
Hopefully you'll get a genuine one

 

Free shipping from GB to Germany? don't think this is not hacked ...

Gesendet von meinem ONE E1003 mit Tapatalk

 

Prolly comes from China - that's free.

 

Who is Prolly?

All I can see is

 

prolly | Definition of prolly in English by Oxford Dictionaries

 

You are right, but I have seen other eBay auctions where the seller claims to be in Europe in the item location but their address is in China (usually Shenzhen).

The shipping times quoted are always for a few weeks, so you can usually put 1+1 together and come to the conclusion the seller is lying about their location to appear in the search results for that country, even though it's shipped from China. Sometimes they're smart enough to use a local forwarder in the destination country so the package is not obviously from China (local label over the original shipping label).

For this particular auction, since the number of available items is not decreasing (6 available, 12 sold...) I'm guessing it's not legit.

 

X540-T2 is one of the most wildly counterfeit NICs though. There have been listings for this NIC for the past 5 years and price is always a lot lower than the actual market value.
There was a thread around here a few years ago where one bought some and tried them. They do actually work but for how long is anyones guess.

 

Seems the seller's account was compromised (as some predicted):


Guess no one is getting an X540-T2 for 29€. If it's too good to be true...

 

Although we call these cards counterfeit (the cheap ones) I found out recently that Intel sells the chips used in the X540-T4 in bulk for about $70 a unit. So the replica ones are using tray chips and building the rest of the card using similar function components to meet that $100-$130 price point that these are commonly listed at.

The official real Intels come with a hologram on the back under the product identification which you can enter into a website to verify the product is legitimately made by Intel.

 

Is that counterfeit though? I guess in Intel's eyes it would be, since the sellers are advertising the card as an Intel X540. I'd consider that "unauthorized" since they are using genuine Intel chips to make the cards.

Intel's pricing on the card itself is quite high:



If someone else is able to make a functional card using genuine tray chips, I'm all for cheaper hardware (as long as they respect Intel's intellectual property/brand). Maybe it would be best if they marketed it under a different name to avoid issues. I know at least for the EU, customs can be quite serious about confiscating and destroying products deemed to be counterfeit/unauthorized.

 

You're totally right they shouldn't be listing them as genuine Intel cards, only genuine Intel chips.

I've personally purchased replicas of the i340-T4 and found them to be meh with ports failing. So when I bought my X540-T2's I made sure to purchase legitimate cards with the Intel verification holograms. Cost about double what the Chinese ones go for on ebay but that piece of mind was worth it to me.