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Graphics Card Warranties (UK Only) - Let's see how good they really are!

Cleeecooo said:
So far I haven't heard a thing from Gigabyte. I had to phone them up myself, however, once I phoned them up they were extremely helpful and they didn't bull**** with me passing me from person to person.

Note: they got the card 11am on Monday :)
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i've heard gigabyte are usually good with customer service

got an email from ocuk about my pc, says it has been sent back to me so assume that means tomorrow delivery

"catastrophic failure" was the tech report of the card looool, i think it's safe to say i had a bit of bad luck with that card(these things happen unfortunately)

so it only took 6 days including the weekend, i'd say thats good service from ocuk myself
 
as905 said:
i understand you saying AVOID because the RMA takes very long but Sapphire makes top quality cards,personally i have been using their cards for years & not had a single issue.if any it was always related to ati drivers.


+1 for Gigabyte best quality motherboards so i could imagine their graphic cards to be the same. :)
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I remember when I worked for a competitor that sold graphics cards under their own name, I was often asked to check the brand. When I came back with 'Sapphire' they often didn't buy. How things changed.
 
whipgeez said:
i've heard gigabyte are usually good with customer service

got an email from ocuk about my pc, says it has been sent back to me so assume that means tomorrow delivery

"catastrophic failure" was the tech report of the card looool, i think it's safe to say i had a bit of bad luck with that card(these things happen unfortunately)

so it only took 6 days including the weekend, i'd say thats good service from ocuk myself
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brilliant sevice!
XFX took around 30 days through OC
 
As per Final8y's post here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18266635

Worth noting graphics failiure rates, more reason not to buy XFX cards, especially with their diabolical warranty.

Source

gpufailurerates.jpg
 
In terms of graphics card failure rates, how is this even possible? Most go by the Nvidia reference design to the last T and buy in the same hardware in from ColorTech, Foxconn etc. and then just stick on their stickers/add accessories bundle and packaging. Most graphics cards out there are identical if it wasn't for the brand stickers. They don't manufacture anything themselves, it's all outsourced. They're just a pretty name with the marketing to drive sales.

Does the survey take into account the differences in sales volume? Or that less educated users are likely to buy a big known brand rather than eVGA, XFX, Gainward that's only echoed by enthusiasts? Wouldn't these (and similar) skew results?
 
EggCustard said:
In terms of graphics card failure rates, how is this even possible? Most go by the Nvidia reference design to the last T and buy in the same hardware in from ColorTech, Foxconn etc. and then just stick on their stickers/add accessories bundle and packaging. Most graphics cards out there are identical if it wasn't for the brand stickers. They don't manufacture anything themselves, it's all outsourced. They're just a pretty name with the marketing to drive sales.

Does the survey take into account the differences in sales volume? Or that less educated users are likely to buy a big known brand rather than eVGA, XFX, Gainward that's only echoed by enthusiasts? Wouldn't these (and similar) skew results?
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For example, XFX allows cards to be sild even though they may not be suitable. Their quality control is pretty bad. When many manufacturers may bin one chip because it is unstable, XFX may decide to sell it to make profit and hope that the customer doesnt notice.
 
Cleeecooo said:
For example, XFX allows cards to be sild even though they may not be suitable. Their quality control is pretty bad. When many manufacturers may bin one chip because it is unstable, XFX may decide to sell it to make profit and hope that the customer doesnt notice.
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I see. I was under the impression that the cards go through Q&A at the production stage and then get directly shipped off to distributors. For this reason they never pass the offices of eVGA, Gainward (Palit), XFX etc. (save for some press samples) but essentially get passed through to the retail channel ASAP. If true this would make logical sense, after all it's cheaper to ship direct rather than ship to offices, unpack, re-test and then ship again to distributors. If one considers thousands of cards per week I can image a hefty workforce of testers would be required to do their Q&A.

Either way, I have a feeling XFX will die off soon just as BFG if it doesn't start focussing on proprietary offerings like eVGA has started doing (though the likes of Asus could wipe them off the market if they put their minds to it). There's only so much money you can make from re-selling the same stuff as everyone else save for a sticker. I remember times when Gainward sold it's GS line but overclocking had to be done via some software (i.e. their Geforce 3 Ti500 circa 2001/2002). When I queried them asking why don't they just flash the BIOS correctly the technical support person said something along the lines of "not all cards overclock equal hence we cannot flash their BIOS to the GS clocks". :) Of course, two years later they started flashing the BIOS with the revamped clocks :)
 
This thread needs to be stickied. I bought a sapphire card from OCUK and have now been told its been sent back to sapphire. Along with my hellish ASUS return i want to pull my hair out.

How these types of returns can be allowed is beyond all reason. Maybe there is a good reason why OCUK dont stock sapphire cards, good show if its for this reason. Perhaps if people had the full facts they wouldn't buy from the rubbish brands.

EDIT: seeing those numbers above i wont be ATi again, every ATi card i have has caused headaches in one way or another (some were my own fault). The 2 Nvidia cards were like tanks.
 
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as905 said:
i understand you saying AVOID because the RMA takes very long but Sapphire makes top quality cards,personally i have been using their cards for years & not had a single issue.if any it was always related to ati drivers.


+1 for Gigabyte best quality motherboards so i could imagine their graphic cards to be the same. :)
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I agree, never had any trouble with them. I've had my fair share of problems with the damn Catalyst drivers, but the cards themselves are 100% reliable.

I second the original post on everything else though, especially the recommendation to avoid PowerColor. They're cheap for a reason, they break often, and once they do you're screwed if you try to RMA.
 
Thought I'd add my Gigabyte experience from a while ago.

they declared it faulty in the first week.
It then took another two weeks (inc loads of bank hols and royal wedding etc.) for them to ship them my shiny new 580 :D

Basically, RMA took 3 weeks and I got upgraded :D

Gigabyte get a huge thumbs up from me

EDIT: Please make this a sticky
 
An update to my RMA request, sent it back to OcUK and they tested and found no fault. I asked a gent at work to test it on his system as I suspected the Enermax 600W PSU, he tested it for a couple of weeks and worked fine.

Bought myself a Corsair Enthusiast 850W v2 PSU and all is well upto now, lesson learnt - don't discount the PSU even if its overkill.
 
oh no. i recommended the XFX 5870 to a friend, and now i see that it has a phenominal failiure rate, along with a terribad customer service.

so glad i persuaded him to get the antec 620W PSU instead of the bequiet 530W one, because that will help things along.

i can only hope that he's got one of the good ones, because he will be well past the 7 day return thing for overclockers by the time he gets back to uni and can test it

also, i'm not enjoying reading about the asus customer support, because i have an asus graphics card and an asus motherboard :(
 
Evga offer the 10 year on vanilla cards too and they also operate an advanced rma in which they sent u a replacement out and u send the bad card back with the same courier.
They also operate a 90 day stepup system and 24h support.
They also let u fit aftermarket waterblocks or air coolers without voiding the warranty.
Link
 
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Krony said:
Evga offer the 10 year on vanilla cards too and they also operate an advanced rma in which they sent u a replacement out and u send the bad card back with the same courier.
They also operate a 90 day stepup system and 24h support.
They also let u fit aftermarket waterblocks or air coolers without voiding the warranty.
Link
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this is why I think they're the best ;)
 
My RMA with sapphire took 4 weeks and i think it was only me pestering OCUK that sped the whole process up. OCUK would not contact sapphire for 28 days since it was sent back to Hungary for them to inspect. The entire process left a very bad taste in my mouth.

ASUS are terrible as well. They actually twisting the screw brackets up on my 5850 when it got sent for testing. After 3 months i am still waiting for a replacement to be sorted out.

This type of thread is vital for anyone wishing to buy a card and it might offer a kick to manufacturers if they see sales drop due to bad RMA service (living in the clouds but you never know, perhaps big retailers like OCUK could moan at them).
 
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