GPU supplier checklist: how to vet a seller of NVIDIA GPUs, grey market and warranty

GPU supplier checklist with eight checks before the order

A GPU supplier checklist for a purchasing or IT department has eight checks: the seller's entry in the commercial register, its VAT number in VIES, a written quote with the exact product and part number, the warranty holder and term, the condition of the goods, the serial numbers on arrival, the export questions for controlled cards, and the route of payment and delivery. The warranty check is where a grey-market purchase shows. NVIDIA's warranty for RTX PRO workstation cards, in its EU text last updated in September 2019, runs three years and applies only to original purchasers who bought from "an NVIDIA-authorized third party" or from NVIDIA's own website.

Each check names the document it rests on, as read on 12 November 2026, and each can be applied to any seller, ourselves included.

the documents are named with their dates in the sections below, all read on 12 November 2026; the selection and order of the checks are ours.

How the buying channels differ is the subject of our guide on where to buy an AI server in Europe, and how resellers obtain cards is covered in NVIDIA GPUs for resellers in Europe.

Grey-market GPUs and the warranty in NVIDIA's own words

In trade usage, grey-market goods are genuine products sold outside the channel or the region their maker intended; in US spelling it is the gray market. NVIDIA's warranty texts do not use the term, and HPE speaks of "Parallel Import".

NVIDIA's warranty page for RTX PRO workstation graphics cards, in its English EU version, gives "Three (3) years from the date of purchase of your new Warranted Product". It applies "only to the original purchasers of the Warranted Products from an NVIDIA-authorized third party" or from NVIDIA's website, and it "will not extend to any person that acquires a Warranted Product on a used basis." The text says nothing about serial numbers, proof of purchase or altered labels, and it does not use the word "void". It defines the covered buyer. A card that came from another kind of seller, or that had an owner before, is outside that wording.

The EU version lists no models. The US version, whose text is dated 29 October 2018, lists them by name.

NVIDIA, warranty page for RTX PRO workstation graphics cards (US version, text of 29 October 2018) and NVIDIA's warranty overview, both read on 12 November 2026.

For the cards in the second and third row the warranty holder and the term come from the seller's quote or from the server maker. That is the reason for check 4.

NVIDIA's warranty overview also names the route of a claim: "For most NVIDIA products, contact your local distributor or reseller first for warranty and support." A claim therefore starts with the company that sold the card. What comes with the three editions of the RTX PRO 6000 is set out in our guide to buying the RTX PRO 6000 in the EU.

How to vet a GPU supplier in the commercial register and in VIES

The first check is whether the seller exists as the company it claims to be. The European e-Justice Portal offers a "Find a company" search across the interconnected business registers. It covers "public and private limited liability companies and their branches registered in one of the EU countries, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway". Other legal forms and further details are a matter for the national register.

Austria's Firmenbuch is an example. The Ministry of Justice describes it as a public register kept by the regional courts, in Vienna by the Commercial Court, and a query through JustizOnline is subject to a fee. Compare the company name, the register number and the registered office with the quote.

The second check is the VAT number. The EU's Your Europe portal, on a page last checked on 18 June 2026, calls VIES "a search engine (not a database)" that draws on the national VAT databases. The result is one of two: "EU VAT information exists (valid) or it doesn't exist (invalid)." Invalid means that the number does not exist, has not been activated for intra-EU transactions or is not yet finally registered. The portal recommends keeping a record of the validation "in case of tax control".

Beyond that, the national authorities "will only confirm if there is a certain name and address associated with a specific VAT number or not", and a valid result says nothing about the goods, the seller's sources or its handling of warranty cases. What a valid number means for the invoice is explained in our guide on buying IT hardware from another EU country.

What the written quote has to name

A quote that can be checked later names the goods so that only one reading is possible: the full product name with the edition and the memory size, the quantity, and the part number of the item the seller will deliver. The name alone can mislead, because several product names cover two or three different cards, and NVIDIA's own documents print part numbers only as patterns, as our article on NVIDIA GPU part numbers shows. A part number on the quote can later be held against the delivery note and the card.

On the warranty the quote should state, per component in the case of a server, who gives it, how long it runs, from which date, and whom you contact with a defect. The date deserves attention. Supermicro's warranty period runs "from the date of Supermicro's invoice", that is from Supermicro's own sale, which can lie before yours.

The fifth check is the condition of the goods. NVIDIA's period starts with the purchase of "your new Warranted Product". The ASUS warranty card, the document that the warranty page of ASUS Servers links, applies "only if the Product was newly manufactured on the Date of Purchase and not sold as used, refurbished or manufacturing seconds." Have "new" stated on the quote and on the invoice. Refurbished equipment from a maker's own programme is a different purchase, which our article on new and refurbished GPU servers describes.

We supply NVIDIA professional GPUs across the EU and put price, lead time and warranty terms into a written quote; send us the cards, the quantity and the systems they go into and you have it within one business day.

Server makers on original purchasers, channels and regions

A GPU server brings several warranties with it, and each maker defines what its own covers.

Supermicro, "Limited Warranty" (undated); GIGABYTE, "Enterprise Products Warranty Information"; ASUS Servers, "RMA Guidelines"; Dell knowledge-base article 000125103, "Ownership Transfer and Dell Product Registration Guides" (last modified 10 June 2026); HPE, "Product Validation and Equipment Verification" (undated); all read on 12 November 2026.

For its GPU systems Supermicro lists 3 years of labour, 1 year of parts and 1 year of advance cross-ship. How makers and integrators divide the warranties of a server is the subject of GPU server warranty in the EU.

Two of the texts have a regional element. Dell's article says that a service contract bought with a computer "is valid only in the country or region in which the computer was purchased". HPE states its position on parallel imports: "Any reseller who imports HPE products into the European Economic Area without HPE's consent may be liable for trademark infringement." For a buyer both are reasons to ask where a server was first sold.

How to check an NVIDIA serial number on delivery

NVIDIA's guide "How to Locate the Serial Number of an NVIDIA GPU" (v03, October 2023) says where to look: "The serial number should be readable from the rear plate near the PCI bracket by inspecting the card." The sticker "will always be printed and visible on each NVIDIA GPU, regardless of the model." In software the guide reads the number with nvidia-smi -a, and NVIDIA's nvidia-smi manual says of the field "Serial Number": "This number matches the serial number physically printed on each board."

That allows a comparison on arrival, which is our suggestion and no NVIDIA procedure. The serial number on the label, the one nvidia-smi reports and the one on the delivery note should agree for every card, and the field "Product Name" should show the product that was ordered.

Server makers tie rules of their own to labels. Supermicro's warranty excludes the "removal, alteration, or destruction of the original product identification markings". HPE writes that "a number of fraudulent HPE parts are represented as new HPE product" and that tampered labels "leave behind a residue on the part". Keep the invoice, the delivery note and a list of the serial numbers together from the first day. The tests for a whole server on arrival are in our guide to GPU server acceptance testing.

Export questions a seller of controlled cards asks

Some professional GPUs fall under export controls. Lenovo's product guide for the L40S puts it this way: "The NVIDIA L40S GPU is Controlled which means the GPU is not offered in certain markets, as determined by the US Government." Lenovo's GPU summary (updated 12 September 2026) carries the same marking for other cards, among them the H200 NVL and the Server Editions of the RTX PRO 6000 and RTX PRO 4500.

In EU law, Article 3(1) of Regulation (EU) 2021/821 requires an authorisation for the export of dual-use items listed in Annex I, and Article 12(4) makes individual export authorisations "subject to an end-use statement". Note 3 to Annex I says: "Goods specified in this Annex include both new and used goods." Whether a given card is listed follows from the classification of the manufacturer or exporter, as our article on the end-user certificate for NVIDIA GPUs explains.

The first red flag of the US Bureau of Industry and Security, in Supplement No. 3 to Part 732 of the Export Administration Regulations (eCFR as of 10 November 2026), reads: "The customer or purchasing agent is reluctant to offer information about the end-use of a product." Annex 2 of Commission Recommendation (EU) 2019/1318 of 30 July 2019 lists similar red flags. Both are addressed to exporters. For a buyer they explain why a seller of controlled cards asks about the end user, the end use and the destination. If the hardware may later leave the EU, ask for the classification of the part in writing; NVIDIA's export regulations page offers a lookup by part number.

Payment, receipt and notice of defects

The Commission's list also names a payment that "is made by other parties than the customer or stated intermediaries and follow another route than the products", and the refusal of "the confirmation of receipt by the consignee/end-user". Seen from the buyer's side, an orderly purchase is by our reading the opposite: the money moves between the two companies named on the quote, and the consignee signs for the goods.

A maker's warranty and the seller's statutory liability are two things. The Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO) separates them by name: the Garantie is a liability taken on voluntarily, the Gewährleistung follows from the law. Directive (EU) 2019/771, with its two-year liability period, applies "to sales contracts between a consumer and a seller"; for companies national law applies, and the contract can modify the statutory rules. Germany's HGB § 377 requires the buyer in a sale that is commercial for both sides to examine the goods without delay after delivery and to report a defect without delay. For Austria, the WKO writes that between businesses a defect has to be reported to the seller without delay after its discovery. This is general information and no legal advice; national law differs.

The checklist applied to our own quotes

The checks work on us as on any seller. Our company page lists the data for the first two: the legal entity Eurokommerz Handelsges.m.b.H. in Vienna, the commercial register number FN 281673 a at the Commercial Court of Vienna and the VAT number ATU62802015.

A request is answered with a written quote within one business day, and the quote states price, lead time and warranty terms. The order runs on one European contract with an invoice from Austria. We supply new equipment only. The manufacturer warranty is handled through us, and DOA units are replaced. For the systems we supply per project, the DGX B300 and the DGX Station GB300, the distribution asks us for the company, the project and the intended use before we can quote. That is check 7 seen from the seller's side.

The cards are on our GPU page, volume orders are described in NVIDIA RTX cards in volume, and we supply Supermicro, Gigabyte, ASUS, Dell and HPE servers per project. To run the checklist on a concrete order, write to us with the cards, the quantity and the delivery address, or by e-mail to request@eurokommerz.at.

FAQ