GPU server warranty in the EU: maker's warranty, seller's liability, OEM or integrator

GPU server warranty in the EU, from the maker and from the seller

A GPU server that a company buys in the EU is covered in two separate ways. The maker's commercial warranty is a voluntary promise on the maker's own terms: Supermicro lists its GPU systems with 3 years of labour, 1 year of parts and 1 year of advance cross-ship, Dell lists PowerEdge XE servers with a three-year limited hardware warranty, and Gigabyte gives its servers three years. The seller's statutory liability for defects is national law. The EU's two-year rule in Directive (EU) 2019/771 covers sales to consumers, and in a sale between companies the contract can modify the statutory rules.

A third thing is often called warranty as well, the paid service contract with a response time. It is the subject of our guide to on-site service for GPU servers. This article stays with general terms: what the makers publish, as read on 12 November 2026, who the buyer talks to when a complete system or a built server fails, and what belongs in writing. The passages on law are general information and not legal advice.

Maker's warranty and seller's liability side by side

Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO), pages "Gewährleistung – Garantie – Schadenersatz – Produkthaftung" (as of 8 October 2024) and "Gewährleistung nach ABGB" (as of 11 September 2026); German Civil Code (BGB) §§ 438 and 443 on gesetze-im-internet.de; Supermicro "Limited Warranty" page. Read 12 November 2026. The summary is ours.

The left column is what a datasheet means by a three-year warranty. The right column exists by law whether or not a maker promises anything, and it concerns the company that sold the server.

Warranty periods of Supermicro, Dell, HPE, ASUS, Gigabyte and NVIDIA

Supermicro "Limited Warranty" page (no date); Dell "Product Warranty and Maintenance Table", Rev. May 29, 2026; HPE "HPE Smart Choice purchase program – Supplemental QuickSpecs" a50009219enw; ASUS "Warranty policy" page for servers (no date); GIGABYTE "Enterprise Products Warranty Information" (2026); NVIDIA "RTX PRO Workstation Graphics Cards Warranty Information", EU page (last updated September 2019) and warranty index (page metadata 5 August 2026). All read 12 November 2026.

Supermicro. Three years as a single figure is wrong for a Supermicro GPU system. The three years are labour, which Supermicro defines as "general technical support including general RMA requests, phone support, and one-way shipping and handling." Parts are covered for one year: the term "covers repair and replacement of parts in the Product and is subject to availability in Supermicro stock." Advance cross-ship also runs for one year; in general usage the term means a replacement sent before the defective part is back, and Supermicro's page does not define it. For single components such as motherboards, power supplies, add-on cards and chassis the table gives 3 years, 1 year and 120 days, and a footnote to these rows adds: "A further 90-day warranty grace period may be granted." The table applies "in the absence of special warranty terms set forth in a corresponding invoice."

Dell. The XE Series shares its row with, among others, the R Series 400s and above. In Europe Dell delivers the warranty through the service bought with the server: Basic Hardware Support, ProSupport or ProSupport Plus.

HPE. The lines we read are for two models of HPE's Smart Choice programme, the DL320 Gen12 and the DL340 Gen12. For the DL320 Gen12 the QuickSpecs say: "Server warranty includes 3-year parts, 3-year labor, 3-year on-site support with next business day response." No line for a GPU server model was read, so the QuickSpecs of the exact model decide.

ASUS and Gigabyte. ASUS publishes no number of years for servers and refers buyers to the purchase site or representative. ASUS's general warranty card (December 2022) explains the label on the product: "24M means 24 months, and 36M means 36 months from the warranty started date." Gigabyte's three years cover servers, barebone systems, add-in cards and motherboards "under normal operating conditions"; immersion-cooling barebones have one year. The makers' eight-GPU systems are compared in Supermicro vs Gigabyte vs ASUS.

NVIDIA. The three years on NVIDIA's EU page are for RTX PRO workstation graphics cards and for the original purchaser. Replacements "may include new or refurbished parts or products" and are covered only until the original warranty period ends. The US version of the page lists the covered cards by name and the EU page shows no list, so for a card that is not named there the warranty holder and the period come from the quote. For data-centre cards such as the H200 NVL or the Server Editions, NVIDIA's warranty pages carry no statement of their own. Our guide to buying the RTX PRO 6000 in the EU goes through the card warranty in detail.

No maker page we read defines a dead-on-arrival case or a number of days for it. A DOA rule therefore exists only where the quote or the contract states one.

GPUs and other third-party parts in a server

A server maker's warranty covers what the maker defines as its product. Supermicro's warranty page defines the product as one "developed and manufactured solely by Supermicro" that "does not include products, components, or software supplied by third parties." Gigabyte says the same from its side: "Third-Party Components: CPUs, GPUs, memory, storage devices (SSD/HDD), and other components supplied by third-party vendors or not fully manufactured by GIGABYTE are subject to the warranty terms of the original manufacturer or the specific Purchase Order (PO)."

For a GPU server this is the central sentence. By these two texts the chassis, the board and the power supplies follow the server maker's terms, and the cards, processors, memory and drives follow the terms of their own makers or, in Gigabyte's words, of the specific purchase order. Where a maker sells a card as an option of its own system, the documents of that exact model decide. NVIDIA's Enterprise Support guide draws the same line from the other side and "does not include warranty, repair service, support, or any other services for third-party products." A quote for a server should therefore name, per component, whose warranty applies. How the buying channels differ on this point is set out in where to buy an AI server in Europe.

Who handles a claim, the system maker (OEM) or the integrator

For a complete system with the maker's service contract, the buyer talks to the maker's service desk. For a server built from components, the makers themselves point to the company that sold it.

NVIDIA "RTX PRO Workstation Graphics Cards Warranty Information" (EU page); Supermicro "RMA" page; ASUS "RMA Guidelines" for servers; GIGABYTE "Enterprise Products Warranty Information" (2026); Dell "Product Warranty and Maintenance Table", Rev. May 29, 2026. All read 12 November 2026.

The warranty is still the maker's, and the seller is the contact through whom the case runs. The Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO) describes the same pattern in general terms: the declaration very often comes from the producer, while the case is mostly handled through the direct contract partner. What an integrator adds of its own is its work, the assembly.

That is how our own pages state it for servers we build: manufacturer warranty on every component, handled through us; DOA units are replaced; the assembly itself is covered by us. We supply Supermicro, Gigabyte, ASUS, Dell and HPE servers per project and build servers to order; send us the configuration you are comparing and the country of installation, and the written quote states the warranty terms.

Statutory liability for defects in a sale between companies

Directive (EU) 2019/771 on contracts for the sale of goods is the text behind the familiar two years. Article 10(1) reads: "The seller shall be liable to the consumer for any lack of conformity which exists at the time when the goods were delivered and which becomes apparent within two years of that time." Its scope is in Article 3(1): "This Directive shall apply to sales contracts between a consumer and a seller." Article 2(2) defines the consumer as a natural person acting outside a trade, business, craft or profession, and a company that buys a server is not one. Recital 21 leaves Member States free to extend the rules to buyers who are not consumers and names start-ups and SMEs as examples; whether a Member State has done so is a matter of its own law.

For a sale between companies the statutory liability therefore comes from national law, and national laws differ. Two examples from texts we read:

Austria. WKO explains on its page "Gewährleistung nach ABGB" (as of 11 September 2026) that the rules of the civil code (ABGB) apply to contracts outside the consumer warranty act (VGG). A defect in movable goods has to appear within two years, and claims lapse three months after that period ends. Outside consumer protection law the parties are free to agree a shorter or a longer period, and the claims can in principle be restricted by contract; WKO puts the limit at Sittenwidrigkeit, a breach of good morals. WKO also describes a duty in business dealings: the buyer has to notify the seller of a defect without delay after discovering it, and a buyer who does not, as a rule, loses the warranty and damages claims.

Germany. Section 438 of the Civil Code (BGB) sets a limitation period of two years for the buyer's claims in the general case, starting with delivery. Section 377 of the Commercial Code (HGB) applies where the sale is a commercial transaction for both sides: the buyer examines the goods without delay after delivery, as far as the ordinary course of business allows, and notifies the seller without delay when a defect shows. Without the notice the goods count as approved, unless the defect could not be recognised in the examination.

The two countries word the notification duty differently, and other Member States have rules of their own. Which law governs a cross-border purchase, and what the contract changes in it, are questions for the buyer's legal counsel. What an IT team can check on the day of delivery is described in our guide to GPU server acceptance testing.

Garantie and Gewährleistung in German-language quotes

German uses two words where English quotes often say warranty for both. Gewährleistung is the seller's statutory liability; in WKO's words, "Gewährleistung ist eine gesetzliche Verpflichtung." Garantie is the voluntary promise. WKO: without a declaration there is no claim under a Garantie, its content can be shaped freely, and no statute sets its length. Section 443 BGB describes it as an obligation that the seller, the maker or another third party takes on in addition to the statutory liability, and it gives the buyer the rights from the Garantie against the one who gave it, without prejudice to the statutory claims.

The Directive calls the same thing a "commercial guarantee" (Article 2(12)) and binds whoever gives it to the conditions of the declaration (Article 17(1)), in its consumer context. A maker's limited warranty is a Garantie in this sense. A German-language quote that promises a Garantie of 36 months speaks about a voluntary promise, usually the maker's, and leaves the seller's Gewährleistung as the contract and the law define it.

What to have in writing before the order

1. The warranty holder per component. Server maker, card maker, drive maker, and the integrator for the assembly.
2. The period per component, split into labour and parts. Supermicro's 3, 1 and 1 years show why one number is not enough.
3. The start date. Makers count from the invoice date (Supermicro, Gigabyte) or the date of purchase (ASUS, NVIDIA). For on-site installation Gigabyte counts from the day the equipment is "fully installed and officially commissioned at the customer's site."
4. The DOA rule. Its definition and its number of days come from the seller, since no maker page we read publishes one.
5. Where the unit travels and who pays. Supermicro's labour term includes transport in one direction, and for an RMA the "Customer must ship with freight prepaid in the original packaging." Keep the packaging.
6. Advance replacement. One year at Supermicro for systems, 120 days for single components; ASUS's general warranty card makes an advance replacement of key parts "subject to prior authorization by ASUS".
7. What ends the warranty. Gigabyte's warranty applies to products that "have not undergone unauthorized structural modifications", and Supermicro's is void when identification markings are removed or altered.

The first consultation with us is free of charge; tell us which server you plan and which of these points are still open. The other items of a server request are in our guide on what to specify when buying an AI server. What changes for a second owner is the subject of new vs refurbished GPU servers, and the checks on a seller are in our GPU supplier checklist.

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