Yay for EVGA RMA

[Gabb]

So I RMAed my 1.5 year old overheating 8800 gtx ( idled at 70 celcius load at 90+ ) on dec 23rd and to my surprise it only took till dec 28th for me to receive the package ( not that it mattered since I was out of the country till jan 10th ). To my surprise when I opened the box up I didn't see the familar black dual slot cooler paint job with the 8800 gtx numbers, but a much nicer design and a 9800 gtx+ instead! So kudos to EVGA for upgrading me, however small the upgrade is. It already boosted my stock 3dbenchmark score from 13397 to 14348 and its idling at a 61 celcius. I still need to do a lot more temp tests to see how much more cooler the card runs compared to a 8800 gtx. Maybe the SATA wire right next to the fan is blocking the airflow a bit so maybe ill try switching SATA ports ( never know why I didn't think of this before )

The main point of this post is to share my experience along with asking if this sort of practice is common or if an unexpected RMA upgrade happened to anyone on these forums? Yay I'm so happy, oh and Kudos to whoever predicted that they might give me a 9800 gtx+ instead of a 8800 gtx in the RMA in a much earlier thread of mine 3+ months back.

PS: Rivatuner reports the core clock/shader domain mhz to be 1675 but isnt the specification listed as clock mhz supposed to be 1836 ( according to wiki? )

 

[zedman3d]

Freebies FTW.

 

[ricanflow]

Not a small upgrade at all.

The 9800GTX+ is a great board.....runs cool, is very fast and comes overclocked straight out the box. Ste the fan speed to a constant 50% with rivatuner.

 

[jfenwick]

I've RMA'd two EVGA cards over the past few years and got identical replacements for both, unfortunately no upgrade but I can't complain as long as they stick by their warranty.

 

[synergy]

Yea, I've never seen an upgrade on an RMA, but congrats...that's a killer deal! My guess is the product is discontinued and therefore they didn't have an identical replacement to give you. I always have a good piece of mind when buying EVGA products. Their tech support/customer service is amazing too.

 

[veedubfreak]

It all depends on how old the item is when you RMA it. If they no longer carry that type of card they will upgrade you to something of equal performance. Good and bad though if you run SLI getting a 9800GTX would kind of suck

 

[dhgunit]

The main point of this post is to share my experience along with asking if this sort of practice is common or if an unexpected RMA upgrade happened to anyone on these forums? Yay I'm so happy, oh and Kudos to whoever predicted that they might give me a 9800 gtx+ instead of a 8800 gtx in the RMA in a much earlier thread of mine 3+ months back.

That is called good business practices.

Who will you purchase your next card from now? Of course it will be eVGA after that.......I am also in the same boat of buying every nVidia card from eVGA.

 

[Gabb]

thanks for the feedback guys, did anyone know the answer to my one PS question though?

Rivatuner reports the core clock/shader domain mhz to be 1675 but isnt the specification listed as clock mhz supposed to be 1836 ( according to wiki? )

Oh and can u just switch the SATA prong on a HD or is there any other OS setting you have to set?

 

[ricanflow]

the shader clock goes in hand with the core clock.

If you have a lower shader clock, all you need to do is turn it up with rivatuner. Im pretty sure the superclocked edition has the higher clock, and you have the regular.

Doesnt matter, one is factory oc'd and the other isnt thats all.

 

[wafflehammer]

that's great! gotta love freebies...support from EVGA is usually great. You just got the card though because it's old and they probably don't sell them anymore.

the clock speed does sound right though...just look around on other websites to find out for sure. and remember: wikipedia is horrible if you want 100% right information :|